Project Firestart is a game that deserves so much more recognition than it generally gets for being a pioneer of survival horror - and a damn good one at that.
Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Dynamix (who you may know from their Sierra-published flight sims), Project Firestart made its home on disk-only Commodore 64s in North America in 1989. No loading tunes here, I'm afraid! But what you are treated to instead is a stunning and atmosphere-building cinematic intro that knocked my socks right off the first time I saw it early in 2022. It feels way ahead of its time and even manages to pull off an FMV sequence feel with the use of a digitized pixel head.
Once you're through the intro and its creepy tuneage, the premise is clear: You're taking on the role of Jon Hawking, a seasoned agent working for the United System States. A research vessel orbiting Saturn has suddenly gone radio silent and it's up to you to board the ship, find out what has happened, and recover valuable research data. All within a time limit before the powers-that-be trigger the vessel's self-destruct mechanism. Not super original stuff, but it gets the job done.
The Master of Magic was the first RPG I ever played on the C64 and
whilst it isn’t as hardcore an example of the genre such as titles like
Wizard’s Crown, The Bard’s Tale and Abandoned Places, it is certainly rock hard
and it contains all of the elements and traits of the usual dungeon delve.
From one of the Darling Brothers: Richard, the man that brought us BMX
Simulator, comes an extremely rich text and graphical adventure that is as
challenging as it is engrossing. One of it’s crowning glories is its unique and
innovative interface. The screen is split into four main sections: an overhead moveable
playing map with ‘fog of war’; a localised graphical depiction in glorious
pixel art detail of interactibles you can currently see; a horizontal “choices”
bar; and the standard dialogue box and GUI. Every action you want to carry out
within the game is available via a “pause” menu with a click of the joystick
button.
You know the tune, it dings and blings around in the back of your head as you vainly search for the yellow sweetie, narrowly missing the flung rolling pin of doom. Bubble Bobble on the C64 was fantastic, but not, as I had once believed, as good as I thought it was.
It’s a great conversion – no doubt there - and the C64 really does well with regard to collisions, colours, sprites and speed and there are even the hidden extras in there, but, well… Myself and a friend, fuelled with beer one evening set out, with our limited credits, to fully complete Bub and Bob’s quest. We loved the game, he didn’t mind playing blue and I PON’d for green. We had all night, no distractions, we were fed and watered and I should point out, around 24 years old and the game was nearly 15 years old (if not more) itself – and we’d never, ever done it, so, we shucked off another can and launched our crusade.
I unequivocally adore this game – the arcade, of course, is nigh sheer perfection (depending upon which difficulty level the board is set on…) and at still only 10p per credit, well, you’re mad for not hitting the arcade under the Palace Pier, Brighton every weekend back in the day; or Dusters in Plymouth way back in the 'olden days, but, with my beloved C64 conversion – I found faults…
Well: fault, really.
You see, we played that fateful night, taking turns to leap levels utilising the EXTEND function, umbrellas and more, we failed a few times around the 70s, sometimes earlier with our limited credits (one credit each – no rebuys), but we continued into the morning hours, relentlessly slogging back through the early levels, relentlessly playing Bubble Bobble on my C64, sitting, cross-legged on my old bedroom floor. Adults.
And..: we did it – we survived the hideous space invaders and the ridiculously evil later level design and we found ourselves facing a bloody super-huge rolling pin-thrower on LVL 100. Having never reached this point, it took a few moments to work out what to do and we struggled and muddled our way through the boss pattern until finally – he just disappeared!
We’d done it – we’d got to the top of Bubble Bobble! For the first time in our lives. Ever.
However, this was a short-lived elation, as even though we knew we had really completed the game, we also knew that we now had to fight our way back down the tower, as in the arcade, to get ourselves and our prizes back home again. We glanced sidelong at our lives/credits tally. Not too good.
Thing is, with the C64, that was that – Game Over.
Michael Finnegan.
Simultaneously one of the greatest achievements and absolute disappointments of my entire life. Second only to realising that they aren’t rolling pins – they are whisky bottles.
