A Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year from Indie Retro News [UPDATE]

Here we are again with another Christmas and what a year it has been, full of incredible indie games, new homebrews, and lots of lost and found retro specials that have amazed even our own writers thanks to Genesis Project, Hokuto Force or Laxity. From C64 games such as Charlie Chaplin, Red Baron 3000, Donkey Kong + (X2016 Version), Locators Synd, Hessian, Alien 8 and Pentagram, to the incredible Amiga specials such as the SEGA CD exclusive Heart of the Alien ported over to the Amiga, Another World lost levels, OnEscapee and Giana Sisters: Special Edition by PixelGlass Studios. But that's not all we've had to enjoy, as we've had month after month of Amiga CD32 conversions thanks to Earok(+team) and more so this year Amiga Jay with Psygnosis : The Complete Amiga Works, The Bitmap Brothers Collection and even the Overhead Racer Collection! [25/12/16 Christmas Update]

There has even been a good number of Games Nostalgia packaged Amiga to PC playable games without the emulator set up hassle. But all of this was not what blew Indie Retro News away this year. It wasn't anything that came about on the Atari 8-bit with Gunfright, Pang or Donkey Kong. Not so much Pentagorat 2016 on the Commodore VIC-20 or The Darkness of Raven Wood for the BBC Micro.

Nor was it the ZX Spectrum with Donkey Kong Jr, Harbinger Convergence or Vallation Escape the pirate planet. But it was the mind blowing preview release of the fantastic Amiga game Pinball Dreams over to the Amstrad by Batman Group. Not to say any of the other Amstrad homebrew games were bad, far from it, but not only did it run really well, but it sounded and looked fantastic, a great achievement indeed.

And now putting the core retro games aside including the ROM NES and SEGA hacks we've been shouting about every month, but we also have to give thanks to the indie game community. Sometimes it isn't all about loading up an emulator, but we like to load up Steam or other such gaming library and have a quick blast on the PC that doesn't have anything to do with the tediousness of Call of Duty. Games such as Mini Doom, Twisted Insurrection, Super Thundercats, Thrust 30, Super Skelemania, Cursed Castilla, Heroes of the Monkey Tavern, the Dizzy fan games via Yolkfolk.com and Project AM2R to name but some of the ones we've enjoyed in 2016!

Sufficed to say I could on and on about every game we've ever posted about this year, the games Alistair, Florinthedwarf, Steve Trower or Hayesmaker has reviewed, and those that are to come in 2017. But apart from the latest Amiga cases by A1200.net which is coming soon and the keycaps that are still aiming for a success, 2016 is going to be a really hard year to beat. So I'll end this by saying I hope you have enjoyed everything Indie Retro News has done this year especially as we hit another milestone of 41.6+ million views!

UPDATE - Today is officially Christmas Day 25/12/16 and even though I was going to take a break the news never stopped.We have had a ton of releases to go through to make this a very special Christmas indeed, so you can see that even though I have been told to stop writing and to take a break by some of our readers, I just couldn't let you down.

VICE Version 3.0 - The Versatile Commodore Emulator
Caren and the Tangled Tentacles 2 teased
Heroes Rescue - Amstrad platforming homebrew on the ZX Spectrum
Barbarian - A head chopping review on the ZX Spectrum
Yogi 3 - Yog's Big Clean Up - cleaned and released for C64 after more than 20 years
The Bear Essentials - Family friendly C64 platformer available for FREE
A1200.Net compatible Keycaps for Amiga computers a Kickstarter success
X-bEnCh 1.00 - One of the best Amiga launchers gets a pre-Christmas release
Frogger Arcade for the C64
The Eric Schwartz Collection - The finest works from a legendary Amiga Animator now on the Amiga CD32
Lode Runner +6GD on the C64 
Pietro Bros - A stunning ZX Spectrum homebrew based on Mario Bros from the NES.

So as you can see I've always been dedicated to you the reader, the retro gamer and home brew developer across the globe, but I'll ask of you this. If you love what we do and want to help us continue on through the years to come, please support the site below and more so towards the server costs. - Any donators will be thanked via our Facebook page, and if you don't get my message, know that I am extremely grateful.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE 2016