Games Galore #44: Rastan, Night/Shift, Guardian - The Legend Of The Flaming Sword, Spheroid, Doomed Castle, R.A.N.A.

Still browsing through 2023 game developments, some of which are still in the works, or have been released only recently: arcade classic remake, text adventure, platformers, a puzzler, and a frogger clone.

Rastan (demo)

Since 2023, loosely-regular demos of this remake of 1987 Taito arcade classic "Rastan" (aka "Rastan Saga") have been published, with the latest showing version 0.33. It runs on any Amiga with at least 1MB of RAM, and it looks really very good. Some of it is pretty close to the original, some has received a bit of an upgrade, and on the sonic side, it's a nice, fairly accurate remake of the original soundtrack. 

Great stuff, another arcade classic that previously wasn't available for the Amiga!

Here's the latest video of "Rastan" for Amiga, on Per-Ola Eriksson's YouTube channel (2025-02-11)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BKYL5MBdTo

Go to the game's website for more information and download:
https://basementape.itch.io/rastan-amiga-500 

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2023-07-00092-EN.html (demo 0.32)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastan_(video_game) (1987 arcade original)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Binxdx_Qzb4 (1987 arcade original longplay)

Night/Shift

Released in June 2023, "a cypherpunk adventure" it is, says the website, by Eclectic Imaginations. In "Night/Shift", your goal is to uncover the greatest conspiracy of the current time in the game's universe. 

In case you didn't know: a "cypherpunk" is someone how fights for privacy and security in digital technology.

"Night/Shift" is an OS-friendly, mouse-driven, click-and-explore text adventure game, with dozens of locations, some nicely atmospheric audio, and a lot of hi-quality, hi-res HAM8 graphics. And, hey, it's free to download!

"Night/Shift" runs on AGA Amigas with 2MB ChipRAM and AmigaOS 3 or higher, and requires 23MB of free harddisk space.

Here's a video of "Night/Shift" on YouTube channel Manga 303 (2023-07-03): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t876GJbcQA

Go to the game's website for more information and download:
https://www.nightshift.cx

Direct download link for your convenience: https://www.nightshift.cx/NightShift.lha

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2023-06-00108-DE.html

 

Guardian - The Legend Of The Flaming Sword (demo)

We've reported about "Guardian - The Legend Of The Flaming Sword" before, so we'll just leave it with a quick note here. At the end of June 2023, new footage of this side-scrolling platformer was uploaded to YouTube, and it is currently still the latest demo material available, so we're assuming the game is still in development.

Here's the latest video of "Guardian - The Legend Of The Flaming Sword" on Yoz Montana's YouTube channel (2023-07-24):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe1W90GUOKQ

Go to Yoz Montana's website for more information:
http://www.yozmontana.com

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2023-06-00119-DE.html
https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1625190&postcount=793

 

Spheroid

We've reported about "Spheroid" before, too. Since then, more demos were shown, a 2023 christmas edition was available, and at the beginning of 2024, what appears to be the final version was released. It's (still) an (now even more) enjoyable arcade puzzle game, featuring a sphere and a lot of tiles, and some dramatic, pumpin' music. "Spheroid" runs spherical on any Amiga with at least 1MB of RAM.

Here's a video of "Spheroid" on YouTube channel MODERN RETRO GAMING NEWS (2025-01-01):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu29skCDZA0

Go to the game's itch.io page, for more information and download:
https://andyvaisey.itch.io/spheroid

Doomed Castle (demo)

A game that popped up in July 2023 is "Doomed Castle" by M.A. Soft, and it has some serious similarities with classic "Castlevania", initially released for Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom) in 1986. 

It looks great, with detailed and highly colorful graphics, and has a very nice soundtrack, so if you like side-scrolling whip'n'punch platform games, make sure you check it out.

"Doomed Castle" runs on any Amiga with at least 512KB of ChipRAM and 512KB of FastRAM. Some CPU acceleration is recommended to avoid slowdowns.

Here's a video of "Doomed Castle" on Tony Galvez' YouTube channel (2023-07-03):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MblJg69ggw8

If you like to know more about the game, you can check out the forum thread at the English Amiga Board:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=114941

To download "Doomed Castle" (zipped .adf), click this link:
https://mega.nz/file/Ml0BFabC#nL_aLfNF7_hM8Xrwli3daPK0Oi3ZLaztAfwmN940Fp8

Additional sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_(1986_video_game) (original Famicom/NES game)

R.A.N.A.

"R.A.N.A." is short for "Reckless Amphibian New Adventures". "Reckless" doesn't equal "indestructible", so this little amphibian has to be careful to make it to the other side of the road and the river. "Rana", without the points in between, also happens to be the Italian and Spanish word for "frog". 

Does this ring a bell? Yes, it's a Frogger clone. The game was actually developed in 2021, but uploaded to aminet in July 2023. It seems it's not the easiest of Frogger games, and... is the reckless amphibian somehow explosive?

"R.A.N.A" runs on all Amigas, only requiring a joystick. If you like to know how "RANA" works under the hood, you can take a look at the assembler source code available at https://github.com/coppersoft/rana.

Here's a YouTube video of "RANA" on Amiga Retro Channel (2023-07-01): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kVDGhPmAM

You can download the game from aminet:

http://aminet.net/package/game/jump/rana

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2023-07-00012-EN.html

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #45"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Lara Croft (literally) runs on the Amiga!

A lot of people have been waiting for this - the time has come: play "Tomb Raider" on your Amiga!

