Recalbox at the Replay Festival and the Hedg Convention: a look back at two retrogaming events

Retrogaming events are always a great opportunity to meet up with the community, and the past few weeks have been packed for Recalbox. Let's look back at the Replay Festival and the Hedg Convention, where Recalbox was present.

Replay festival: stands that were a huge hit

For the Replay Festival, the Recalbox team pulled out all the stops. On display: plenty of original hardware, but also the Recaltower equipped with the RGB Dual 2, with its Cardreader and everything that goes with it. A great way for visitors to get hands-on with what Recalbox can do, from software to hardware.

The result: the Recalbox stands were a real success throughout the event.

Kids joined the fun

One thing made us smile at the stands: there were almost more kids than parents behind the controllers! The reason is simple. With retro games, getting started is instant: kids grab a controller and, within about ten seconds, they've figured out how it works. Retro gaming definitely still has a real power to bring generations together.

Memorable encounters

Replay is also about the people you meet. Here is the account of bkg2k, who was on site:

This year at Replay, I had the pleasure of meeting Frédéric Raynal, father of Alone in the Dark, Little Big Adventure and many other games... And of seeing my old partner in crime Jean-Marc Demoly again (aka JM Destroy when he worked at Joystick), former video game journalist and boss of geeks-line.com.

JM Destroy was probably one of my favorite journalists during the glory days of Joystick (along with Seb and Moulinex). Frédéric Raynal remains one of the most famous figures in video games, and even though I never liked Alone in the Dark, I absolutely loved Little Big Adventure! Getting to see them 30 years later and take part in their projects is a bit like a childhood dream come true. Probably one of the best Replay Festivals I've ever attended.

And these encounters aren't just about memories, they're leading to concrete projects:

• For Jean-Marc Demoly: a custom Recalbox, focused on the systems he will use for an upcoming Geeks-line book he is working on.
• For Frédéric Raynal: he has developed a Mega Drive game (back to his roots!) with Mega Drive spinners and an HID interface to connect them over USB. A complete set is to be sent to bkg2k, with a view to native integration into Recalbox, just like the spinners already added by Beudbeud.

Hedg convention: Recalbox represented by Marvel2002

You may have spotted some Recalbox consoles this weekend at Edge Convention, on the Marvel 2002 stand. Marvel 2002 is the creator of the Speedrun à la loupe and Versus à la loupe channels. Recalbox and Marvel 2002 are partners, and their stand offered challenges to introduce visitors to speedrunning from the inside. The challenges drew plenty of visitors, from curious newcomers to seasoned speedrunners!

At each station, a small three-button keypad loaded game save states. Each one dropped players right where speedrunners perform a glitch. All they had to do was try it themselves, controller in hand. Techniques that seem impossible when you watch a speedrun suddenly became tangible. Visitors could see exactly what speedrunners do and understand why saving every second takes so much practice.

The goal was to pull off as many glitches as possible while visiting the stand. Beginners and experienced players alike left with a few speedrunner secrets up their sleeves!

The stations ran Recalbox on RecalTowers, Recalbox’s case. Each RecalTower was fitted with a Card Reader, which launches a game as soon as a RecalCard is inserted. All you had to do was pick the RecalCard for the game you wanted to try a glitch in, insert it into the Card Reader like a cartridge, and the game started right away—no menus to navigate. The feel of old-school consoles, put to work for speedrunning!

Thanks to Marvel 2002 and to everyone who came by the stand to take on the challenges!

Thank you all!

Thank you to everyone who stopped by to see us, to the team who ran the stands, and to Marvel2002 for bringing Recalbox to life at Hedg. See you at the next event!

Sources: Replay Festival - Hedg Convention (Hedg forum) - Speedrun à la loupe (YouTube) - Versus à la loupe (YouTube)

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