The good news is: it's NOT cancelled! But public health still comes first.
Due to the ongoing Corona virus outbreak, with social life in the Netherlands being restricted to a minimum since Monday 23rd, the organisers of the "Flashback 20/20 feat. Amiga 35" event, originally to be held on June 27th/28th, have decided to postpone it to September 12th/13th 2020. According to the announcement, event tickets will remain valid for the new dates. It is recommended to reach out to your travel booking partners, if required.
"We will make sure that we use the extra time between now and September to prepare for an even better event!", the announcement says.
The University of Applied Sciences Hochschule Augsburg also takes measures against Sars-CoV-2 virus spread.
Another retro computing event, the "RETROpulsiv 15.0" to be held at the University of Applied Sciences Augsburg from 04. - 05.04.2020 has been cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID-19 disease.
With numbers of infections still rising, schools, day-care centers, kindergardens, etc. will be shut down in Germany from tomorrow. Several German regional administrations have extended the restriction on public events to 100 (Bavaria) or 50 (Berlin) participants at most, or are forbidding such events entirely (e.g. city of Kiel).
Due to the current outbreak of COVID-19 caused by the new Corona virus, Revision 2020 demo party to be held in Saarbrücken, Germany, from April 10th to 13th 2020, is cancelled - but there's a backup plan.
Based on recommendations from health organisations and doctors, several German states are now denying permits to hold events with more than 1000 visitors. With probably less visitors expected, the Revision party is not directly affected by this practice, but the obvious nature of such an event - esp. the many visitors from different countries - demands increased responsibility from the organisers.
"We are devastated to share this news with you", the cancellation announcement says. Indeed, this is sad news for the Amiga scene, but it's a wise and inevitable decision.
But! There will be events.
The organisers promise to refund all current tickets. They're also working hard on set of live video streams, planned to be broadcast during the days the original event, covering demo competitions, seminars, music acts, etc. There will be extra livestream tickets allowing virtual visitors to cast their votes and submit entries.
"We’re in full crunch mode on the streaming event now and there will be more information coming up in the following days."
Dude, that's a lot of games. The game development scene is bustling with activity. Next round of Amiga entertainment from 2019/2020. There's no time to waste, here we go.
DaemonClaw: Origins of Nnar
Around Aug. 2019, a new side scrolling action game "DaemonClaw: Origins of Nnar" made it's first appearance. Since then, developers BitBeamCannon keep posting development updates on their YouTube channel. The game's development has started on the Amiga, then has been moved to modern platforms, utilizing the Construct 2 engine by Scirra. The developers plan to start working on the final Amiga version once gamedesign and assets are done.
It's gorgeous! You can see a previews of the game in parallax-scrolling motion in the developer's videos. Amiga hardware requirements are unknown so far, but with the promised "classic 16-bit" graphics we can probably assume a OCS/ECS 1MB ChipRAM target platform.
"AmiSaber" by Electric Black Sheep also popped up around Aug. 2019. It looks quite abstract on first sight - and it does so on second! But that's intentional: "AmiSaber" is a kind-of-port of virtual reality game "BeatSaber", in which you try to hit square objects in sync with the music, with a virtual saber in each hand. The Amiga version is controlled using two mice. Very cool. Is this the first two-mice game since "The Settlers"?
Tron-ish, thus great, graphics not too unlike the original, good audio quality, awesome dual-saber controls, and tools and documentation included to create your own levels, using your own music!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSQVol9S4f4
You can download "AmiSaber" from Electric Black Sheep's website:
Announced in October 2019, "Rotator" is a challenging game of skill, in which you control your craft through more or less vertical landscapes, collecting diamonds, and avoiding all sorts of obstacles, while being threatened by a rising flood below you. It was originally developed in the 1990s, didn't get a release back then, has recently been reworked with updated music, graphics, and levels, and can now be pre-ordered from Psytronik Software.
Tiny animated objects, speech samples, some craft bouncing around, a purple flood, countless levels - this really look great, and enjoyably difficult. And there will also be couple of extra features that should enhance gameplay experience and usability, like a replay mode, where you take manual control of your craft during an automatic replay of your previous attempt.
There will be digital download, and a physical "Collector's Edition Box Set" release. The box set will include floppy disks, sticker, artwork poster (A3 format), and more!
Gameplay video "Rotator - Into The Realm of Obscurity" (2020-02-10):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtsnLGHyLHs
Go to Psytronik's website for more details and pre-order:
Also by Electric Black Sheep is "Project Horizon", a top-view tactical action game that obviously takes place on the dark side of the moon. There's not too much of a back story so far, but the developers have some great ideas, and a spectacular cinematic intro video gives an idea of the direction this is taking: You've landed on the moon, and you're gonna need guns!
"Project Horizon" is still in development, a gameplay preview video (including the intro movie) has been uploaded to YouTube in January. It has nicely animated graphics, and great sound effects, but there are also a couple of features that add a tactical side to the gameplay: destructable environment, different enemy attack modes, mines, a disguised "infiltrator" mode, and an allied non-player-character.