This popped up just hours ago. Ok, it's "OpenLara", and so far only a proof of concept / tech demo - some features are missing - but it's the actual Tomb Raider-ess, it runs very smooth on a PiStorm, and from what we're hearing so far, it's even playable on a 68030. That's quite a lot!

Gaming was never the same after the Playstation came out, and 3D graphics in games became near-mandatory in the early 90s. "Tomb Raider" was one of the pivotal games of the era, and had an enormous reach, certainly in part due to its attractive lead character, Lara Croft. In 2016, "OpenLara" was started, an open-source remake of the original Tomb Raider engine, by XProger. It has been ported to many platforms, and you can even play it in your webbrowser.

Thanks to famous Amiga software porter BSzili, we now (almost) have "OpenLara" on the Amiga, too - outstanding!

Here's the current demo, in a video on great retro gaming YouTube channel Saberman RetroNews (2025-04-03):

video source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_rXLZvkaX8

If you'd like to read about the latest bleeding-edge updates to BSzili's port of "OpenLara", you can follow the discussion on English Amiga Board:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=120230

You can also visit his website at http://bszili.morphos.me/ and see the numerous other great ports of games for different Amiga platforms he has created.

More about "Tomb Raider" (original game):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider_(1996_video_game)

UPDATE 2025-04-05:
The video above shows "OpenLara" running on an Amiga emulator. Here's another video using real hardware, Amiga 1200 with 68060 and 68030 CPU: 

video source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiNTp1jlrR4

Grind - new demo! (Dev Arena v0.6)

Yet another preview of "Grind" - the grown up brother of Amiga 500 Doom-clone "Dread" - just popped up on YouTube.

"Dread" was a super impressive project that spawned full-game-release project "Grind", and it's looking better than ever. 

Here's the latest video, that was uploaded just minutes ago to famous retro-gaming channel Saberman RetroNews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-SAnj6E9vY

Check out Saberman RetroNews YouTube channel, and make sure you visit IndieRetroNews website for latest retro-gaming news!

Grind: new demo "Darkenward East v0.3"

More breaking news of Amiga gaming: Spectacular low-end first person shooter "Grind", formerly known as "Dread", just got a new demo release.

With a new name and new developer team, "Grind" is the overhauled and polished successor of "Dread", and now we can see (part of) what has been happening in the meantime. A new demo version of "Grind" just got released, and the results are stunning. It's currently only available for patreon supporters - but thanks to YouTube and famous retro gaming channel Saberman RetroNews we can watch a video and enjoy the outstanding diesel-punk look of playable demo level "Darkenward East".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11TYIX6TRyg

Check out "Grind" homepage at pixelglass.org:

https://pixelglass.org/#grind

And why not become a patreon supporter?

https://www.patreon.com/Grind_Amiga

 

Reshoot Proxima 3 launch today

Finally we get some news about hardcore shoot-em-up "Reshoot Proxima 3".

And it's great news. The long awaited sequel to "Reshoot R" (and "Reshoot") is ready for launch - "Spieleschreiber" Richard Loewenstein and team have just put a new trailer video on their YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqFjQmfO6F4

...which means you can buy the game NOW! :-D

Go to amigashop.org to order your copy:
http://www.amigashop.org

Also check out Spieleschreiber's Amiga Joker magazine:
https://www.spieleschreiber.de/amiga-joker-digital/

And while you're at it you can also support the author via patreon:
http://www.patreon.com/loewenstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

Denise V2.0 Amiga emulator

"Denise" is a new Amiga (and C64) emulator for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. And it's surprisingly good!

Development of "Denise" seems to date back to around 2017, when it started as a Commodore 64 emulator. In March 2023 author PiCiJi released version 2.0, which adds Amiga 500 and 1000 emulation. Running Fedora Linux, I gave it a quick try.

Apart from downloading and extracting the archive, no program installation was required. Just double-clicking "Denise" program icon, and selecting Kickstart ROM file and ADF in the preferences, I was able to nicely play a round of "Tinyus", with sound, and without any glitches or performance issues (i7-4790T, 2.7GHz). 

Double-click icon, select Kickstart ROM, select ADF, and play. Nice!

"Denise" has a little bit of history, which certainly helps when a new emulated platform is created. Preference and menus need a little more work (localization, graphics), but nothing's missing, and everything (still) looks very clearly structured with the added Amiga-related items. (Most?) changes to preferences take effect immediately.

When playing "Tinyus", I had to make a little change to the input configuration: "Tinyus" needs the Space-bar key, which is occupied by Joystick-Fire-Button per default. Assigning a new key just took a couple of seconds without reading instructions. Perfect.

"Denise" preferences: C64 and Amiga cores

"Denise" feels as if it has been designed with a lot of modularity in mind. For example it looks as if the (emulated) video output section from the existing C64 emulation is being used for Amiga video, too - which totally makes sense, as both machines generate quite similar video signals. And there is a "core selection" setting - future new cores can probably be expected.

More "Denise" preferences

Emulation performance was perfect with "Tinyus", which is also reflected by SysInfo's speed test results: "Denise" runs cycle-exact. (No further performance tests were done by me at the current point in time.)

SysInfo: That looks pretty cycle-accurate.

To round it up, here's a shot of "Denise"'s C64 emulation running "Destroyer", and the C64 settings window.

"Denise" C64 emulation and preferences

It's still a bit rough around the edges, and a bit limited, but, wow, "Denise" is a fantastic new Amiga 500 and 1000 emulator! And you get a great C64 emulator along the way! Try it, it's great!

