A musical album released in the form of a game cartridge or ROM might sound like an odd concept, but quirky homebrew developer and musician Mike Yedley has done just that, and it’s not even his first one. Not too long ago, he debuted his second Genesis music ROM on his itch.io page, called “mikeyeldey95”. Being a ROM, it can be run in your favorite Genesis emulator or on original hardware with a flash cartridge such as any of the Mega Everdrive line of cartridges. In a very interesting twist, this album also doubles as a retro Windows 95 desktop simulation, full of fun easter eggs and mini-games. You can change the desktop background and color scheme, explore a web browser (This game has no way of actually connecting to the internet), and even explore an MS-DOS environment. There are 11 main songs total, but exploring a bit more can uncover several hidden songs, including some full PSG tunes.
Even for as light in content as this is, there is a lot of neat stuff to see in here and it’s admirable how accurate this is to an actual mid-90’s desktop computer experience. It’s not every day you see an interactive musical album, but this one is worth checking out, especially if you have multiple Genesis systems given how audio quality varies with many of them, so it may change a few of the songs in some interesting ways.
You can download the ROM file from Mike Yedley’s itch.io page for free, but the option to pay him for it is there if you feel like supporting him financially. You can also find his first Genesis musical album, “mikeyedley: the album for Sega Genesis”, there too. He states that his first album is made up of music he made with different digital instruments. which he later converted to play from Genesis sound hardware, but mikeyedley95 is made up entirely of new music that he made from the ground up for Genesis hardware. Finally, you can also check out his Bandcamp page to buy and download his music in digital formats or even buy on CD, with some of his previous albums available to buy as cassette tapes as well as digital downloads.
It’s also worth noting he sold his two Genesis albums as actual cartridges in limited print runs. Sadly, they have already sold out before this article was written. Sorry we let you down, SEGAbits believers.
Anyway, let us know in the comments what you think of Mike’s music. Would you like to see other artists release musical albums in the form of actual Genesis/Mega-Drive cartridges or as cartridges for any other retro game hardware?
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