Mega Cat Studios has built a serious reputation in the homebrew scene — crafting brand-new games that look, feel, and play like they were pulled straight from the golden age of retro gaming. Mega Cat Studios Collection 3 brings another batch of their finest work to the Evercade, and it’s a genuine treat for anyone who loves pixel art, chiptune soundtracks, and tight, satisfying gameplay.
WHO ARE MEGA CAT STUDIOS?
Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mega Cat Studios is one of the most celebrated homebrew game developers in the world. They don’t just make ROMs — they produce physical cartridges with proper labels, manuals, and boxes, designed to sit proudly on your shelf alongside original releases.
What sets them apart is their commitment to authenticity. Their games are built using the same tools and techniques as classic developers, targeting real hardware constraints. The result? Games that feel genuinely of the era rather than just inspired by it.
Their partnership with Blaze Entertainment and the Evercade platform has been a brilliant one, giving their work a new audience of retro fans who might never have encountered the homebrew scene before.
WHAT’S ON THE CARTRIDGE?
Mega Cat Studios Collection 3 packs in 11 homebrew titles spanning Game Boy, Game Boy Color, NES, Mega Drive, and SNES.
On the NES you get GunTneR (run and gun), Machine Cave, The Meating and Flap Happy (platformers and action), plus Plyuk (shooter). The portable entries are Kudzu on Game Boy — an adventure — and Gumball In Trick-or-treat Land on Game Boy Color. On 16-bit hardware: Gravibots and Super Fanger bring puzzle gameplay to the Mega Drive and SNES respectively, while Rocket Panda is a Mega Drive platformer.
These are not tech demos or curiosities — they are fully realised games with real replay value, each built to the technical standards of the original hardware they target.
WHY THIS MATTERS FOR EVERCADE
One of the Evercade’s most exciting qualities is its willingness to celebrate games that exist outside the mainstream. The platform isn’t just a nostalgia machine — it’s a living archive of gaming culture, and homebrew collections like this one are a huge part of that story.
For many Evercade owners, Mega Cat Studios Collection 3 will be their first proper introduction to the homebrew world. That’s a genuinely exciting thing. These are games made out of pure passion, with no publisher pressure and no microtransactions — just developers who love retro gaming and want to push it forward.
Having them on a proper cartridge, playable on your VS, EXP, or handheld, feels exactly right. It’s the format these games deserve.
THE HOMEBREW DIFFERENCE
It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate what Mega Cat Studios actually does. Making a game that runs correctly on a real NES or Mega Drive — respecting the original hardware’s limitations, palette restrictions, and processing constraints — is genuinely difficult. It requires deep technical knowledge and a love of the craft.
The games on this collection aren’t just stylistically retro. Many of them were designed to run on original hardware. That means when you’re playing them on your Evercade, you’re experiencing something that has been held to an incredibly high technical standard.
That attention to detail shows. The sprite work is crisp, the music hits those satisfying chiptune notes, and the controls have that snappy, immediate feel that classic games are remembered for.
SHOULD YOU BUY IT?
If you have any interest in where retro gaming is heading — not just where it’s been — then yes, absolutely. Mega Cat Studios Collection 3 is the kind of cartridge that reminds you why the Evercade ecosystem is so special.
It’s new games that feel old, made by people who genuinely care. There’s nothing quite like it in the mainstream gaming space, and having a physical collection of this work is something worth appreciating.
Whether you love platformers, shooters, puzzlers, or adventures — and whether your heart belongs to the NES, Mega Drive, or Game Boy — there is something here for you.
Want the full game-by-game breakdown? Head over to our dedicated page for Mega Cat Studios Collection 3 for the complete details, tracklist, and more.