You can download "Denise" from its sourceforge website

https://sourceforge.net/projects/deniseemu/

If you like to read some program code you can visit "Denise"'s git repo:

https://bitbucket.org/piciji/denise/src/master/

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2023-04-00113-EN.html

Games galore #34: Riamel Black Prophecy, Hyper Runner, Dungeoneer Turbo, Junior's Great Adventure, The Cthulhu Project

As always, lots of stuff happening: fantasy dungeons galore, a literally "classic" platformer, and, yes, a new 3D racing game!

Riamel Black Prophecy

A game-that-wasn't turned into a game-that-is: "Riamel Black Prophecy" is an iso-3D dungeon-crawler and role-playing-game from around 1994, and the sequel to "Lords of Time". Legend has it that a couple of copies of the full game might have been sold, but it was basically considered unreleased. Some time around 2018 efforts were started (see links below if you wanna read the full story) to find and restore "Riamel Black Prophecy" - and in 2022 it was finally made publicly available (again).

Well, "Lords of Time" was a hit and still has some following, so "Riamel Black Propehcy" is a must for fantasy RPG fans!

The game requires 1.5 MB RAM, 512 KB of which must be ChipRAM, and two floppy drives or a hard drive.

Here's a video from Manga 303's YouTube channel (2022-07-11):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSvsVbSA7ac

Check out IndieRetroNews' article for full information and downloads:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/06/riamel-black-prophecy-3-disk-amiga.html

Additional sources:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1550102
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2022/06/riamel-black-prophecy/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Time

Hyper Runner (work-in-progress)

Ah, very good: A new 3D-racing game! "Hyper Runner" by Raster Wizards (creators of Barbarian+) is under development, with occasional preview videos being released. It's obviously far from finished, but the graphics look fast and beautiful, with a couple of nice touches showing great attention to detail: the track color gradient gives a nice illusion of depth and merges near perfectly into the background imagery, ship engines gradually turn on and off, z-scaling of graphics looks pretty much perspective-correct, female speech samples, ... - yeah, an all-round very good looking package with some proper house music.

Here's a video from Raster Wizards' YouTube channel (2022-08-21):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ctt027V39Q

For the latest news about "Hyper Runner" you can follow RasterWizards on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/RasterWizards

Additional sources:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/08/hyper-runner-wicked-sci-fi-racer-for.html

Dungeoneer Turbo

This Gauntlet-style arcade game popped up in May 2022. In "Dungeoneer Turbo" you control a weirdly cute looking green PacMan-ish character who encounters all kinds of otherworldly creatures on his quest to make it through the dungeons.

The graphics look quite simple, but effective, and it appears to be quite a fast paced, smoothly playable game - perfect for many quick and addictive sessions of top-view dungeoneering action.

Here's a video from Per-Ola Eriksson's YouTube channel (2022-05-12):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvmRVUcTPLI

Go to the game's website for more information and downloads:
https://mccheesebob.itch.io/dungeoneer-turbo

Additional sources:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/05/dungeoneer-turbo-fast-paced-gauntlet.html

Junior's Great Adventure

This is a platformer created by Amigamers that clearly takes strong inspiration from early 20th century cartoons such as Felix the Cat or early Mickey Mouse.

So Junior must climb and jump and run and collect, dodge rats and other charming characters, and make his way through numerous levels. The graphics are cartoonish, the game doesn't look too easy to play, there's a nice honky-tonk piano tune playing along, and (almost) everything is presented in old-film sepia color tones - very good!

The game requires an Amiga with 1MB RAM and Kickstart 2.1 or higher.

Here's a video from YouTube channel "Il Paul Di Gomma" (2022-12-20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qP3RHsjRoo

You can download "Junior's Great Adventure" from Amigatronics' website:
https://amigatronics.wordpress.com/2022/04/24/amigamers-juniors-great-adventure

Additional sources:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/05/juniors-great-adventure-rather-unusual.html

The Cthulhu Project (work-in-progress)

Dungeon crawling is popular among Amiga gamers, and "The Cthulu Project" is an upcoming new dungeon crawler game by Captain DarkN3mo. Cool.

No release date has been set yet, as the game is obviously still under development (see video below) - but we can already see all the ingredients required for a nice round of classic underground crawling: 3d graphics, 4-way step movement, compass and map, fantasy sci-fi/horror theme, ... and on top of that it's friggin' Cthulu him(them?)self!

Here's the latest video from Captain DarkN3m0's YouTube channel (2023-02-25):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHrh4L7sI20

Keep an eye on Captain DarkN3mo's YouTube channel for updates and more details!

Additional sources:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/05/the-cthulhu-project-upcoming-dungeon.html

* * *

...and some bonus gaming news (?):

CyberPunks 2 announced - or maybe not?

We've reported about this game before, and for a short period of time a new preview video was available on YouTube channel "AmigaDweeb" (@MutationSoftware). It was published on Dec. 10th 2022, but has been removed.

AmigaDweeb (@MutationSoftware) YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@MutationSoftware

Video link, outdated (removed):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrH6QBq8DPE

We'll just keep this note here for historical reasons, and stay tuned for more news about "CyberPunks 2".

Additional sources:
http://www.mutationsoftware.uk
https://softamuse.itch.io
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/05/cyberpunks-2-as-official-amiga.html

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #35"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

 

Games galore #33: Maria Renard's Revenge, Karate Champ 500, Spheroid, Farmiga, GermZ

Is this a coronavirus-lockdown effect? Developers seem to have become increasingly productive - in 2022, new Amiga games have been and still are popping up like mushrooms after a warm, rainy day.

