THEC64 Mini - Black Edition... it's arrived!

In initial thoughts

In good time for Hallowe'en 2025, THEC64 Mini - Black Edition has arrived. It contains 25 post-commercial Commodore C64 games for you to enjoy (okay, one is essentailly a re-release that has been remastered in the version included). So why this new version? And isn't it just more of the same, but in a more darker colour? And as it's gone black, will you be going back?

There has been a lot of care over this relaunch. The packaging, a matte finish with spot gloss, really makes the box art pop. And unboxing is its usual treat: Retro Games Ltd (RGL) know how to package its products, giving a warm, fuzzy feeling on opening. It states proudly that this is the world's best selling mini home computer... I don't know about that. Maybe the Raspberry Pi has something to say about this, but I think what is meant is that it's done very well (I suspect RGL's best selling product to date), better than all other reimagined mini computers (RGL would know as they have cornered the market here), and it might even have done as well or better than some of those mini consoles too, from bigger companies starting with N, for instance. Now, I think THEC64 Mini is more akin to a mini console, but it does allow an external keyboard, and you can therefore write BASIC and even Assembly/Machine code on the system, but out of the box it is just a console.

The purely cosmetic keyboard is now super shiney, the power light is bright, and the power input is USB C (unlike previous editions). Like other products from RGL, no power adapter is included, however you do have a joystick and all of the cables to get you going, assuming that you have access to a HDMI television set or monitor that is. The model number, despite these changes, is still RGL001. But the big question that everyone wants to know is what about the joystick? Is it still crap?

The answer on the joystick question is a resounding NO. Not only is it fully microswitched, it's also pretty striking too, and feels much nicer to use than the early, non-microswitched efforts bundled with the original Minis (and actually, I didn't mind the old more fragile 'sticks, but this new one is much better). It won't fall apart after one game (or even event) of Daley Thompson's Decathlon for sure.

It's not just the exterior that's darkened either, the UI has been reskinned and it's all rather foreboding if I'm honest, though the bright music from all other THEC64 variants remains, and is now kind of a mismatch to the interface. I'd have liked some dank and eerie SID music to accompany the new personality of it, but I guess that would mean extra licensing and more work.

System updates

Checking the system information, we're now on firmware version 1.7, or thec64-black-1.7.0-inertia to be precise. So, without extensive testing, I'm assuming it'll do everything that's included with firmware 1.6, including Mouse the FourPlayer Adapter support, though on this variant of the console, you'll obviously require a USB hub in order to use more than two joysticks and a pen drive. This is my initial impression though, so if I'm wrong on this, I will provide an update later.

The games

The 25 games are really some of the best released, not just post-1990 releases, but best ever. Joe Gunn, one of my most favourite platform games, is still a delight to play (hint, use the onscreen keyboard to start the game with F1 for unlimited lives, though the save states kind of negate this now I guess). A list of all 25 games included may be viewed on the website linked above, so I won't mention all of them here, but I will give you a brief overview of the six best as I see it.

Conclusion

The joystick is good, the unit itself is rather dashing, there's a new UI and new firmware, and the games are excellent. What's not to like?

Well, in purely numeric terms, you may pick up a regular THEC64 Mini at not very much money, and this Black Edition is more than the launch price of the beige original. But if you buy all of the 25 titles on the carousel, you'd probably be paying as much or more. A Pig Quest by itself would set you back €8.99. So, there is value in this. In procuring your unit you are also supporting these developers as each is no doubt paid a commission for each unit sold. So, unless you already own all of these games (and if you do, you likely already have a C64 solution that you're comfortable with using), then this is pretty good value. But here's a small complaint, one or two of the games start after the lush introduction sequences, so keeping A Pig Quest in mind, there is no "Piggy 18" splash (which never gets old) before the title screen, which is a shame. This has something to do with how the games are "fast loaded" from the carousel, I suspect.

