The European Atari Jaguar Festival, “ejagfest” took place on November 2nd & 3rd 2024 in Korschenbroich (near Düsseldorf and Mönchengladbach), Germany. We celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Atari Lynx this year which has been released in 1989.

The European Atari Jaguar Festival is a non-commercial regular festival for all Atari and retro gaming fans from all over Europe and the World. It was established in year 2000 and the focus of attention is on Atari and all systems of the cult label. But we don’t want to miss other retro-systems, as well. The more exotic, the better. The motto is: Bring your favourite retro system and have fun!

All of you who would like to play again on retro consoles and trusty home-computers systems of the 70s, 80s or 90s, this is the right place.

Highlights of this year:

• Ian McCranor – Motion Capture Actor:
  • Ian is known in the Atari community for his motion capturing of the character Angus from the Atari Jaguar game Kazumi Ninja, as well as other games such as Batman Forever or Fantastic Four for the Playstation.
  • Ian was available for chats, photos, and autographs and promoted his current book project.
  • He was accompanied by his manager Derek Blaha and his wife.
• Carl Forhan – Songbird Productions:
  • Songbird Productions was founded in 1999 by Atari fan and hobby developer Carl Forhan to develop and publish games for Atari consoles such as the Lynx and Jaguar.
  • Songbird has rescued many “lost” games from the 90’s, but has also produced many new homebrew and indie games.
  • At the ejagfest he showed the playable prototype of UltraVore on the Atari Lynx.
  • The founder of the first US ejagfest, Carl Forhan, accompanied by his wife, was a guest at the ejagfest for the first time and was available for discussions and shop talk.
  • He offered a selection of his products for the Atari Jaguar, Nuon and Atari Lynx for sale.
  • These included Star Streak in the Jagfest Edition for the Atari Jaguar and much more.
  • An early version of Cosmo Cats in the Jagfest Edition, a Bomberman clone for the Atari Lynx.
  • Micro Vaders, Hotdog, T-Tris, Sky Raider Redux, Megapak and many more for the Atari Lynx.
• Alexander Grade „AnderLex“:
  • Provided his latest games and projects for the Atari Jaguar to play.
  • Among them the freshly finalized Jumping at Shadows (final/release) for the Atari Jaguar.
  • Last Strike DX (final)
  • And various Jaguar and Lynx classics from his own collection, including current hombrews.
  • Some titles could also be purchased from him.
• Yastuna Games:
  • The homebrew publisher & coder of games such as A Bug’s Trip (Lynx), Asteroids Chaser (Lynx), Rai On Tri City (Lnyx) and many more was there again.
  • He showed and sold a selection of his projects for Atari Lynx, Atari Jaguar and Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
  • These included a new batch of Ynxa Treasure Quest, a game similar to Magical Drop for the Lynx.
  • Also included are playable versions of The Carribean Tavern for 4 players and BlackHole Reignited for 8 players for the Atari Jaguar.
• Marco Willig (McWill):
  • Showed and sold his VGA-Screen Hardware Mod for the Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear and Game Boy Color.
  • It improves the screen quality a lot. Further it provides an VGA-output to play Lynx on an external display. 
  • On Sunday he modified systems on side and gave a modding workshop. 
  • In addition to that he showed and sold his Game Gear Full-Mod incl. new PCB and IPS640x480 with integer Scaling, new Powerboard incl. LiPo Accu, optional Analogstick, RGB LEDs on each button, new Soundboard with Tantal Caps.
• Karri Kaksonen:
  • Showed his new projects for Atari Lynx and Atari 7800.
  • Including a hands-on Furnace Tracker introduction. This extension turns music into executable 2600/7800 TIA code. He showed us how to create beautiful sounds with it.
• Walter Lauer:
  • Showed together with Karri a multi-module for the Atari 7800 and celebrating the 40th birthday of the 7800.
  • The following titles are included: Easter, Star Wars 7800 Ejagfest edition, Merlain 2 Ejagfest edition, Pac Nestor Ejagfest edition, Drunk Witch, Adventureland, Pirates Cove and Breakout
  • The module was also be available for purchase at ejagfest.
• Alex Kraken:
  • Showed and sold the final version of Red and Odynexus in the European Collector Edition for the Atari Lynx.
  • As well as a compilation with 3 arcade games for the Lynx.
• Björn Spruck:
  • Showed homebrew for the Atari Lynx.
  • Including his multiplayer Bomberman variant Blast!
• Bastian Schick:
  • Showed homebrew for the Atari Lynx.
  • Such as the Lynx Raytracer Demo.
• Thomas Ilg:
  • The programmer of Anarcho Ride showed his latest games for the Atari ST.
  • RandoMaZer – an action puzzle game.
  • Randominer – an isometric Minesweeper variant
  • SHOTGUN – a four player party game. Brand new!
• Microzeit:
  • The publisher is known for high-quality books on the subject of retro, video games and, in particular, home computers. A selection of the books were on display and available for purchase at the ejagfest.
• ST-Computer Magazin:
  • ST-Computer Magazin was also on site again.
  • A selection of past issues of ST-Computer Magazin and Return were available for purchase.
• Retrospiel:
  • The retailer of retro games and homebrew for various systems from Cologne was also be visiting us on Saturday evening, as well as on Sunday.
• Wolfsoft:
  • The well-known dealer for hardware and conversions, especially in the retro sector, sold a selection from his range.
  • And showed his Mister FPGA with TapTo Mod on a Sony PVM monitor.
• Nick Persijn:
  • Produced and sold spinner / rotary mods for Jagaur controller onsite.
  • Sold some Jagaur homebrew and protoypes like Thea Realm Fighters.
  • Showed the spinner / rotary controller for the Nuon for Tempest 3000
  • Showed lots of Jaguar and other retro hardware and games from his personal collection.
  • Like a Consolized IGS PGM with games, an OMVS Consolized Neo Geo MVS with NeoSD Pro, an RGB modded 3DO with Fixel 3DO ODE and a Vectrex with 3D glasses.
• Remute:
  • Remute is known for game cartridge based music albums delivering releases for consoles like Super Nintendo, Gameboy, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64 and many more.
  • In 2024 he released the very first music album for Atari’s ill-fated, but immensly powerful Jaguar.
  • „There Is Hope“ comes as a region-free 6 Megabyte cartridge filled to the brim with 12 catchy songs.
  • As with all of his cartridge albums, the music on „There Is Hope“ gets generated in realtime by the console every time you pop the cartridge in and play it.
  • Remute sold his cartridges and was available for talks.
• John Linneman – Digital Foundry Retro:
  • The retro expert from the team of the popular YouTube channel Digital Foundry Retro visited the ejagfest again and was available for discussions and shop talk.
• Audi Sorle – Limited Run Games:
  • Audi Sorle from Limited Run Games also visited the ejagfest again and was available for discussions and shop talk.
• Michael Lünzer:
  • Showed again exotic retro games and hardware from his collection, such as the first Intellivision games published by AtariAge and more.
  • These include a homebrew version of Super Mario Bros. for the system.
• Thorsten Butschke:
  • Showed retro games on his Atari ST.
• TXG_MNX:
  • Showed again exotic retro games and hardware from his collection.
  • These included the official Jaguar Kiosk from the USA, as well as pre-production models of the never-released Jaguar modem and voice modem and an Atari Panther prototype audio card.
• SainT (RetroHQ):
  • This year, SainT provided us again with its Jaguar GameDrive (SD card adapter), its Atari 7800 GameDrive (SD card adapter) together with the Mega7800 adapter, as well as the Lynx GameDrive.
  • The devices could be tried out at the ejagfest.
• Emmanuel Huysman (Sunnyvale 2026):
  • He and his wife brought a Jaguar with CD drive, a Lynx and an Atari 800 with numerous games.
• Bomberman Oliver Traschütz:
  • Brought us a Sega Saturn setup with Bomberman for up to 10 players.
• DragonBox Shop:
  • The DragonBox Shop presented an Evercade VS.
  • This new module-based retro console could be tried out on site.
• Zone 3 Zockecke:
  • Thanks to the support of “Zone3”, a cozy gaming corner with beanbags for gamers full of retro highlights was set up.
• Plaion:
  • Provided a gaming station with the Atari 2600+, as well as the Atari 400 Mini, for playing.
• Männerquatsch Podcast:
  • Björn and Maik from the Männerquatsch podcast cordially invited you to the podcast’s listeners’ meeting on Sunday.
• Sammlerschutzhüllen:
  • The manufacturer of handmade, custom-fit and high-quality protective cases was represented at ejagfest.
  • He showed games from the Playstation Collectors Club on the Playstation via Retro Tink 4K.
  • He also offered a disc repair service. Scratched or unreadable CDs, DVDs and Gamecube discs could be professionally and gently removed from scratches for a fee.