This sounds very exciting, and on top of all the good news it's planned to be free, including sourcecode and level editor. Seriously, you cannot ask for more.
The game will require an Amiga with ECS chipset (or better), 2 MB ChipRAM, and a harddrive.
Some time around mid-2019 developers Daniel Stephens, Kevin Saunders and Lee Smith started development of new sidescrolling shoot-em-up game "Boss Machine", making a public announcement in December. They hope to release the game in 2020.
From watching the latest work-in-progress video - released only two days ago - it immediately becomes clear that this is going to be a fine game. Horizontal parallax scrolling rarely looked that good, and such an amount of vertical freedom of movement has rarely been seen at all in that specific genre, on the Amiga. The developers haven't decided on a final target platform yet, "Boss Machine" runs on OCS/ECS, and AGA tests have been made.
Watch "Boss Machine Amiga Level 1" video (2020-03-05):
Still more 2019 games! And some 2020 gaming news, too! Yes, we're transitioning into 2020, but in many cases development dates back to
2019, or even further. Either way, more awesomeness here.
R.E.R.O. - Amiga H.E.R.O. remake
"R.E.R.O. - Rocket driven Emergency Rescue Operation" is a remake of cave exploration and rescue game "H.E.R.O. - Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operation", originally released in 1984 for Atari 2600 and ported to many 8-bit platforms.
Cave rescue teams use rocket engineering these days.
In November 2019,
a nine level preview of R.E.R.O was released. It runs on a standard
Amiga 500, but utilizes more RAM if present. The game looks great, it's
tastefully colorful, detailed, and moves smoothly! It also sounds great,
with a nice minimalistic in-game soundtrack and lots of oldskool
soundeffects!
The original "H.E.R.O." had a certain
flow to it - you could fly around quite swifly if you knew your way.
"R.E.R.O." seems to do a very good job at capturing the original game's
pacing and precision.
Bombs open paths, but get away from that explosion!
A possible Christmas 2019 release was tentatively mentioned, but has
passed without further news. We're still happily looking forward to a
final release.
"Stalker" was rediscovered and restored after members of English Amiga Board (EAB) had found the game in 2013, and wondered what it could be. After some investigation it turned out the game was created in 1993 by Jozsef Punk, Viktor Dara, and Ferenc Bardos. Jozsef and Ferenc had been coding Amiga demos since 1989 as a group called "FI-RE Crew". Jozsef was contacted by the members of EAB,
and gave them the full game in its latest development version plus assembler sourcecode and permission to publish both
publicly. Cool. :-)
So far this is rather old "news", but in January 2020 some more work was put into the game by adding improved title screens from various previous versions, creating the latest, previously unavailable release 0.778.
That's a hell of a machine.
According to the author, "Stalker"'s main feature is the rearrangeable playfield:
"The player controls a [...] robot in a scene that is built by same sized blocks. These blocks are moveable in rearrange mode." That sounds very interesting!
They said Doom can't be done on an Amiga.
They said Alien Breed 3D was the best an Amiga could do.
They said you need a 68030 (at least).
Now we're getting actual "Doom" for an unexpanded, 7MHz Amiga 500. Well, kind of, and it goes by the name of "Dread". When this popped up about a week ago it caused quite some excitement, for obvious reasons. Actually this is from 2019, a highly optimized and specialized 2.5D FPS engine by KK/Altair (from Altair demo group) that was first shown at the Xenium developer conference in Poland in Aug./Sep. 2019, but it's the "making-of" video that gets people's attention these days.
Currently this is nowhere near completion, but it very much looks as if the author is working towards a full "Dread" game release. Stay tuned, and in the meantime enjoy the video:
Watch "Dread Ep 01 - making "Doom" clone for Amiga 500" (2020-02-23)
Very welcome news from the commercial side of Amiga gaming: In February 2020, Adrian Cummings announced the return of his software label "Mutation Software"!
Currently planned releases are a "Micro Series Collectors Signature edition" of remastered games "Tin Toy", "Tommy Gun", and "Castle Kingdoms" in early 2020, and a new game called "Wiz" towards the end of the year.
http://hol.abime.net/1441/screenshot
"Tin Toy" requires an AGA Amiga, as will the new game "Wiz" do, while "Tommy Gun" and "Castle Kingdoms" run on 1MB OCS/ECS Amiga.
http://hol.abime.net/1455/screenshot
Note that these screenshots are from the original game versions - the new editions will be remastered.
http://hol.abime.net/2944/screenshot
All games will be available in digital and physical form. The "Micro Series Collectors Signature edition" (physical, boxed) will contain the game on floppy disc, and a free drinks coaster, and should be available in March - that's pretty much right now!
Yeah, super smooth "Super Hang-On" style motorcycle racing on any Amiga with 1MB! Ok, not really, but a video released in February 2020 shows a demo that could potentially turn into a great clone, potentially better than the official port the Amiga got back in the day.
