iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 30/09/2026

I assume it was the earliest zone worked on with water (since it's *the* water zone after all) and it was just stuck with the early code, especially since they had to rush it.

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Under the Surface of Classic Sonic @classicsoniccode.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A technical dive (😉) into Sonic 3's water palette swapping!

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 12/09/2026

I promised a new BlastEm release on September 11th... and it's still September 11th here in PST... by 16 minutes anyway. Presenting BlastEm 1.0.0 - supporting most of Sega's 16 and 8-bit hardware. It includes some new features and debugging improvements too www.retrodev.com/blastem/anno...

retrodev.com

BlastEm 1.0.0 Release Announcement

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Space… bruce! @spacebruce.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It's totally safe to switch the Megadrive's background plane address mid-frame, testing that out with some hastily scribbled cloud graphics. Combining that with a raster palette swap and some sprite duplication to make a nice water effect. This console is fun to tinker with.

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 14/09/2026

It is, I think some games do it. It's not cached though, which means it'll take effect as soon as VDP fetches the next pair of tiles from the plane, so try to keep it in the border area or have some other way at hand to hide it.

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Two Black Cats @twoblackcats.jp · 07/09/2026

MD Engine is finally released !!! You can get it on our own website or on Steam! Our Site: twoblackcatsgames.com/products/md-... Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3706620/... We hope people enjoy it!! Please don't find too many bugs 😅😅

twoblackcatsgames.com

Two Black Cats | MD Engine

Unleash your creativity and bring classic 16-bit gaming adventures to life with our intuitive, visual scripting game engine! Inspired by your favorite “Blast P…

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Sonic The Hedgeblog @sonichedgeblog.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Animation from a SEGA Mega Drive commercial for 'Sonic 1' from Brazil.

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 16/08/2026

Something tells me that the extended resolution for PAL in Streets of Rage was tacked on at last minute (look at the bottom side of each screenshot).

Streets of Rage title screen. The character sprites don't line up with the bottom of the screen and cut off at different points (and none of them touch the bottom border).

Streets of Rage character select. Mostly works but there's a visible black border at the bottom because it's not centered.

Start of round 1, the only part that actually looks correct because they extended the background to cover the extra room.

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SEGA City @segacity.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Into The Sunset 'Shinobi III' SEGA Mega Drive

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 09/08/2026

Oh, and if you really don't need that quirk just make that color black (and you likely are going to need black for *something* anyway). It'll still look black either way lol

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 09/08/2026

Nah, that's easily exploitable actually (imagine a sprite with spots that emit light). The issue is that it's tied to layer priority, which is a problem since many games rely on that to put sprites in front and behind different parts of the foreground with little effort and S/H ruins that approach.

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 09/08/2026

Soooorta, only 50% black (shadow) and 50% white (highlight), and how you can use it is pretty restrictive which is why most games don't touch it. It does give you access to colors that would be normally out of reach, however (as they aren't limited by the 3-bit per RGB channel limitation).

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Rachel Mae 🏳️‍⚧️ @rachelmae.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

ANYWAY i was idly wondering if Travellers' Tales did some stupid nonsense in Toy Story to get more colors out of the system and of course they did. three 16-color layers and shadow/highlight are all combined to form the final image (left side is the raw colors without shadow/highlight)

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 26/07/2026

Yeah, IIRC Sonic trademark was filed shortly after the Sonic Blast Man one and Taito intervened to stop the Sonic trademark from coming into use (they succeeded on the arcade side since Sonic Blast Man was an arcade game, the SNES one wasn't a thing yet)

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Shannon Birt @shannonbirt.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

* MD 3D engine v8.5 * Added X scrolling of the sprite based background. Added X camera movement of the 3D plane ( broke stuff for a while due to wrapping and limited coordinate resolution ) . Video from Exodus with sprite boxing enabled to show how the sprite based BG is made up - Neo Geo style !!

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Anaël seghezzi @anaelseghezzi.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Small update on the Megadrive *rally game* ? I added sprites and did some optimization so CPU is still at 70% usage with a stable 60 fps. I'm a bit disappointed by the sprite width limit per-line. I wanted a lot more dense vegetation but it's not possible with sprites. I'll try other methods.

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Shannon Birt @shannonbirt.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

* Sega Megadrive 3D V8 * Toni Galvez joined the project for GFX / models & level design 25% Larger Buffer 256x160. Music added - XGM1 works, XGM2 doesn't :-( Faster buffer swap, rewrote Quad Renderer. Added a 114 sprite multiplexor ( the background is all sprites ) Added Tilt effects :-)

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Anaël seghezzi @anaelseghezzi.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Help, my Sega Megadrive is out of control ! It must think it's a Playstation or something. Yes, it's fully synced 60 fps :)

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斗々屋 @judytotoya.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

仕事の締め切りを今週は複数抱え込んでいるので今年はラフしか描けなかったです😅 時間が出来たらそのうち仕上げます。 #ソニック35周年

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 21/06/2026

It's all fun and games until Vectorman starts double jumping on his enemies.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 20/06/2026

Improved 32X timing accuracy in BlastEm a bit and that fixed NBA Jam Tournament Edition. I think at this point the only 32X games that aren't playable are CD-based ones that need disc swapping (e.g. Fahrenheit). There are a few more with some minor graphical issues though.

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 20/06/2026

For context: it came out in Feb 1995, and was originally planned as a launch title (32X launched in Dec 1994).

