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Wednesday, Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Retro Scene Roundup

Posted by at 09:59:05

Scene Digest  •  Jan – Apr 2026
Retro Scene Roundup
Three months of news from IndieRetroNews & Aminet

The last three months have been exceptionally active across the retro scene. The Amiga dominated coverage — with arcade-quality ports and new releases landing almost weekly — while the C64 and MSX communities were far from quiet. Here’s the full picture from IndieRetroNews and Aminet.

IndieRetroNews
Amiga    Games & Ports

Double Dragon AGA by JOTD is the biggest ongoing story. Legendary porter Jean-François Fabre is rebuilding the Amiga version from scratch to match the arcade original — a project many in the community consider long overdue, given the original Amiga port’s reputation as one of the worst conversions ever made. A significant WIP update dropped in April.

Stunt Car Racer received a remarkable beta update by Vesuri, now running at a smooth 50/60fps on Amiga hardware — something the 1989 original never managed.

Gravity Addict arrived as the first official update to the Gravity Force series in decades, produced with Galahad’s assistance and distributed as the coverdisk for Amiga Addict Issue 42. It includes new levels, fresh title screens, and updated menus.

Arkamiga by Mainake Project is a solid Arkanoid clone bootable from ADF on a stock Amiga 500, with optional visual enhancements on AGA machines.

Echodrome by PixelPlop won first place at AmiGameJam 2025 and was subsequently released publicly as v0.11, earning a perfect 5.0 rating on itch.io. Xeno Genesis, a previously unknown Amiga shoot-‘em-up, was recovered and preserved by the community. Zippy Race (MotoRace USA) received a public alpha from Modern Vintage Gamer, porting the top-down motorcycle arcade racer to Amiga 500.

C64    New Releases

Trenchangle by drmortalwombat is a tower defence game for PAL C64 systems, blending classic placement with modern progression mechanics and a tech-tree upgrade system.

Crystian and the Lost Crystals by ntpr is a visually impressive solo-developed platform adventure with three detailed locations and over 60 enemies per area. Flat-Lane by youki06 is a Formula racing game in the spirit of early 1983–84 C64 titles, a lifelong dream project for its developer.

The Secret of Monkey Island C64 project generated considerable excitement with early footage, and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo for C64/128 by RetroGL continued receiving updates through the period.

Multi-Platform    Big Remasters & Announcements

Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns via Black Tower Basement and Nordcurrent Labs is the most significant commercial announcement of the period. The remaster ships with a Retro Mode preserving near-perfect Amiga authenticity, and a Classic Mode with a completely new visual identity and refined mechanics.

Jetpac PC Remake by Langford Productions is a comprehensive rebuild of the 1983 ZX Spectrum classic, with three switchable graphic styles including the original Spectrum aesthetic.

Rocketman for MSX1 via Renovatio is a physical release arriving June 2026 — rigid cardboard box, 24-page full-colour manual, two exclusive stickers. Five worlds, two difficulty modes, boss fights, and a save-code system.

Renegade Reborn for Amstrad CPC is in development: a 6-level beat-‘em-up running at 25Hz with bosses on every stage. No release date yet.

Aminet
game/    Notable Game Uploads

G-WARS (game/shoot, 14MB, OS3) — A Geometry Wars-inspired shooter for classic Amiga, appearing in both the February and March batches with updates.

DTB — Dodge These Balls (game/actio, ADF, OS3) — A bootable PAL action game released in February.

LCD Game Conversions — A substantial batch of Donkey Kong, Fire Attack, and Runaway LCD handheld conversions landed in February, each compiled for OS3, OS4, MorphOS, AROS, and WarpOS.

KABOOMANIA Demo v1.3 (game/demo, 3.8MB, OCS/AGA) — A new game demo landing in the April batch.

Norrland Demo (game/demo, OS3) — A Norrland-inspired Amiga game demo, available in standard and WHDLOAD versions, uploaded in mid-March.

F1GP 2026 Carset (game/data) — Current-season data for the classic Amiga F1GP simulation.

dev/    Development Tools

REDPILLGameCreator received multiple updates across the three months (8.4MB → 8.7MB), remaining one of the most actively developed tools on Aminet. It supports AGA graphics and full OS3 compatibility.

NodeAmiga (dev/lang, 445KB) — A JavaScript runtime for AmigaOS. MicroPython (dev/lang, 248KB) — A MicroPython interpreter for OS3. Both landed in the April batch.

ACE-Basic (AmigaBasic Compiler Enhanced) was updated repeatedly across the period. Sevgi Engine, an open-source 2D video game engine for OS3, appeared in April alongside ygame, another open-source 2D AGA engine.

util/  &  driver/    System & Utilities

AmiSSL v5 landed in the April batch across OS3, OS4, and SDK editions — bringing a current OpenSSL implementation as an Amiga shared library, a significant security and networking upgrade.

ANAIIS USB Stack was updated in March with expanded games controller support. SAGADriver also received a full driver package update in the same batch.

ScummVM was updated across AGA 060 and RTG 060 variants in early February — bringing a current build of the cross-platform adventure engine to classic Amiga hardware.

AmiArcadia, the Signetics-based machine emulator, was updated for OS3, OS4, and MorphOS in both February and March.

mags/    Community Magazines

What IFF? Issue 5.19 for April 2026 was uploaded in both full and lite editions, continuing the long-running Amiga community magazine’s unbroken run on Aminet.

Sources: indieretronews.com  •  aminet.net  •  amiga-news.de   |   Compiled by Future Retro Fusion  •  April 2026

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