Looking at this new THEC64 Mini from afar, it's not a leap to imagine it as THEC16 Mini, though I think one issue with making such a device might be the lack of quality games from the Commodore 16s commercial life, and despite selling a million units or more, it was very much an entry level system. Don't get me wrong, I like the C16 and Plus/4 computers, but very clearly there are way more titles available for the C64, and way more good games too. Anyway, that aside, here are what I reckon to be the six best games included with this new edition.

Six of the best

It’s a difficult choice, is this; the team who chose the games for THEC64 Mini BE have done very well indeed. How do I get this down to six? With some controversy, no doubt.

Joe Gunn: Gold Edition

Joe Gunn has taken hours of my life. Graphically, it harks back to a simpler time, unlike Sam’s Journey, for instance, which shows the best of the C64’s VIC-II chip, Joe Gunn looks like it could have been released in 1986 or so. Look beyond the aesthetics and you have a very deep platform adventure game with some teasing puzzles along the way. Undoubtedly inspired by the famous Indiana Jones movies (the good ones, from the 1980s), this epic sports superb chip music and great gameplay. And with the save slots on THEC64 Mini, I might actually complete it this time.

Hunter's Moon Remastered

Hunter’s Moon Remastered is very much a reminder of our past, originally released in 1987 to a broad critical acclaim, and even now managing a healthy score on online outlets like https://lemon64.com. This is something of a psychedelic space-based blast fest; not quite as off the wall as some Jeff Minter games, but out there enough. On board the ship Hunter, you find yourself lost in a strange and unexplored part of the Galaxy; Hives are constantly renewed, regardless of how much fire power you use to obliterate them, and the way back home often requires a quick trigger and skilful navigation.

It's Magic 2

Perhaps not the most obvious side-scrolling platform game to be included here, but if you don’t like it, then write your own review, won't ya!

It’s Magic 2 stars Tom Cat, a cute, yellow and white upright feline who must navigate Dream Islands, a beautifully pixelated game world; collect diamonds and other goodies, and remove the roaming [and rather cute] creatures by bouncing on their heads to take them out, or avoid them altogether if you’re trying for a speed run.

Collect all diamonds to exit each level. It’s an excellent platform game with great presentation and music.

Runn 'N' Gunn

Carleton Handley’s Runn 'N' Gunn, another from the Thalamus Digital stable, is an explorer-type scrolling shoot-em up in which you play as one of two interchangeable characters: Runn or Gunn (ah, now the title makes sense).

Runn is more agile and can do "double jumps", whilst Gunn has a more powerful arsenal; find keycards to further open up the game world in this slickly executed piece of entertainment software, containing well animated roamers and some ear-catching SID tunes.

p0 snake

It’s always nice to hear digitised speech from the SID chip, and p0 snake has some great samples along with bright and rather jolly music.

This is actually a "one button" game; and only the fire button needs apply. You control an ever hungry snake around a static screen tasked to consume food pellets. Moving clockwise by default (and to move anti-clockwise, you press the fire button), you must guide your never still snake around each level; for every food pellet consumed, your body grows, thus limiting the space left on each level. This is a really fun take of the classic Snake adding puzzle elements, and has excellent and progressive learning curve. I love it.

Knight 'N' Grail

Wide Pixel Games have come up with some really immersive C64 software, and this is definitely one of them. At first, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s a Ghosts n’ Goblins clone; let’s be clear, it is far more than this.

It seems a plodding and slow-paced game initially, with moody and atmospheric music in the background, which comes and goes so as not to be too repetitive. Unlock this sprawling game world, find different projectiles (some of which are harmless against some of your malevolent foes lurking in the game world), and save the Princess cursed to be a Dragon by finding the Grail. It’s well designed, eerie and sometimes tense, with some excellent graphics, and 200 screens to explore. Go ahead, adventurer. Be the hero you know you were born to be!

BubbleBack: The Story of Forward to the Past 2

I'm only happy when I'm grumpy!