 

Maria Renard's Revenge

Pretty much whenever you hear something French, you can be sure it has beauty and taste. ("French fries" ;-) ) This is certainly true for this outstandingly beautiful new game, which is currently under development by DomKid. 

As the title suggests, Mademoiselle Renard is a bit of a damsel-in-distress, meaning in order to get her revenge, she has to travel various dungeons and landscapes populated with dragons, skeletons, giant worms, and other such species, and of course avoid being harmed by the aforementioned. A friendly bird is at her side, but darkness, lava pits, falling stalactites and similar obstacles don't particularly make her journey easier...

Long story short: "Maria Renard's Revenge" is an exciting, and just gorgeous looking gothic platformer!

Here's the latest work-in-progress video from DomKid's YouTube channel (2022-05-23):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jeh_pljRs

Go to the game's website for more information and releases:
https://z-team.itch.io/maria-renards-revenge

 

Karate Champ 500 (work in progress)

Jean-François Fabre never stops: After "Amidar500", "Scramble500", "Pacman 500", and "Ms Pacman 500" (!) we're about to get "Karate Champ 500".

"Karate Champ" is another classic arcade game, but there was never an official version for the Amiga - only a slightly disappointing public-domain version. 

Well, it looks as if this is about to change, and with Jean-François Fabre's productions you can be quite sure it's going to be yet another great Amiga conversion, which is more or less pixel perfect to the original.

Here's the latest demo video from Jean-François Fabre's YouTube channel (2022-10-02):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NWE23H0W78

Additional sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate_Champ (arcade game)
http://hol.abime.net/6228/weblink (1987 PD game)

Spheroid (demo)

In "Spheroid", you have to guide a ball through increasingly complex maps made of tiles. Some of the tiles are switches, some are mined, others are transporters, walls, or break easily. On top of that, you only have a limited amount of steps your ball can make. 

So "Spheroid" is an arcade puzzler! It's a comparably simple, but challenging, well made game, with a fitting technoid soundscape, and lots of maps to get your little grey cells some exercise.

Here's a video from Saberman's YouTube channel (2022-05-26): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA7jjGPyJ5k

Go to Arkanix Labs forum to download "Spheroid" demo:
https://www.arkanixlabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1142

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2022-05-00096-EN.html
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/05/spheroid-new-puzzle-game-for-amiga-via.html

Farmiga (beta v5)

Do you like the countryside and farming? Cows, sheep, chicken? Very good. "Farmiga" puts you in control of a little farming economy, complete with animals, crops, trading, and actual hog-shooting.

The graphics are mostly simple, but cute and effective, there's some enjoyable music playing along, the building and trading has enough depth to keep you occupied, and, well, occasionally you get to shoot some hogs. Oh, and the in-game currency is Polish zloty. "Farmiga" looks great and fun to play - if you like strategy gaming make sure you check it out.

Here's a video from Saberman's YouTube channel (2022-11-27):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0EzRf-0qmI

Go to the game's itch.io website for more information and download:
https://tukinem.itch.io/farmiga-wip

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2022-06-00041-EN.html

GermZ

Beware, it's the... GermZ! A strategy puzzle game by the developers that brought us "Atarenium Falcon" (see also bonus "news" below). In "GermZ" you basically become a virus that wants to spread and win over other viri according to logic rules. 

"GermZ" is another simple, well-made arcade strategy game - and it has two great features seen too rarely in Amiga games: up to four players simultaneously (joystick and keyboard control), and a map editor - which means tons of fun for a long time!

Here's a video from Saberman's YouTube channel (2022-05-02):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtKt4_t3FPM

Go to the game's itch.io website for more information and download:
https://lastminutecreations.itch.io/germz

Additional sources:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/05/germz-brand-new-amiga-party-game-by.html

 

* * *

...and some bonus gaming news:

Atarenium Falcon released

We've reported about this game before. Meanwhile, more precisely on May 1st 2022, the final version was released. If "GermZ" sounds interesting to you, or even if it doesn't, why not check out "Atarenium Falcon"?

https://lastminutecreations.itch.io/atarenium-falcon

 

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #34"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Games galore #26: Abu Simbel Profanation, Black Dawn Rogue / Technomage, Slayers of High Toro, Blade re-release, Pacman 500

Oops, it's been quite some time, catching up with 2021/2022 Amiga game developments: an old platformer got remade, "Black Dawn" got another sequel, a new turn-based strategy game was released, an iso-3D adventure game got re-released, and good old Pac Man makes another appearance.

Abu Simbel Profanation - The Full Adventure

Originally created in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum, and first released for the Amiga in 2001, the "Abu Simbel Profanation" recently got a facelift remake for AGA machines called "The Full Adventure".

It's a funny multi-screen arcade platformer with beautiful graphics, an upbeat soundtrack, and many different enemies and obstacles. Among the sound effects is a spine-chilling scream that you're gonna hear whenever you lose a live - which probably is quite often, as the difficulty level of the game is said to be hard as nails. Niiice!

The game requires an AGA Amiga with 2MB FastMEM and a 030 CPU.

Here's a gameplay video from YouTube channel Ransom (2021-09-28):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MyklC3EGJ4

You can download the game from AmiNet:
http://aminet.net/package/game/misc/Abu_Simbel_Profan_-TFA-

Additional sources:
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/09/abu-simbel-profanation-full-adventure_27.html
http://hol.abime.net/6323 (OCS/ECS game from 2001)
https://s0yamigamsx.wordpress.com/abu-simbel-the-full-adventure/

 

Black Dawn Rogue / Technomage

Black Dawn saga continues: In early 2021 the follow-up to "Black Dawn Rebirth" was announced, and by October we got a first teaser video, with a second one following closely in December, and the announcement of "Black Dawn Technomage" in January 2022. Well, everybody likes a good dungeon crawler game, and the latest "Black Dawn" sequel - quite like it's predecessors - very much looks like it's going to be just that.

