If you don't know what an Evercade is where have you been?!, it's a Linux-based retro-focussed games-console platform that launched in 2020, which offers a number of different types of hardware which all run games from a line of curated cartridges. These cartridges almost always contain multiple games, and cover actual retro games along with retro-styled indie releases - 1970s/1980s/1990s retro is basically the condition of being allowed on the platform at all. Though there are a few native titles (curiously including some indies, such as Donut Dodo, which do not have Linux builds on Steam) the vast majority are emulated games - often including indie games that are made for retro consoles.

The hardware is primarily handheld-based, with there always being a flagship horizontally-oriented Evercade handheld (with the current one also offering a dedicated TATE mode setup for vertical games), plus a multiplayer-focussed home-console with four controller-ports, fittingly known as the Evercade VS. There's also now the budget-friendly Super Pocket line from sister-brand Hyper Mega Tech!, which are vertically-oriented handhelds that contain built-in retro games from a single company per handheld, but which can also run Evercade cartridges.

So, with that out of the way, since the Evercade is a Linux-based gaming platform, I just wanted to make a dedicated thread for it here on GOL, and here it is.

In keeping with my love for portable devices, which was primarily influenced by growing up with the Game Boy line, my Evercade hardware of choice is a Taito Super Pocket, and I've already picked up a bunch of cartridges that're right up my alley. Some of them contain games unavailable on Steam, GOG, or Itch.io, since certain titles (particularly arcade ones) are currently tied up on consoles and the Microsoft Store and aren't more widely-available than that, leaving the Evercade as the only licensed way to play some of them on any sort of Linux system.



My favourite cartridges so far have proven to be Data East Arcade 1 (which includes titles like Burger Time, Lock 'n' Chase, Sly Spy, and Tumblepop, amongst others), Jaleco Arcade 1 (where the headliner for me is, without a doubt, Rod Land, but it's also a really well-rounded look at arcade games of that era in general), and Sunsoft Collection 1 (which has the only Bomberman game on the Evercade platform so far, in the form of Blaster Master Boy, which is in fact Bomber King Scenario 2, part of a spin-off branch of the Bomberman series, and also offers a really good selection of hard-to-find titles). I also quite like Gremlin Collection 1, but that's honestly a mixed bag of a cartridge - I got it mainly for Zool, but will probably try Hardcore 4x4 as well, though the rest aren't for me.


I'm also really impressed by how the manuals include facts that relate to preserving information, even when they run contrary to how a provided game is being marketed, such as in this example from the Sunsoft Collection 1 manual, referring to Blaster Master Boy: "Fact: Blaster Master Boy wasn't a sequel to Blaster Master in Japan; it's actually a follow-up to a spin-off of the popular Bomberman series!".

Anyone else have or considering any of the Evercade hardware? Are you looking forward to future Evercade re-releases like the Nintendo 64 version of once-popular 3D-platformer Glover? Got any favourite cartridges? Hoping for revised consoles with particular features? Anything else? Please share!