When I was much younger, which might as well be sometime 100 years back at this point, as my health sometimes makes it feel like that, I used to ponder the expression aimed at men of a certain age "he's only happy when he's grumpy"; now I've got here, I understand this all too well. I like being grumpy too. So leave me alone and I'll go back to live under my rock. Okay!

As one might imagine then, anything that makes me even think of a smile is well avoided. Reading through the latest issue of BreakSpace I noted that the guys seem to really like this 'ere Bubble Back game for the old Speccy. It has a coveted Ace award from this publication (disclaimer, I'm one of the writers for it, by the way), and it does looks good. Maybe I'll give it a go too, as I missed out on reviewing it for the mag.

Before I continue, it would be somewhat remiss of me not to include some back story, so here goes:

This is the much anticipated follow up to Forward to the Past, in which Dave has attempted time travel, specifically to go back to 2021 (which I recall the UK and much of the world was on lockdown, so why travel back to this time is unknown). As we all know from Star Trek, people who mess with the space time continuum get into all sorts of trouble, so you can guess what's happened to Dave here then. No? Well, some evil force has kidnapped him and turn Nate into a bubble dragon from Bubble Bobble, with all of the ferocious abilities of such a formidable creature... err, I mean, he can blow bubbles in your general direction. Well, that can be fatal to at least some of the onscreen roaming baddies anyway.

Of course, it's up to you to save the day. Guide Nate's spritely bubble expelling and bursting dragon to collect 86 bubbles (though not the ones you generate as that'd be too easy); doing so will break the Baron's spell and return everything back to normal, or something. More importanter than this, Dave will be rescued in the process. Right, sounds like a typical excuse to a run-of-the-mill, by-the-numbers platform game to me. Well, yes. And no.

Loading this title nearly got me, turning my glum morning into something cheery and fluffy. The music! So bright, jaunty one might say; I was almost singing along to it, a rendition of "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis & The News. No, not gonna smile... it's just a Speccy game, I've played loads of them. So, it has nice music? Okay. Concentrate. Now to redefine the keys and start the game. And... Finally... I broke. The in game tune is even better than the title music (and there's more than one, depending on the location in the game world) which is mostly a medley of the Back to the Future theme, and Bubble Bobble. This arrangement is excellent, for sure. As for the rest: the graphics are silky smooth and the game play is a delight, responsive, and it's true testament to great design. Aside from this, I appreciate the little touches, the Amstrad Green Screen simulator room, for instance, and the Break Out screen (which brings me to my one complaint; surely one should score points for taking the blocks out before the bouncing ball does?). My conclusion is thus: if you've ever used a Sinclair ZX Spectrum for entertainment purposes, and remember at least some of the 1980s, you must play this game. It's so delightful, so sickly sweet that I cannot help but recommend it wholeheartedly. I mean, if it can make me smile, it must be good, right?

Before I finish this short review, I'd better mention who did what, and where you might get your copy, hadn't I? Right. Bubble Back is carefully and lovingly crafted by Sloanysoft. See sloanysoft.itch.io for this and other titles by the same author. Music is by the award winning Lee Bee, and it's built using something called MPAGD by Jonathan Cauldwell.

That's me done. I've had enough of this cheeriness. I'm going back under my Rock, and I'll bid you a good day.

21 reviews.

I never knew there was so much in it

Back in 2004 or 2005 (citation needed), I was briefly writing for a British magazine called Retro Gamer. And earlier than that, I had the opportunity of writing a retro computer column for Micro Mart magazine, but I choose to do things differently: not to focus on nostalgic articles, but to report the developments that were happening there and then on various 8-bit home computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore C64. Of course, there was enough to write about for a weekly column, and by the time I got to Retro Gamer, enough across multiple 8-bit formats to review four to six games per issue (monthly).