Also it looks as if the authors would like to keep the aforementioned first teaser video private to famous retro-gaming news website "Indie Retro News", so we'll just provide you with a couple of links here:

http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/10/black-dawn-rogue-next-amiga-aga-game-in.html

https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/01/black-dawn-technomage-next-amiga-aga.html

You can also visit "Black Dawn" team on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/blackdawnuniverse

Slayers of High Toro

By far the majority of Amiga games released these days are platform/jump-and-run games. For a welcome change, here's turn-based strategy game published by Bitmap Soft in May 2021.

It's a spiritual successor to Windows game "Slay" which dates back to 1995. "Slayers of High Toro" runs on any Amiga with at least 1MB RAM, and is available as a physical "Deluxe Collector's edition" with some nice extras for a great retro experience: 3.5 inch floppy in a glossy A5 box, color printed manual, badge, stickers, and a poster.

Here's a video from the author's YouTube channel  (2021-03-21):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH0moStN-Ng

Go to Bitmap Soft's website to purchase your copy of "Slayers of High Toro":
https://www.bitmapsoft.co.uk

Additional sources:
http://blitmapgames.co.uk
http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/slay.html
http://hol.abime.net/6486

Blade (1996) re-release

Great looking dungeon adventure game "Blade" by Mark Sheeky, first published in 1998 by Alive Mediasoft, was released for free around Sept. 2021.

"Blade" title screen as seen on https://marksheeky.itch.io/blade

According to the author, it's his most ambitious Amiga game project, and the isometric game screens and cutscene graphics certainly look impressive. 

"Blade" in-game screen as seen on https://marksheeky.itch.io/blade

With lots of levels, potions, scrolls, and spells, there's quite an amount of things to discover and explore for adventure gaming fans. "Blade" runs on pretty much any Amiga with at least 1MB of RAM, but might require harddisk installation.

"Blade" in-game screen as seen on https://marksheeky.itch.io/blade

Go to the game's website for more information and download:

https://marksheeky.itch.io/blade

Additional sources:
http://hol.abime.net/5332

 

Pacman 500

Of course you know Pacman, the legendary pill-eating yellow dude who's relentlessly being hunted by ghosts. "Pacman 500" is another release of Namco's 1980 classic, this time attempting to stay as close as possible to the original arcade machine. 

From what we can see it's quite successful at doing so - apart from minor changes due to different screen orientation (the arcade machine uses a 3:4 display, as opposed to the Amiga's 4:3 aspect) it indeed looks and sounds and feels just like the original! 

Another great arcade remake, "Pacman 500" runs on any Amiga with 512KB memory.

Here's a video from Jean-François Fabre's YouTube channel (2021-09-05):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvU7mu-3J5I

Go to the game's itch.io website for more information and "name-your-own-price" download:

https://jotd666.itch.io/pacman-500

Additional sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man
https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1993
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/09/pacman-500-amiga-conversion-from-arcade.html

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #27"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

The Competition Pro: An unconvenient truth

Actually I don't like the Competition Pro joysticks too much. A kind-of review.

I think the Competition Pro puts unnecessary strain on your wrist, and has some other disadvantages.

Classic red-black color scheme Competition Pro joystick

You'd probably intuitively grab the Competition Pro's stick more or less from above. That position, plus the height of the body, the placement of the fire buttons, that'll make you put your thumb towards the edge of the top casing instead of across (unless you use the fire button on the opposite side), and the small footprint area of the bottom casing, makes the entire construction work kind of like a lever, twisting your wrists in opposite directions. Depending on the individual specimen of Competition Pro joystick, the spring and microswitches involved with stick movement / directions might be pretty strong, requiring unnecessary force, potentially increasing wrist strain. In addition to the sub-optimal way the (probably left) fire-button-hand is placed regarding overall grip and stability, pushing down the button creates an unnatural motion of the stretched out thumb more towards the index finger than towards the center of an imaginary Tennis ball in your hand, quickly exhausting the thumb's muscles. If the fire buttons slightly tilt, and cant, which they occasionally do, exhaustion is even quicker.

And then, while most microswitches are great, they're also sometimes pretty loud, esp. when put into a bulgy casing like the Competition Pro's. Depending on the situation the clicking of the switches can get a little annoying.

I prefer Quickshot I's, which you'd typically grab more or less horizontally, thus typically applying some downward force. Combined with a much wider footprint area, overall lower-profile body, the (body) fire button positioned less close to the body's edges, and suction cups on the bottom, the Quickshot stands much more firmly, esp. on hard, plain surfaces. It's pretty usable even with one hand only.

A 30 year old, heavily used SVI Quickshot I - is it better than a Competition Pro?

The Quickshot I doesn't have microswitches, but you can easily service its open tin switches, and they're hardly audible when in use. The stick wears out over time, reducing force required. With a stick moving that smoothly, you can put your steering hand's fingers near the lower end of the stick, creating super fast changes in direction, and almost eliminating wrist strain from both hands.

Of course the Competition Pro is still a great product. It has a lot of advantages - its die-hard construction and build quality, iconic looks, comfortable ball-stick, and more. Many people got used to it, and rightfully love it.

