Beware The Spaceman
Cassette tape with title

  • Tanglewood belongs with the Sega greats

    Cassette tape with title
    Tanglewood box art

    I remember finishing Tanglewood and immediately heading online to state that this 2018 Sega Mega Drive game belongs alongside the greats. I stand by it.

    The game from Big Evil Corporation is so well designed, especially with its pixel art. On first glance it would be easy to mistake it for a Sonic clone, or an attempt at another mascot platformer. But that’s not the case. It’s a platform puzzler.

    Nymn, a creature that looks a lot like a fox (if I remember rightly it’s set on another planet), has to rescue Fuzzls by rolling them back to their nests much like balls of yarn. Once in the nest, the Fuzzls grant you a temporary power that can be used to solve more puzzles and save more Fuzzls.

    There is no real combat in the game. The monsters are all part of the puzzle and can be trapped. The platforming elements share their DNA with those mascot platformers mentioned earlier, but the puzzles are more in line with something like Lemmings.

    I find it truly astonishing that a system released over thirty‑five years ago is still capable of providing new games like this. It’s not a high‑score chase, or a platformer based on skill or speed. It is its own experience entirely. It reminded me of everything I loved about the Mega Drive era.

    Coded by Matt Phillips in assembly language specifically for the Mega Drive, games like this are why the real gaming era will never die.

    Tanglewood is available on most major platforms, Evercade and of course the Mega Drive

  • Aquaventure Atari’s Lost Treasure

    Atari 2600
    Cassette tape with title

    Remember that scuba‑diving game from 1983 on the Atari 2600? No? That’s because it wasn’t officially released until 2022 — though it did sneak onto a few official retro collections before that.

    And as we’ll be covering, Atari is not dead in 2026.

    So how does this underwater adventure play? Pretty well, actually. You dive down to collect points from the sea floor — a sea floor that keeps getting deeper — then race back to the surface within a set time limit. Rather than admire the fish, our scuba diver can shoot them for points.

    There’s a catch, though. When you shoot the fish, they return faster, and if you collide with one, you lose a life. It’s a classic high‑score chaser.

    So why wasn’t it released back then? Most likely it was a casualty of the Video Game Crash — an event that mostly affected the American market. Here in the UK, games continued to thrive as the home‑computer scene exploded with names like the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore. Machines that are also not dead in 2026. More on those as we press ahead.

    So where does Aquaventure sit? Would it have set the world alight in 1983? Well… possibly not. But it would have been another addictive score‑chaser for the 2600, one with a refreshingly different setting too.

  • Down The Rabbit Hole..

    Evercade Original Handheld

    It started with the 2nd ever console I ever bought new: Blaze’s Evercade handheld.

    I don’t buy much gaming‑wise that isn’t on sale digitally or reconditioned these days. What sold it to me as a must‑buy? The names on the front. That Atari logo, Pac‑Man was on there. It felt like this was a return of old friends.

    Yes, I have played with RetroPie and those handhelds that store 1000s of games. But these were licensed cartridges too.

    I know what you’re thinking here. Pac‑Man, Atari. This is just another Retro Reaction blog…

    But it’s not. Because some of these Evercade games had modern release dates.

    This opened up the rabbit hole for me. What if those consoles and computers we loved never went away?

    What if, in some kind of parallel world, it is always nineteen‑eighty‑something and I’m going to go play my Atari, or NES, or Commodore?

    Welcome to Neverending 80s.

    Next time we look at a game created in 1983 but released in 2022 for the Atari 2600 — it’s Aquaventure.