Now, I've offered my writing skills, such as they are, to the ZX Spectrum gaming 'zine BreakSpace, and for issue three, I've completed a total of 21 reviews across a variety of game genres. Sure, BreakSpace is not a monthly periodical. It has a single focus (the Sinclair-branded ZX Spectrum Next Multi-System need not apply here) on the original Spectrum models, from the 16K upwards to Amstrad's 128K varieties. And, of course, the entertainment software that is opined about is new and recent releases (less two re-releases); this isn't just a nostalgia trip. My 7 reviews for each month of the quarter might not sound a lot, but there have been more than double that amount of releases. We're in a new golden age of 8-bit software, with the Spectrum and Commodore C64 leading the way, like it was and as it should be (though I don't keep up with the Atari 2600 scene anymore; that might also be doing well too).

Just a small note: issue three of BreakSpace includes a very special guest reviewer, whose contributions are golden, and I've been lucky enough to see them first (along with the other guys on the team). So, look out for the Autumnal release of issue three; it's going to be a right corker!

A bit about my blog

It has come to my attention that people disagree with some or all of my opinions. Which is nice

It appears that not everyone agrees with my ramblings. In fact, hardly anyone does. And I have no issues with this. For the avoidance of doubt, I write these pages as a form of self therapy: nothing here is meant as a source of truth, and should not be relied upon as such. And whilst there may be some factualities buried here, like a newspaper, those truths are surrounded by a lot of hyperbole, misinformation, half truths and opinion. The difference here is that I am not now - nor have I ever been - any kind of journalist, whereas those writers for those newspapers often claim to be. I am a creative writer, and the only thing that one might ascertain from reading one or more of my blog posts is whatever was in my head at the time of writing, expressed in English words typed out and wrapped in HTML tags for your entertainment purposes. Or not. You could be here equally to hate read and rage, though as someone who has had high blood pressure, I wouldn't recommend that.

In any case, even if you might disagree with me, my opinions, or my conclusions about any given subject matter, then that's healthy. That's called reading. If what I say upsets or offends you, my advice is not to read. But I take a lead from what is being read according to the statistics for each blog post here, and almost certainly some of my most read pages are regarding the Sinclair-branded ZX Spectrum Next, or the ZX Multisystem as it should now be more accurately called.

I guess here that I'm managing a skill that some parts of the Internet are all about: click bait. But in my defence, my views on the ZX Spectrum Next ZX Multisystem computer are honest to my experience of the platform and what I see that is happening to it. Other opinions are available. You may trust, however, that it's not just the ZX Spectrum Next ZX Multisystem in which my views differ from some of the mainstream of the wider "retro community". A caveat here is that I've not been active in said community since around 2012; and when I started to get interested again, as one might expect, everything had changed, and not necessarily for the better.

When I did return (and I'm not saying here that I'm actively and overtly involved like I used to be), I was happy to see that Retro Gamer magazine was still a thing; although it's not a magazine that I would read nor purchase on a regular basis. I think I've procured around 4 issues since 2019 or so. Whilst I could offer my services to it again (and it is just a case of dropping an email to the editor with a proposal of one or more futures, it's not a little more complicated than that), it would be fraudulent to do so. Why write for a publication that one does not read oneself? The last issue I saw didn't give me an impression that this magazine was for someone like me. That's my opinion anyway. It has it's audience, and I'm not one of them.

This is why I ended up joining the BreakSpace team: reading issue one of that was and is pure joy; it is a publication with heart by people who review ZX Spectrum games for all of the right reasons. Thankfully, I was let in to opine on the latest Speccy entertainment software from issue two, and at the time of writing, I've already written 18 reviews for issue three, with some more to do before the looming deadline.

It's great to be writing again and for a publication like BreakSpace, and it's good that I have this blog as an outlet. As already stated, the purpose here is, or has latterly become, to entertain. This blog is so old, I don't remember why I started it in the first place: the likely reason though is because I could. I'm surprised that people still read blogs: like printed magazines, I thought they'd be dead by now, but I do understand Vinny Mainolfi's point about printed matter: landfill sites now have too many waste electronic devices, including tablets, eBook readers and smart phones, so the printed press might not be as environmentally damaging as publishing electronically after all. Anyway, I have more games to review and a deadline to hit. So, I'll leave it there.