Certainly not everyone will agree with the above analysis of the Competition Pro's construction and handling. And to be honest it's not 110% serious - it's based on very little test data, and heavily biased. ;-)

But one day it just had to be said: The Competition Pro isn't necessarily the best, or the only usable joystick in the world. This is just an example where personal experience differs from widespread opinion. Why not try a different joystick? Computec has some not-so-fancy-looking, but really well-working models. Quickshot I and II are great microswitch-less designs. And there are many others.

Computec Quick Gun Turbo Pro - a great Competition Pro alternative

AMIGA alive 05: DREAD demo (A500 Doom clone) (Video)

Testing the demo of DREAD (now: Grind) on various different Amiga setups with CPUs from 68000 to 68040.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRFaX3HJtHk

Games galore #20: Souverän Soccer, Wrong Way Driver, Flighty Fox, Athanor 2, Inviyya released

As always: good news on the Amiga gaming front, lots of stuff going on. A refreshing, very cool looking, almost-3D soccer game, an arcade driving game, a new clone of a very notorious modern classic, a point-and-click adventure, and the release of a new shoot-em-up.

Souverän Soccer, work in progress

Daniel "Daytona675x" Müßener, aka GoldenCode, is working on "Souverän Soccer", which is a remake of SNES game Super Formation Soccer (1992), aimed at stock Amiga 1200 and CD32 machines.

Next-Gen-Amiga gamers might have heard the author's name before, as he's also the creator of "Atomic Bomberman Fan Remake" for AmigaOS4/AROS/MorphOS.

 "Souverän Soccer" is an attempt to recreate the bitmap-scaling, 3D-scrolling visual experience known from SNES graphics hardware on AGA Amigas, and from what we can tell so far it's a successful one. Low-res full screen graphics, redrawn at 50hz, with distance shading and copper gradients for hundreds of colors - not bad at all!

A very exciting, and promising, project, and another proof of the seemingly endless capabilities of the (AGA) Amiga, we're very much looking forward to some sort of public release. 

Here's his latest work-in-progress video, published May 18th 2021, on his YouTube channel Dän Bänän:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wjCSwKmDL4

You can make a donation to the author of the game on his website at: https://www.goldencode.de

Addtional sources:
http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-03-00017-EN.html

Wrong Way Driver

From the people who brought us the awesome TinyInvaders, TinyBobble, TinyGalaga, and Tinyus, comes another nice production by the name of "Wrong Way Driver". It was released around April 2021, and works on all Amigas, no expansions required.

It's a simple, but great looking, great sounding, and well playable mini arcade game, in which you control your car along a six lane highway, driving the wrong way. You have to avoid oncoming traffic, and take care of your fuel supply by collecting fuel tanks. As all aBYSs productions, it looks polished and is technically flawless - you just have to admire the beautiful multi layered parallax scrolling, and smooth scaling of the player's car.

You can download "Wrong Way Driver" from aBYSs' website:
http://abyss-online.de/eab/aYs_WrongWayDriver.adf

Additional sources:
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/04/wrong-way-driver-new-amiga-game-from.html
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=106549

 

Flighty Fox (Scorpion engine demo)

Now this is not a "full" game, more of a demonstration of parallax scrolling done with the Scorpion engine. And it's a clone of the most played, and most dangerous game ever, the one that must not be named. And it looks even more difficult and frustrating than the one game that must not be named.

(Well, of course it looks really good, and sounds as good. As far as "playability" goes in the-one-game-that-must-not-be-named type of games, this one is top notch, too.)

So for your own safety, we'll just leave you with a moment of silence here, to enjoy the beautiful parallax scrolling and music of "Flighty Fox" from the safe distance of your YouTube player, in a video from Saberman's channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUFbxgWTsVw

But if you're a real trooper, go ahead and download the game from "earok"'s website:
https://earok.itch.io/flighty-fox

Additional sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flappy_Bird
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-04-00037-DE.html

 

Athanor 2 - Legend of the Birdmen

In April 2021 substantial news were published about upcoming point-and-click adventure "Athanor 2" by Eric Safar and Francois Gutherz, a conversion of Safar's Amstrad/Schneider CPC game of the same name released a couple of years ago. Shortly after first screenshots from the Amiga version had been presented, a pre-release video was uploaded to YouTube.

A point-and-click adventure isn't about a complex physics engine, but all about graphics, storyline and atmosphere. And "Athanor 2" has tons of graphics, the very beautiful, handdrawn type. 

An Atari ST version has been released previously, from which we can guess the Amiga physical release package contents: game floppy disks, a booklet/manual, some sort of coins with runic writings on them, a vial, a little octopus amulet, ...

...ohyeah, this almost spells out "atmosphere"!

Watch "Athanor 2 - Legend of the Birdmen" Amiga pre-release video on Eric Safar's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H4jfGa0ImU

Check out the author's website, or sources below, for more details:
http://www.safargames.fr

Additional sources:
https://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17707
https://www.amigaimpact.org/2021/04/athanor-2-amiga-remontre-ses-pixels/
https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=15117
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-04-00033-EN.html
http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/07/athanor-2-legend-of-birdmen-new.html

 

Inviyya released for Amiga and CD32

The very promising "Inviyya" horizontal shoot-em-up game is delivering: With final versions released you can now experience it in it's fully polished glory, on your own Amiga and CD32!

Here you can watch a video from YouTube channel "Amiga Fan"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx3SwMbf9Rc

...but of course you're much better off purchasing the actual game:

The digital download edition is available at:
https://tigerskunk.itch.io/inviyya

Boxed "Collector's" and "Budget" editions for Amiga (1MB RAM required) and Amiga CD32 are available at:
https://www.polyplay.xyz

The boxed "Collector's Edition" features awesome stuff, including 3.5 inch floppy disk, MicroSD card with disk image and bonus material, a "mission patch" to iron onto your shirt, a booklet with short story (by Constantin Gillies), game manual, poster, and sticker! 

