Dee Dee Planet Is Now Online!

It’s been a good bit since I’ve been able to make one of these posts, but Shuouma is back folks! This time he’s restored the online functionality for Dee Dee Planet! Well, I guess I should say he’s brought the game online for the first time since the game was never officially released.

If you don’t know the story behind the game, it was intended to be the second game in Sega’s “Easy Network” series of online games following ChuChu Rocket!. The idea behind this series was to make online games that anyone could play, regardless of their gaming skill level. Sadly, ChuChu Rocket! was the only “Easy Network” game released due to Dee Dee Planet’s cancellation.

The reason behind the game’s cancellation was an unusual one. It was actually finished and ready to go into production when a “network bug” was found at the last minute. Initially, this just postponed the release but ultimately the game ended up being cancelled altogether, most likely due to the Dreamcast being on its way out at this point in 2001.

The nature of this “network bug” is still unknown. In our testing, we have yet to encounter any issues when playing online. It’s possible the bug was on the server side of things, which would make it a non-issue since Shuouma has built the server from the ground up. Then again, maybe the bug is still in the game but only rears its ugly head on rare occasions. Who knows. Either way, we’re just thrilled that the game’s online mode works at all. Worst case scenario, it might have been completely broken. Count your lucky stars folks!

A huge thanks goes out as usual to Shuouma for giving us the awesome gift of another online game, giving us a grand total of 24 online multiplayer games playable in 2022! If you want to know how to get online with this game, be sure to check out the Connection Guide. Hope to see you on the Dee Dee Planet soon!

As is usual with these new server launches, there may be bugs. Be sure to report them in the Dreamcast-Talk thread here.

Update: The “network bug” may have been identified. We’ve discovered the game doesn’t report player stats correctly to the server, so this means the rankings are completely broken. That being said, they’ve been removed from the server. The game still plays perfectly fine online, there just won’t be any leaderboards. Regardless, just the fact that we can play this game online at all is amazing enough!