The Kickstarter version 3 Sinclair-branded ZX Spectrum Next can play some excellent games, you know

The latest installment in the ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter saga raised over £2.5m

Sometimes, developers for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the parent platform to the ZX Spectrum Next, really surprises me. Be it a demo, or a new piece of entertainment software, it has brought to me much enjoyment over the years, and I've written many words about the good games that have been released since 2002, most notably between then and circa 2015 when life circumstances forced me to stop my weekly "Retro" column, much to the relief of my editor at the time.

Recently, through my work with the excellent publication BreakSpace, I found out about a lot of new game software. If I focus on the recently released Cubix for a moment, this should help to clarify my point (do I ever have a point though?) - at least induldge my aimless waffle.

Cubix is a masterpiece of 8-bit gaming, both in terms of pure enjoyment, and technical achievement. I've not been this impressed with a Speccy game since Jonathan Cauldwell's GameX: The Games Exchange, or Bob Smith's super colourful and pretty intense splATTR, and I commend both games to you wholeheartedly.

Cubix reminds me a little of Nebulus, released by Hewson Consultants in 1987, but is very much its own game. Starting out as just another platformer, you get so far in and you find that there is a virtual twist to proceedings: things start moving in three dimensions, as the platforms rotate horizontally. Not only does this look rather resplendent and technically outstanding, it also proves the point that the best games for the Sinclair-branded ZX Spectrum Next are just plain old ZX Spectrum games that run on out-of-the-box Sinclair hardware to the specific memory requirements of said software. The suggestion that the Spectrum Next was or is THE next geneation Spectrum is now gone, perhaps forever.

One might also argue that, with the inclusion of a Commodore C64 compatible core, and also a ZX81 core, the best games for the Next might also include C64 and ZX81 games. Surely, that's hyperbol, especially noting the old monochrome '81, right? Well, I invite readers to play Bob Smith's One Little Ghost, Boulder Logic, Virus or Pandemic, and tell me if these aren't worth your time. As what's happened with the Speccy, in terms of its best ever software releases happening after its commercial decline, the same has happened on these two platforms as well.

My point is that the Next doesn't have a great software library outside of what was already available by virtue of its parent platform. And whilst adding nice graphics and improved sound to existing and already well known games might give those titles a new lease of life, fundementally one is unable to escape the fact that you are essentially playing the same game. This is why I never liked the PC "Remakes" scene too much, as the Monty on the Run remake was still just Monty on the Run, for instance, so why not just play the original? Although some remakes were more liberal with their implementations, of course, or provided something that the original game could never do because of the vintage hardware specifications.

One thing to note about the £2.5m raised, adjusted for inflation as of 2025-09-16, the original [KS1] amount of £723,390 would be worth approximately £1,063,380, and the KS2 amount of £1,847,106 would be some £2,715,245 today, at least according to this UK Inflation calculator. Of course, these adjusted numbers don't tell the whole story; the KS1 campaign was 289% funded, its second iteration was 739% funded, and its third and maybe final being 1045% funded. Drilling down into the data further, from KS1 to KS2 increased the number of backers by 2,123, and despite the headline figure of the amount raised by the third installment, it managed to add another 2,288 backers from the second campaign. I know Kickstarter is funding driven, but I would have considered a strategy of getting the total number of backers to 10,000, or as close as possible to that, before starting the campaign. As Commodore.net's 64 Ultimate has proven, that should have been possible to do, although the beauty of what Commodore.net is doing is that it is not time limited in the same way, and is something the team behind the Spectrum Next should consider, in my view.

It looks to me like the Spectrum Next will continue to be a posh way to play classic and new Spectrum games on modern televisions. And whilst other solutions are available to do just this, at a much cheaper price, the aesphetic of the Next is definitely much more beautiful that those other solutions. Well, a fool and his money is easily parted, which is why I decided to procure a Commodore.net 64 Ultimate and not back the latest Kickstarter campaign for the Next. I don't need another Next, and honestly can't think of a good use for one; aside from the ZX81 core, the new features offered weren't really of any interest to me, the platform itself seems diluted, perhaps deliberately so, and honestly I thought at the time that it'd be of more value to invest in a MiSTer FPGA solution over the Spectrum Next KS3. The only problem with the MiSTer is that I'd only be using one or two of the cores available, so I'm still not wholly convinced by that either.