The CD32 version media is an exclusive visual CD-ROM with transparency effect in Digipak, instead of floppy disk.

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-04-00034-EN.html

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #21"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Games galore #19: Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns, Citaldel update, Renegades Deluxe "re-release", Bean Vs The Animator

Again a good round of really nice stuff this time - an arcade remake, updates to OCS/ECS first person shooter "Citadel", some sort of "re-release" on AmiNet, a modern lightgun game ahead of it's time, and a little bonus for fans of platformers.

Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

Yet another remake of an arcade classic, and yet another game built using the Scorpion engine. In Feb. 2021, an early alpha version of "Pitfall II" for Amiga was released to the public!

Activision's original "Pitfall II" for the Atari 2600 was a real stunner upon release, with its huuuuge playing area, context sensitive music, improved graphics, and more. It was later released by SEGA as an arcade game.

Highly active Amiga game (engine) developer Eric "earok" Hogan is working on this new version of "Pitfall II", which is based on the C64 version, and requires an Amiga 500. A little bit of acceleration (e.g. Amiga 1200) is recommended for smooth performance.

The game is in alpha stage at the moment, but it already very much looks like "Pitfall II"!

Watch a video of "Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns" alpha version of Per-Ola Eriksson's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-5Jlkes9g

You can download the playable and completable alpha version of "Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns" for Amiga here:
https://mega.nz/folder/t6QCTTaY#0PvV--pintbZN1y6VyHnhg


Additional sources:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1459891
https://www.indieretronews.com/2021/02/pitfall-ii-lost-caverns-earok-has.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitfall_II:_Lost_Caverns

 

Citaldel update

1995 game first-person shooter "Cytadela"/"Citadel" - from Poland is undergoing some updates by the original authors.

"Citadel" is certainly one of the better first-person-shooters on the Amiga, and probably the best that runs on OCS/ECS Amigas. It received very good reviews when it was first released.

In March 2021 the original authors annouced some updates to the original game. There are no to little gameplay changes planned, but some fixes and enhancements, like optimizations for faster Amigas, better animations, and things like that.

You can watch a video of "Cytadela"/"Citadel" running on a (emulated) high-spec Amiga on Kane's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-k4-aK8Zk

It looks as if as of now no updates have been made available to the public, so a little more patience is required.

Meanwhile, you can download the original 1995's "Citadel" from Polish Amiga Portal (Polski Portal Amigowy) (Polish and English version available):
https://www.ppa.pl/rodzynki/cytadela.html

Additional sources:
https://www.ppa.pl/forum/strefa-gier/42682/cytadela-update
https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1863
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-03-00008-EN.html

 

Renegades Deluxe "re-release"

Just a quick note about "Renegades Deluxe" from 2014, which is a new version of 1995 PD classic "Renegades":

"Renegades Deluxe" has recently been uploaded to AmiNet - which is great, because this beautiful 2-player-split-screen-deathmatch "Alien Breed" clone apparently hasn't been available elsewhere for some time.

Here's a video of "Renegades" and "Renegades Deluxe", including some background information and awesome prototype cover art, from CaptainNow Creations' YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50mrcqfYU40

Go to AmiNet to download "Renegades Deluxe" (2014):
http://aminet.net/package/game/2play/Renegades_Deluxe

If you're looking for the original "Renegades" game (1995), you can download it from myabandonware:
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/renegades-6sx

 

Lightgun game "Bean Vs The Animator"

Have you ever held a lightgun in your hands? I bet not everyone did, because most lightguns we know depend on the cathode ray of a CRT (cathode ray tube) TV. Many CRT screens, especially millions of home TVs, have been replaced with LCD flat screen ones over the last 20 years, so lots of lightguns became useless.

But with the help of increased CPU performance, HD video, kickstarter, and indiegogo, the Sinden Lightgun was created, or is still being created - a lightgun that works with LCD displays. Somehow, it wouldn't be long until Amigans picked up such a thing - and here we have it: near the end of Feb. 2021 the first new Amiga lightgun game in a looooooooooong time was shown to the public, Terminator-style shoot-em-up "Bean Vs The Animator"! (You can also play it with a mouse.)

The Sinden Lightgun doesn't seem to be widely available yet, and the game is currenly just an exclusive pre-release (see video below), no release dates or further updates have been published so far. But from what we can see there's some great artwork here, some serious atmosphere and level of difficulty, and a lot of shooting. Plus it's a game you can play with a lightgun, plus it supports a lightgun device so modern it's not even available - yay!

Watch a video of Amiga Bill from "The Guru Meditation" reviewing his exclusive edition of "Bean Vs The Animator" (2021-02-25):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nel33AfkPd4

Additional sources:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sinden-lightgun/
https://www.sindenlightgun.com/
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-02-00057-DE.html

* * *

...and some bonus gaming news:

Minkey

In Feb. 2021, this new platformer was announced via great and well-known retro scene website indieretronews:

http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/02/minkey-high-quality-amiga-platformer.html

(Out of respect for the author of the game and indieretronews - the game's preview video is set to "unlisted" on YouTube - let's just leave it here with this little note. Click the link for more details and game preview video. By the way, the game looks great.)