Author vesuri, from artist/demo group dA JoRMaS, doesn't have any plans to turn this into a game, but he's considering to release the source code - maybe someone will pick this up and...?
Ready, set, go: "dA JoRMaS: Bonus Stage #75" video (2020-02-15)
Another update to the AMIGA alive Web Directory - 63 new links added, now 473 websites listed!
As always, if
you're looking for something specific, make sure to check the "Misc /
Mixed" section, as some websites cover multiple different subjects, e.g.
software authors may have created very different applications.
We're about to catch up with 2019's game developments for the Amiga, with another set of exciting new productions.
Jump!
Announced around June 2019, "Jump!" is a conversion of AtariXE/XL game "Yoomp!". You control a ball bouncing through a tunnel made of panels, some of which can speed up your ball, or have other effects on the gameplay. It's a tactical arcade action game, similar to "Trailblazer" on the C64.
In January 2020 a teaser video of "Jump!" has been released, and it looks awesome! No surprise it looks slightly better than "Yoomp" on the Atari, but who would've expected something even a Playstation wouldn't be too ashamed of? The tunnel animation and overall quality of the graphics are near-perfect, colorful, shaded, smooth, with simple but flashy special effects - and it has a Boing Ball!
The game will require an Amiga with AGA chipset, 68020/14MHz CPU and 4MB of FastRAM, or better. It runs in 320x256 pixels resolution, 256 colors, at 25fps. Planned release is Q3 2020.
Here's the video: "Jump! teaser #1" (2020-01-20)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHHgPQ8mHYI
Check out Jump!'s homepage at: http://amigajump.com Additional sources: http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/06/jump-amiga-version-of-yoomp-has-been.html https://www.ppa.pl/forum/strefa-gier/40284/jump-amiga-yoomp
Tiny Little Slug
Another beautiful platformer is in development and close to completion, "Tiny Little Slug" by Slamy and XplrA, for (pretty much) all Amigas, including CD32, with a planned release around spring 2020.
In the game, you get a neat slug with wall and ceiling climbing abilities, water and fire effects, parallax scrolling, and some even lesser usual features like a tutorial demo mode and online (internet! yay!) highscore tables, or offline saving to CD32's non-volatile RAM, if you prefer.
As we can see in their "Final Update Video", the developers obviously put extra time into tweaking playability & gameplay, and adding extra features to make "Tiny Little Slug" an overall complete Amiga platform game experience.
The "Tiny Little Slug" very much looks like it's gonna be a "Huge Giant Hit"!
Watch the developers' "Tiny Little Slug - Final Update Video" (2019-12-05) for more details:
Good old Cold War brought us the infamous "Raid over Moscow" back in 1984. The game was released for most 8-bit homecomputers, and was a best-seller for the Commodore 64. An Amiga port was in development back in the day, but was cancelled. Only now, just 30 years later, with the Cold War long gone, can we truly experience the excitement of nuclear threat on our Amigas.
Title screen, now on the Amiga!
The Amiga port is developed by Erik Hogan, with graphics by original "Raid over Moscow" artist Adrian Cummings, and soundtrack by Simone Bernacchia. It should run on any Amiga with 512KB ChipRAM plus 512KB other RAM, and supports joysticks with one or two buttons and CD32 joypad.
Guide your spaceship toward the launch site, avoid obstacles
Note that these screens are from the preview release, which is still undergoing optimization and bugfixing, and when done is planned to be a "final release" of the Amiga port of "Raid over Moscow". Also planned is a second, separate game, with reworked graphics and significant updates, which the authors refer to as a "spiritual sequel" with a possible commercial release.
Announced in September 2019, "Metro Siege" by Pixelglass / BitBeamCannon / Enable Software, is an original street brawler game for OCS Amigas (512KB ChipRAM plus 512KB other RAM), similar to "Renegade" and "Shadow Warriors".
It features single player and dual player co-op gameplay, arcade style sound and hi-quality graphics with more than 60 colours and parallax scrolling, multi button joystick and joypad
support, and an elaborate combat system with lots of moves including dodging and blocking.
http://pixelglass.org/images/MetroSiege/6.png
The gameplay looks fast and exciting, "Metro Siege" obviously makes proper use of the Amiga hardware, providing accuracy and responsiveness to the player.
No release date has been set, but with the game being in a playable state since 2019 maybe we can assume a final version in 2020.
"Recoil" is a 1989 Atari ST game similar to "Defender", originally released as a coverdisk of Zero magazine. Recently it got ported to the Amiga by Galahad, ADRDesign, and Notorious. Probably not the most exciting game ever, but a nice addition to the catalogue, and according to the team of coders it wasn't a terrible amount of work.
"Recoil" has this little twist to it, the spaceship doesn't fly freely but is tied to a "mothership" at the top of the screen. Check it out, it's a simple but fun sidescrolling shooter.