Two Million Quid and rising

We can now officially say that the broad Sinclair ZX Spectrum market is a multi-million pound industry

Overall, there are a lot of commercially dead computers from the 1980s and early 1990s that are back; various solutions that emulate or simulate your favourite personal computer exist, with the most accessible being on your modern days PC, or even your Android or Apple Smart Phone.

Specifically, the Sinclair-branded (and now misnamed) ZX Spectrum Next (it should more accurately be called a ZX Multi System or something) has passed the £2m milestone. So in terms of absolute numbers, it's done very well. Whether anyone is getting rich quick on the back of this is an unknown, but this is the second Kickstarter campaign for the ZX Multi System that has raised over £1.5m. I'm sure there is a business model in here somewhere. I'm sure that someone could come along and do what Commodore.net did with the "new" 64 Ultimate machine, and have it on sale (or pre-sale) for longer than a few weeks ever three to five years. I've spoken about that elsewhere.

This multi-system approach is something pretty new: I still maintain that just because you can doesn't mean that you should. But anyway, we are where we are. And revisionists may claim that this was always part of the Next ecosystem, or that it was always intended to be, but this isn't true: there was no indications from the first Kickstarter campaign, nor do I remember anything overt from the second, to suggest the ZX Multi System approach. It just happened, and rather than spending time making it the best ZX Spectrum and Next possible, improving the user experience or user interface (maybe incorporating SymbOS or something), good development time is now going to be spent making the platform do Commodore and even Amstrad CPC stuff (though on the latter point, you'll have to provide your own ROM images, legally or not).

So the Kickstarted III campaign has been a success, and if you look at absolute numbers, it's smashed the previous two campaigns by many thousands of pounds. In the Summer of 2020, when the second Kickstarter campaign ended, it managed to raise (some might say fleece) £1,847,106 from backers. Now, I know this is only five years ago (at the time of writing), but we've had inflation since then. Everyone knows that the money in their pocket is worth less than 5 years ago. If we assume that inflation has averaged 3% annually since 2020, which is a very conservative estimation, that total adjusted for inflation is approximately £2,141,153; in other words, unless something changes in the next few days, this third Kickstarter campaign hasn't necessarily done much better than the second campaign, which is a shame. I would have tried to aim for at least 10,000 backers somehow, and forget how much cash is raised; I would have wanted mass units produced in many more thousands, but hey, there is still time (unless you're reading this in the future, when the campaign has ended).

Someone will point out that the number of backers for KS2 was 5,236, whilst the number of backers for the ZX Multi System is over 6,000. I do worry that many of these backers already own a Next in some form: be it a clone, or one or other or both of the previous campaigns. This means that whilst the numbers look good, there hasn't been a focus on growing the total number of users: sure, the extended cores might bring some new people to the party, but I doubt this will be significant. And I can't imagine that anyone will be procuring this ZX Multi System only for one of the available cores. I mean, if you want an established multi system like device, there is the MiSTer FPGA, which isn't dependent on a time-limited Kickstarter campaign. From what I can tell too, prices are cheaper for the MiSTer, though I don't know that much about it. And as the ZX Spectrum Next specific bits of the ZX Multi System are open source, it might also be available on the MiSTer?

My biggest frustration is, of course, that I was once sold on the idea of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum Next as a platform. The original specifications seemed great, and 14Mhz, I thought, well that ought to be enough for anyone. Since then, it's become diluted and, as I like to say, it's the "Snakes on a Plane" of the retro computer world. If you know, you know.

