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.)
