Mega Cat Studios: Britt’s Mega Drive Odyssey Part 5 – Rocket Panda SEGA Mega Drive Review 🐼 @megacatstudios #IndieGame #GameDev #Retrogaming

As someone who has played games for almost forty years, as much as I love heavy-duty RPGs, horror titles, and a good story – there’s always a part of me that lights up when a game is outright charming, and a celebration of gaming at its most wholesome, it almost feels like gaming at its most pure and innocent.

Cue Rocket Panda, a game developed by Space Pants Games, in which you – as the titular Rocket Panda – must save Biscuit Land from the clutches of the evil Biscuit Head, saving your caged badger friends as you do so.

Mega Cat Studios: Britt’s Mega Drive Odyssey Part 4: Yazzie ⬜ @megacatstudios #IndieGame #GameDev #Retrogaming

It’s been a little while, but once again it’s time to spend some time with my favourite console, and take a look at another title from Mega Cat Studios ever-expanding repertoire of video games released on classic systems. I’m also planning a sort of sister article to this series focusing on upcoming Mega Drive games in 2025 – exciting stuff!

Anyway, on to the wonderful Yazzie!

Developed by Retro Souls – the brains behind the addictive Old Towers -  the titular Yazzie is a gold digger that must traverse myriad single-screen puzzles, collecting all of the gold in each area, whilst avoiding the zombies, ghosts and hazards that act as obstacles between Yazzie and riches! 

Mega Cat Studios: - Britt’s Mega Drive Odyssey Part 3: Old Towers 🏰 @RetroSouls @megacatstudios #IndieGame #IndieGameDev

Retrosouls’ Old Towers is next up in my Mega Drive Odyssey, and it’s one that my three-year old gravitated to as I was playing through each game, showing that awesome puzzle titles are ageless!

As with Mega Cat Studios other titles, the Mega Drive case is branded with their logo which really is a nice touch as it makes them stand out and feel that little bit extra special. The cover image is of the main character moving at speed towards a golden coin, as if he’s hurtling out of the image itself, with the background featuring heavy motion blur to give that sense of pace. The spine is also uniform and matches up perfectly with other MCS releases whilst the rear sums up the gameplay in a succinct paragraph as some additional quotes hammer home that this is an addictive puzzle-based title, along with some screenshots.

Mega Cat Studios: - Britt’s Mega Drive Odyssey Part 2: L'Abbaye des Morts 🐱 @megacatstudios #IndieGame #IndieGameDev

Once again, I check out a game from Mega Cat Studios, this time, L’Abbaye des Morts, a game in which you play as Jean Raymond, a persecuted man who is chased into the titular ‘Abbey of Death’ and must find his way out.

This was a game that really stood out for me when I first played it, as it is a wonderfully presented – yet delightfully simple (yet HARD) – game that has some really saucy features whilst coming from a very 8-bit home computer-centric design philosophy in terms of the gameplay and mechanics.

It really nails a specific sweet spot in time that resonates with my nostalgia perfectly and feels quite unique in that sense in the Mega Drive library. Plus, it’s effectively a horror game, and the Mega Drive certainly needs more of those in its library!

Echoes of the Unread, Coming Soon To Kickstarter | "Turn The Page To A New Chapter Of 8-Bit NES Adventure!" 📚📖 @megacatstudios #IndieGame #RetroGaming

The retro gaming scribe Matt Tuttle at Clever Cat Games, in partnership with Mega Cat Studios and Video Game Sage, is hard at work penning a novel new adventure for the NES with Echoes of the Unread.

Coming to Kickstarter in Q1 2025, Echoes of the Unread turns the page to a fantastical chapter of 8-bit adventure. Step into the shoes of Rhapsody, a young girl who, after falling asleep while studying for exams, awakens to find she’s been trapped in the library by the magician Odele, who is angry and alone because her book never gets checked out from the library. The bitter magician schemes to obtain a magic quill from the library that can change her book and set her free. However, Odele’s freedom comes with a price, as doing so will trap Rhapsody within the Unread Book for all eternity!  

Mega Cat Studios: ‘Britt’s Mega Drive Odyssey Part 1: Coffee Crisis’ ☕️ @megacatstudios #IndieGame #IndieGameDev #GameDev #RetroGaming #SEGAGenesis

Since joining GF back in 2016, one of the pleasures of my life has been discovering new titles for one of my favourite consoles – the Mega Drive. There are several companies out there that are doing the Lord’s work in bringing out new games out for SEGA’s saucy black box, but Mega Cat Studios were the first I was made aware off, when I covered Paulo Andres de Matos Villalva’s secretly wonderful ‘Devwill Too’ back in 2020*, and so I’ve always associated them with developing and publishing new MD titles, breathing life back into the system and hopefully getting players worldwide to dust off those creaky controllers!

This is the first in a series that will see us covering a large portion of the Mega Cat Studios Mega Drive-related output, with the end result being an interview and deep dive into the studio itself.