On a more positive note, I’ve thrown my hat in for the C64 Ultimate, choosing it over the ZX Multi System. I know the 64U platform - it’s mature, well-developed, and driven by a singular vision that delivers an excellent user experience. Its interface is refreshingly straightforward, requiring little effort to master. And best of all, it’s the ultimate C64: crank it to 48MHz, eliminate bad lines, toss in up to four SID chips (two real, two emulated) with ease, and add 16MB of REU RAM — perfect for running GEOS smoothly. The potential is thrilling, a true next-gen Commodore 64. While I’m hoping for a pre-Christmas 2025 delivery, I’m bracing for possible delays. Still, when that modern bread bin lands on my doorstep, it’ll spark the same joy as unwrapping a C64 in the 1980s. Huzzah!

Back in black

THEC64 Mini is back, and it's black

According to the C64-Wiki, THEC64 Mini debuted at the end of September in 2017, and, as I recall, units shipped early 2018. Whilst imperfect (more on that later), it has done very well, selling in the hundreds of thousands since, and remains Retro Games Ltd's (RGL) most popular product, still available in some places for as little as £50 in the UK. Though, TheSpectrum (also from RGL) is hot on its heels since it was launched in November 2024.

Just over 8 years after its launch, and THEC64 Mini is back in a beautiful matte black finish, complete with a microswitched joystick. Unlike the regular unit, with THEC64 and the Mini sharing many games (with an outlier being THEVIC20), the new unit, due to launch October 2025 (I'm really hoping that people don't start calling it THEC64 Blackie or something, I'm going to refer to it as the BE (Black Edition) henceforth) contains some of the best games ever to grace the C64 platform. Headline acts are from Protovision, with the unreal Sam's Journey and A Pig Quest stand out titles, along with Covert BitOps dystopian cyberpunk classic Hessian.

As far as I can gather, only 25 games are included, but all of them are absolute "bangers", as some young 'uns might say these days! In no particular order of greatness, the entertainment software included is as follows:

1. Yeti Mountain
2. Spinning Image
3. Steel Ranger
4. A Pig Quest
5. Hessian
6. Joe Gunn: Gold Edition
7. Hunter's Moon Remastered
8. It's Magic 2
9. Runn 'N' Gunn
10. Guns 'N' Ghosts
11. Metal Warrior Ultra
12. Millie & Molly
13. Rocky Memphis: The Legend of Atlantis
14. Good Kniight
15. Planet Golf
16. Nixy and the Seeds of Doom
17. P0 Snake
18. Grid Pix
19. Caren and the Tangled Tentacles
20. Ooze: The Escape
21. Sam's Journey
22. Shadow Switcher
23. Pains 'N' Aches
24. Knight 'N' Grail
25. Galencia

As for the imperfections of the original THEC64 Mini, most notable of these was the poor joystick build quality: the stem could snap too easily. In order to get the most out of the platform, there is some learning involved, and some manual work, for instance, remembering file flags or manually creating Commodore Joystick Map files with a text editor (on your modern PC or Mac) per game or per game folder. Perhaps the firmware has been updated so that this is no longer an issue, bringing the platform in line with the user experience on TheSpectrum and THEA500 Mini? Maybe then there is a new and improved UI. And maybe the launch of THEC64 Mini BE tells of a reboot for the platform, with the future being a THEC64c in a slimline casing? All will be revealed I'm sure. I'm wondering too if this Mini variant will support VIC-20 software? The temptation to do this with previous firmware upgrades was likely due to a lack of a keyboard, especially as THEC64 was nearly twice the price of the Mini at launch.

As a side note, it seems that RGL has resisted and probably not even thought about making THEC16 or THEPlus4 (gotta get that productivity software, right?), or maybe this is a hint that this will be a thing too? I'm letting my imagination go wild here. Anyway, I now have to wonder, do I want THEC64 Mini BE in my life? A positive might be an improved user experience, and I'll definitely be supporting indie C64 developers (note that all of the titles are post-commercial games). The joystick might also be a joy to use as well. But I'm waiting just like everyone else, and curiosity will get the better of me. As they say, a fool and his money are easily parted.