Further exhibitions:

• Jaguar in a transparent case: There is a Jaguar in a completely transparent case. The case comes from a special series that was created with the original Atari case mold in spring 2015 to support the “RVGS” video game system. The system later known as “Colecovision Chameleon” was also supposed to use this mold, but has since been canceled.
• The HotRod. After Atari abandoned the Jaguar, they sold the housing mold to a dental camera manufacturer. The HotRod was the top model of these devices.
• Custom Made Atari Jaguar Arcade Stick (Sanwa Parts).
• Silver Jag: A silver lacquered and painted Jaguar with blue LED and 50/60 Hz mod.

Competitions:

• Checkered Flag (Lynx) – Mr. XY Cup
• SHOTGUN (Atari ST)
• Mario Kart Double Dash (Gamecube)

This year marked the event‘s 21st anniversary, and it took place for the 7th time in the location in Kleinenbroich. Let’s celebrate Atari! You got two days of retro fun with lots of exhibitors, a tombola on Sunday and drinks like coffee and water over the weekend.

Find your way to the ejagfest: Directions and Hotel recommendations (link)

Adress of the Event: 

Hochstraße 26
41352 Korschenbroich
Germany

Opening hours:
Saturday we start at 9:00 AM until 12 PM (midnight).
Sunday we start at 10:00 AM until 5 PM.

Source(s): ejagfest.de, Derek Blaha – Malice Media LLC (group picture)

Gallery European Jagfest “ejagfest” 2024 (link)

Media:

Männerquatsch Podcast 179 (Eventbericht ejagfest 2024, Nintendo Music App, Tron Catalyst)