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 20/06/2026

btw in part 1 (I think?) of the video series it brings up that Metal Head is so early as a 3D mech game that it didn't really have anything to build on (mech games up to that point were pretty much 2D, even on arcade there wasn't much to check out).

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 20/06/2026

Yeah, though it needs to be a JP console. Hold down A+B+C+START when Sega logo appears and keep it held down until title screen appears. It'll be unlocked in the Options menu. …it has been making the rounds because I linked this video in the SGDK server, isn't it?

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Sonic The Hedgeblog @sonichedgeblog.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Card 28 - Oil Ocean, from the set of 'Sonic The Hedgehog' Topps Cards released in 1993.

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 18/06/2026

Phantasy Star IV compresses all the text for a good reason. Then again I don't think any of the RPGs from that era included multiple languages in the same cartridge (they had multiple versions instead). Text really consumes a lot of space in that genre.

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 06/06/2026

Honestly I took a quick look at that article and reached the conclusion that Sega is not involved at all. Probably one of the licensees deciding to yolo something on their own.

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Space… bruce! @spacebruce.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

weeeeeeeeeeeeee

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MatteusBeus Retro Developer @matteusbeus.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Chords extensively uses the Sega Mega Drive Shadow/Highlight feature for lighting effects. Support us: www.patreon.com/Retrosegadev #segagenesis #segamegadrive #indiedev #gamedev #sgdk #screenshotsaturday

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 29/05/2026

Fixed what is hopefully the last SH2 core bug (at least until I write a dynarec and make a bunch of new ones) last night and now Shadow Squadron works in BlastEm

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 23/05/2026

Been a little bit since I posted some BlastEm 32X progress. As of tonight, it successfully plays everyone's favorite not quite a Sonic game

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Anaël seghezzi @anaelseghezzi.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Still a lot of work to make it fun, but the physics works for at least one rival, possibly more ! The behaviour is a bit harder to code than I thought 😱 (especially with fixed point)

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 20/05/2026

I just stick to the stock car lmao

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 17/05/2026

OK I don't know what I'm doing lol What I know is that DATA0 → serial in DATA1 → serial clk DATA2 → LPT /strobe DATA3 ← LPT /busy ? and peripheral ID should read as 1010 (so DATA3/2 pulled up and DATA1/0 pulled down when they aren't explicitly driven)

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Daniel H. "108 Stars" pixel art @108stars-pixelart.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Progress is slow but steady and we‘re getting somewhere. I hope many will support and enjoy this. It’s truly a passion project for Matt and he is determined to get all the pieces together the way he envisions without compromise. #Sega #retrogames #retrovideogames #homebrewgames #pixelart

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Space… bruce! @spacebruce.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

improved it! this was kinda what I was going for first time around but the way I was pushing frames meant a lot got skipped over.

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 17/05/2026

I guess it could be a 74*595 too docs.rs-online.com/62c6/0900766... Would need to look more carefully later (especially what family would work best for this job) Also we have no idea what inputs come from the printer (DATA3 is /BUSY I guess? are TL and TR ever used?)

docs.rs-online.com

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 17/05/2026

For what's worth it, I get the impression that it's basically a glorified interface to a 74*164 shift register www.ti.com/lit/ds/symli... and some pull-up and pull-down resistors to get the peripheral ID. May want to throw in optocouplers too for safety reasons though.

ti.com

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MatteusBeus Retro Developer @matteusbeus.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I've been working on Shadow/Highlight effects for Chords again. If you would like to see more exclusive updates like this one. Sign up to support me on Patreon ☺️ www.patreon.com/posts/158183... #segagenesis #megadrive #sgdk #indiedev #gamedev #screenshotsaturday

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Plutiedev @plutiedev.com · 08/05/2026

Dumb idea: port 32X Doom to the Picture Magic. The Picture Magic has a whole 32X in it, but the Mega Drive side has been replaced with something more minimal. Doom runs nearly entirely on the 32X side however, so… (the biggest problem would be procuring a Picture Magic in the first place)

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 06/05/2026

BlastEm doesn't quite run 32X Doom yet, but it gets to the title screen/main menu now

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 07/05/2026

and this fire effect demo

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 07/05/2026

Got a couple of small 32X demos running last night after some SH2 core fixes. There's this plasma demo

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fifth column [systems] @fifth.column.systems · 08/05/2026

the latest level update for FATAL FACTORY on STINKHEAD AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

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Shannon Birt @shannonbirt.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

* Sega MD 3D engine update * Added partial/offscreen quad rendering - was painfull coding. Massively unrolled the line filling code for quads/triangles , 15-20% speedup. Implemented an algorithm to account for fluctuating framerate for Z forward movement - it partially works. Getting there !

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 04/05/2026

It's sort of cheating, but I have first light for Sega 32X support in BlastEm. I say sort of cheating, because this demo does not use the SH-2s at all and instead just writes to the 32X VDP from the 68K. But hey, it's still progress. Should see some SH-2 code running soon

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fifth column [systems] @fifth.column.systems · 03/05/2026

if you missed you chance to try out STINKHEAD AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS at Fur the More 2026, you got another chance at Furry Weekend Atlanta coming up!

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Anaël seghezzi @anaelseghezzi.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Testing hardware sprites with a point based depth-test to on/off them behind polygons. I don't think it's needed for the sides but for future obstacles ? #SGDK #BlastEm

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