Flash News

School’s nearly out—and an evil computer wants to take over the world. Escape from 8-Bit High, developed by Duck Made Of Wood and published by Dionous Games, is scheduled to launch on Steam on 29 September 2026, mixing classic point-and-click adventuring with arcade-inspired musical battles.

When a mysterious cassette awakens the sinister Pomodore 64, rock trio Blueberry Finn must save Cloudydale from an invasion of pixel-era villains. Players can switch freely between bandmates Hank, Duck and Alex, following interconnected adventures through a monster-infested school, outer space and the depths beneath the Earth. Choices shape the story—and can even change the main villain between playthroughs.

The developer promises 8–10 hours of gameplay, full voice acting, four unlockable arcade mini-games and new songs to discover. Hotspot highlighting and an objectives journal should help keep the puzzles moving. A free demo is already available on Steam, alongside the wishlist option.

Apparently, nobody told the Game Boy Advance that Skyrim was out of its league. Solo developer blast_away has unveiled SkyGBA, a homebrew project that recreates Skyrim’s map as a GBA ROM. Before anyone starts planning another hundred-hour adventure, this is a map tech demo—not a full port of the game.

The project uses a custom 3D engine running in the GBA’s Mode 4, turning the landscape into a decidedly low-resolution handheld experiment. The trailer’s description specifies that the footage was captured using mGBA through RetroArch, so it should not be mistaken for a demonstration filmed on original hardware.

In the announcement’s comments, the developer says a downloadable ROM is planned, with a link to be added to the YouTube comments; joining Discord will not be necessary. That is a promised release, rather than a confirmed download available now.

The complete engine source is less likely to follow: its creator wants to use it for an original game, although some code snippets may be shared. For now, consider this a wonderfully unreasonable sightseeing trip rather than Skyrim: Pocket Edition.

The Master System isn’t done saving the universe. Razing Core, released by Bad Computer on 8 September, is a new vertical shoot ’em up for the Sega Master System and Mark III, sending the spaceship Horizon into battle against an invading alien armada.

There are seven stages across the solar system, upgradeable primary, secondary and Core weapons, plus a Burst Charge attack with five charge levels. Screen-filling bosses and multiple mid-bosses provide the opposition, while boss checkpoints and unlimited continues offer some breathing room between explosions. Mega Drive controllers are also supported, giving the three attacks their own buttons.

The game is available on itch.io from US$7.99, with a printable illustrated manual and a free first-stage demo. It comes as a Master System ROM for compatible emulators, FPGA systems or original hardware with a suitable flash cartridge, and is designed for 60 Hz play. A physical edition is planned for 2027.

One caveat for EverDrive X7 owners: the developer reports that using save states can reset the game in some areas, with a fix planned for the next update.

Mirror Shift 1.0, released on 9 September 2026, brings two-player online Reversi to the ZX Spectrum 48K, Spectrum Next and SpectraNext cartridge, alongside Windows, macOS and Linux. Created by M. Ignacio Monge Garcia, the game supports cross-platform matches: a classic Spectrum can challenge a modern desktop, another Spectrum or one of its newer relatives.

Players connect through direct TCP or MQTT, with the latter allowing both opponents to join a shared server and room without requiring an incoming connection to the host. There are legal-move hints, in-game chat, clocks, rematches and requests to undo a move, plus saved games that can be resumed with both players’ approval. Customisable boards and disc sets add some visual variety, while the Next edition benefits from full-colour tiles and hardware sprites.

The game is open source under GPL-2.0, with ready-to-run packages and source code available on GitHub. One practical detail for original Spectrum owners: the Classic version requires divMMC/esxDOS storage and a supported ESP-AT networking interface. Your rubber-keyed machine can join the match, but it needs a little help getting online.

Indie developer Manuel Schenk has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Magic Cauldron: Forgotten Island, a new turn-based adventure that mixes deckbuilding and card-based combat with elements of traditional point-and-click adventures. The campaign launched on 12 September and is seeking €3,000 in funding, with the game planned for Windows, macOS and Linux. At the time of writing, the campaign has already attracted its first backers and is scheduled to run until 3 October 2026.

Set once again in Schenk's wonderfully odd Magic Cauldron universe, Forgotten Island swaps the more conventional adventure-game structure of earlier entries for turn-based exploration and deckbuilding battles, while retaining the series' humour and eccentric fantasy setting. The developer describes it as a combination of a deck-builder, turn-based combat and classic point-and-click adventure elements.