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #20"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Games galore #18: Metal Gear, Imperium Terranum 2, Space Pilot of Death, "The nameless platformer", Turbo Sprint AGA finished

Two exciting remakes, two freeware games, and "The nameless platformer". Amiga game developers are busy, and especially many ports and remakes are an impressive display of the technical know-how present in the community - the results often surpass the originals in quality.

Metal Gear 

At the end of January 2021 a port of MSX classic "Metal Gear" to the Amiga was announced by coder "hOffman". "Metal Gear" was a milestone, and is a classic in it's own right, as it started the stealth-and-survival genre in computer gaming. In this type of games it's not just kill-em-all, but more importantly stealth tactics and strategy.

The game is still under development, but nearing completion, and already looks and sounds very good. The graphics are pretty much a pixel perfect recreation of the MSX original. According to the author, it runs at full framerate on the Amiga (even where the original would slow down due to lots of on-screen action), and special care is taken to reproduce and possibly enhance the original soundtrack and sound effects.

"Metal Gear" requires an Amiga 500 with 1MB or higher.

You can watch a work-in-progress video on Hofman's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh4-fNfhQlQ

This is going to be another quality remake of a classic game - lookin' forward to the release of "Metal Gear" on Amiga!

Additional sources:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=105620
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-02-00002-EN.html
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/01/hot-news-msx-classic-metal-gear-is.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_(video_game)

"Imperium Terranum 2" updated

In January 2021 news popped up about turn-based freeware space strategy game "Imperium Terranum 2" by Virtual World Productions. The game has been available on AmiNet since (at least) 2001, but has obviously been resurrected recently.

Coder Rene "fook42" F. is converting the Pascal source code from the AmiNet game version into C code, and adding some improvements. Currently, his new version has no new gameplay features etc., but you can now freely set the game's screenmodes.

This is pretty cool, as it opens up a path for future updates, and portability (maybe AROS?).

Note that if you want to play the new C based version, you need to copy it over the installed previous (AmiNet / Virtual Worlds) version - see GitHub link below for files and instructions.

Go to Virtual World's website to find out more about the original game...
https://www.virtualworlds.de/IT/

...or download it from AmiNet:
http://aminet.net/package/game/strat/IT2000

You can get the latest updated version from GitHub:
https://github.com/fook42/ImperiumTerranum2/releases

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-01-00048-EN.html

Space Pilot of Death

"Space Pilot of Death" - doesn't that sound awesome? Now if a title like that doesn't catch your attention, I don't know what will. 

In Jan. 2021 this game by Marten "goldmomo" Wobst was uploaded to AmiNet, as a result of the author reviving his Amiga, and assembler programming skills, after a break of more than 20 years. It's looks similar to Asteroids, but it's a dodge-and-survive, not a shoot-em-up, that runs on any Amiga with 512KB RAM and able to display a 50Hz PAL or NTSC screen. It can be played with joystick or keyboard. (Note: there seems to be a mistake in the readme file: Space key is not needed.)

It's quite a simple game, but it's also quite well done! The title music gets you into the right mood, terrifying red alert messages pump up your adrenaline level, huge asteroids are approaching, and lots of them - pretty much everything about it feels just right. Yes, this isn't Elite or Wing Commander, we are aware of that. But it's a good looking, well done, quick little release with addictive qualities, for kids and casual gamers, we are aware of that, too. The author also has given hints he might be improving the game further. And, heck, it's... "Space Pilot Of Death"! So what are you waiting for?

Watch a video of "Space Pilot Of Death" on Per-Ola Eriksson's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-lSF_QYzFQ

Go to AmiNet to download "Space Pilot of Death":
http://aminet.net/package/game/actio/spod

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-01-00056-EN.html

 

"The nameless platformer" (demo)

"The nameless platformer" is a port of a ZX Spectrum game called "Black and White" - but currently the Amiga version lacks an official name, so we'll just call it "The nameless platformer".

It's a three level demo created using the Scorpion engine, in which you control a little wizard on a single-screen playfield, collecting lots of valuable items. This game is obviously still under development, as you can see in the video below there are a couple of glitches, the title screen looks like it will be changed, maybe sound effects will be added, and so on. But it looks promising with it's cute wizard and overall visual style, some music playing along (I think I've heard the tune before...?), and what appears to be quick and fluid playability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrf6CJqoeQ

The demo was first shown at the end of Jan. 2021, so far there seem to be no news, but can certainly be expected in the near future.

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-02-00001-EN.html
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/01/a-new-amiga-demo-of-upcoming-amiga.html
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/35121/ZX-Spectrum/Black_and_White

Turbo Sprint AGA finished (Super Sprint)

Another update to "Super Sprint AGA": It now goes by the name of "Turbo Sprint" - and you can actually play it, it's finished! Since we last reported about the game, development has made lots of progress, in Feb. 2021 a playable 5-minute demo has been released, and on April 28th author Graeme Cowie announced the finished game on facebook and YouTube.

After a year of development "Turbo Sprint" now really feels like a complete game, with lots of stuff going on visually, everything moving around and interacting reasonably, sound effects that create proper atmosphere, yeah, you almost start smelling burning rubber. Up to four players, hires graphics, 8 tracks, car upgrades, ...you name it - and it runs from Workbench. Very good, congratulations!

The game requires an AGA Amiga to run, and will be commercially released as digital download very soon, with a glossy boxed edition following.

You can watch "Turbo Sprint AGA" promotion video on Graeme Cowie's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9f68MLldx0

Go to the game's website for more details, and game purchase:
https://mcgeezer.itch.io/

Additional sources:
https://www.facebook.com/supersprintdrs
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=101722
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/02/turbo-sprint-arcade-quality-port-of.html

 

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #19"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!