Join the journey of a lifetime as you help Alice, a girl stranded in the Pleiades star cluster, find her way back to Earth. Scoop asteroids for credits, collect defeated pirates' cargo, and
upgrade your ship with missile locks and a jump drive. Explore six space
stations managed by Alice's sisters to find the remaining ray stones.
Battle Captain Orion in a thrilling showdown and embark on a cosmic
odyssey in "Pleiades 3D," where the power of friendship and courage
knows no bounds.
Mondays aren't always bad, we have some great News today! Three new writers will be joining CommodoreBlog! Please welcome BeardedSonOfNel, Commodorelad and LogrusUKfrom Twitter. Great to have you aboard guys, looking forward to your rambles.
If you would like to join the team as a writer, you can contact us here commodoreblog.twitter@gmail.com
Super Delivery Boy is a new family-friendly platformer game in development for Commodore Amiga made with Scorpion Engine, inspired by the classic japanese platformers from Konami and Hudson Soft. More info and download here: neesogames.itch.io
Maciej Witkowiak has released new firmware for the TIB-001. The TIB-001 is a
3.5" disk drive for the Commodore 64 computer that connects via the
cartridge port.
Plus4Serial is an Open Hardware Serial Port Adapter that plugs into the
Commodore Plus/4 User Port, turning it into a fully-functional RS-232 interface.
Help Ooze navigate through various corridors and laboratories, using
its gravity-reversing powers to overcome obstacles and avoid the robotic
guards in an attempt to escape from this dangerous subterranean
complex. Collect keys and insert them in the computer terminal to gain
access to further areas. Can you escape?
This is a port of the Spectrum version to the Commodore Amiga. Follow the link below for more screen-shots, info and download.
Ricki Sickenger just announced the demo version of his game Roguecraft, a modern roguelike for the Amiga, has been updated! Follow the link below to download and for more info.
It was only last week we was talking about the preview version of Stunt Car Racer, and how amazing it looks. Today we are excited to announce that the game has been released! Check out the new video and follow the links below for more information.
Puls4r, the group that brought us the excellent Lykia for C64 & Plus/4, recently shared a video on YouTube, showing us what Wipeout could look and run like on the humble Commodore Plus/4 computer. You can watch the video here. Download the .prg file below which runs on YAPE.
This is a 1:1 arcade port of the game Frogger by Konami from 1981 for the Amiga 500. The game is written in 68k assembler, based on the original Z80 code. I don't think I need to explain the game, if you've never heard of Frogger, where have you been?
Tony by Monochrome Productions is a new Amiga monochrome platformer. You can grab the latest demo version 1.2 over on Aminet. Tony is written with Blitz Basic 2, and is a tribute to the Polish journalist and travel writer Tony Halik.
The freshest game on the Commodore 64! PSSST by Boony Smith. The 40 year free anniversary edition of the Speccy classic. Loading pic by KENZ of Psytronik. Tape loader by Richard of TND.
Kielbasa Empire is a Commodore 64 game, currently in development since around September 2021. The game is about about farming crops, feeding pigs and turning them into sausages, however this could change in the future, as the game is still unfinished. You can download a .crt demo version from the link below. The.crtextension means it's a Commodore 64 cartridge image. Emulators like Vice and CCS64 run .crt files as well as Easyflash with a real Commodore 64. Download: kielbasaDemo0723_RC3.crt Source: ordered-chaos-design.itch.io
The Last Dungeon is a top down adventure game, much in the style
of Zelda. The game requires at least 1Mb memory. OCS hardware sprites might be buggy so use ECS if you can. Please note, this is not a finished game and originally was an entry to the AmiGameJam 2022. Check out the latest updates below.
Version 0.7.1C bug fixes: - Fixed multiple issues with the status panel not displaying the correct number of gold/keys/bombs. -
Enemies can now display the item they are carrying which will hopefully
make it less likely to miss the key in the first room on the right! - Fixed a bug where image draw offsets were getting reset to 0 when loading graphics from DAT files. - Fixed a bug where the auto map would sometimes not draw correctly for the first room. - Fixed a bug where pushable objects would sometimes draw the tile to the left when restoring background tiles. -
Fixed a bug where the spinning sword on the title screen would draw in
the wrong colours after returning from the character select screen.