Schenk has been steadily experimenting with different takes on retro-style adventure games for several years. His previous releases include the comic point-and-click adventures Nelson and the Magic Cauldron from 2018 and Nelson and the Magic Cauldron: The Journey from 2022, as well as the excellent-looking pixel-art sci-fi adventure Orbital Cargo Division from 2023. More recently he expanded the Magic Cauldron setting with the retro-inspired dungeon crawlers Magic Cauldron: Dungeons and Dungeons II.

It is an interesting change of direction for a developer whose work has so far been strongly rooted in classic adventure gaming, and one that still seems determined to keep plenty of the humour and old-school flavour of his earlier games.

Buried Magic: A Story about the Unseen is seeking support on Kickstarter, promising a spooky, hand-drawn point-and-click adventure from Playful Bunny Interactive. The campaign is led by creator Annika Veigel and combines a witchcraft-school setting with traditional adventure-game puzzle solving.

Players follow Ruby, a young witch student investigating strange disappearances in Hollowmoor, where the centuries-old Trinity Academy of Witchcraft sits at the centre of the mystery. Accompanied by her tiny house-spider companion, Mifi, Ruby must explore unsettling locations and uncover the secrets hidden within her school.

The developer highlights hand-drawn graphics and animation, object-based puzzles, and dynamic interactions and responses. The emphasis is on exploration and piecing together the mystery, giving the project a distinctly traditional point-and-click flavour beneath its supernatural setting.

The campaign has a €3,000 funding target and runs until 16 October 2026, with funding dependent on reaching that goal.

The game is available to wishlist on Steam, where a Windows release is currently planned for May 2027; that remains a development target rather than a guaranteed launch date.

Developer Costélinha (GuilhermeJuventino) has released Car Go Vroom!!!, a new homebrew racing game for the original Nintendo Game Boy. The small 2D racer is written in Assembly using RGBDS and challenges players to dodge oncoming cars while pushing for higher scores.

The finished ROM was published on 5 September 2026, with the complete source code also available publicly on GitHub. The project had previously been shown in development posts dating back to 2025.

GitHub: https://github.com/GuilhermeJuventino/GB-Racing-Game

Homebrew developer LackofTrack has released version 1.00 of an unofficial Super Mario Bros. port for the Sega Master System, turning an earlier proof of concept into a complete game.

The port aims to closely reproduce the original NES/Famicom gameplay while also offering an enhanced graphics mode inspired by Super Mario All-Stars. An optional FM soundtrack is available for compatible Master System hardware equipped with a YM2413 chip.

The project was originally developed for the 2026 SMS Power coding competition and is now available as a full release.

Original/official project page: https://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/SuperMarioBrosSmsPort-SMS
Developer repository: https://github.com/lackoftrack27/Super-Mario-Bros.-SMS

REASSEMBLER has released the first public playable demo of Aonic, an ambitious attempt to bring the original Sonic the Hedgehog experience to the Commodore Amiga. The current build recreates Green Hill Zone Act 1 and targets PAL Amigas with the AGA chipset and just 2 MB of Chip RAM, making a stock Amiga 1200 the project’s main reference system.

Rather than simply creating a Sonic-inspired platformer, Aonic adapts code, game logic and data from the original Mega Drive version while heavily reworking the rendering system for the very different Amiga hardware. The aim is to preserve Sonic’s familiar physics, momentum and speed as closely as possible.

The demo became publicly available on itch.io on 31 August 2026 under a name-your-own-price model and remains a work in progress. REASSEMBLER has also discussed eventually investigating an Amiga 500 version, although finishing the AGA release comes first.

itch.io: https://reassembler68k.itch.io/aonic

GOG-Games.to, the unofficial piracy website specialising in DRM-free PC games, scheduled its closure for 6 September 2026, following a 90-day notice issued in June. The announcement said new game additions and updates would cease, with the website subsequently going offline.

The operator described the closure as a personal decision, rather than the result of legal pressure. According to the notice, approximately €700 in remaining Monero donations would be passed to the file-sharing community Torrminatorr, alongside a thank-you to everyone who had supported the site.

Despite the similar name, GOG-Games.to is not affiliated with GOG.com. The legitimate DRM-free games store remains online: this announcement concerns the separate piracy website, not the official GOG service or its customers’ game libraries.

Suggested alternatives:
- GOG: https://www.gog.com/
- Torrminatorr: https://forum.torrminatorr.com/
- Appnetica: https://appnetica.com/