The Last Effort is a modern game made for the Commodore 64. You play a disappointed in life police officer who's duty is to
check drivers for illegal documents. Since your wife is terribly
sick you need to earn 15 thousand bucks for her treatment, and you have
to break the law if you want to save her. But you have only 99 hours to
do it.
Stunt Car Racer was always one of my favourite games on the Amiga. Who would of thought all these years later we would see a Plus/4 version. Well.. not quite a full game just yet, maybe 'proof of concept' is a better description. It is, however, very impressive considering the graphical limitations of the Commodore Plus/4 as a games machine. Check out the video below and stay tuned for more updates.
Star Bars is a music sequencer and play routine for Atari 2600 video game console from the late 70's. The editor runs on a Commodore 64 and exports both PAL and NTSC Atari 2600 ROM images containing your music and the music player code.
No way! Yes way. This, my friends, is the conversion of the legendary
Bill & Ted Game Boy game by LJN/Beam Software to the Commodore 64. More info and download from the links below.
Brave deep dark forests. Cross endless oceans. Endure arid deserts. All
the while, fending off nasty creatures and natural disasters. Your mission, rescue your girlfriend, Tanya, from the clutches of a
brutish king.
Changes: v1.2.1 Fixed bonus screen audio bug Fixed 2 minor bugs CD32 iso added
Petaxian is a PETSCII shoot-em-up in a Galaga style. You have to protect the earth from the evil Petaxians! They want to defeat Planet Earth and leave it in ruins. You control your space ship with a joystick in port 2. Kill all the enemies and you will reach the next stage. You will receive a time bonus if you're very fast. The game has 20 stages, if you manage to finish stage 20, you have defeated the Petaxians and the earth will be saved! You have only three lives, good luck!
Bulbmaster is a sokoban-style game with a twist. The
player assumes the role of a mechanic whose task is to move electric
spheres to their sockets. The challenge lies in the fact that wooden
crates can only be moved one space at a time, whereas the electric
spheres will roll until they encounter an obstacle!
Arlasoft recently announced on Twitter their unfinished Commodore 64 Game Funfair Inc. has been released to the public with source code.
Here's a few words from Arlasoft on their website. "This downloadable version is where development stopped a couple of
years ago, I just hit a brick wall and the motivation to tackle even the
smallest feature or bug disappeared. Unfortunately unless I get
into a position where I can do my own thing all day every day I don't
see me having the time or energy to finish it, but I will make the code
available to anyone who wants to have a go."
Dig Dug Revival is a homage to Dig Dug, an Arcade game developed by Namco in 1982. In this version, the playfields are procedurally generated.
The game works perfectly on both PAL and NTSC models.
Tower And Dragon Version 2.0 Released! Only requires 8K memory and is playable by tape or disk.
New in V2.0 The game starts with an outdoor adventure! There are now animated tiles. All levels are fortified with room decorations. Game programmed around ROM 1 bugs with the Commodore PET disk drive (IEEE-488), allowing it to work with a disk drive! To get it operating, see project rom1diskmagic. 20% improvement in performance. As with 1.1, this all runs in only 8K of memory. To make something this complex has been an ongoing battle. Unfortunately, character save files from version 1.x are not compatible. Fixed screen corruption on save (only effected tape cassette version in some cases). As of Version 1.1, supports SNES Game Controller.
Combian 64 is Raspberry Pi distribution able to boot your preferred Commodore machine in just few seconds. It uses the brand new version of Vice 3.7.1 to emulate all the Commodore Machines set. By default, Combian 64 boots the Commodore 64 emulator.
What’s new in Combian64 V3.7? It uses Vice 3.7.1 compiled against SDL2 (sources under the ‘opt/src’ folder of the distro) Enable / Disable TCP over IP allowing you networking with your preferite machine Added to the menu the possibility to choice “Commodore 128 – 80 Columns to run at boot. Samba now shares Combian64 folder with your PC/MAC Sid Wizard 1.8 / 1.9 can be found under the music folder
It looks like my dreams have finally come true. A brand new C16/Plus/4 compatible clone board is becoming a reality thanks to SukkoPera over at Plus/4 World Forums. According to SukkoPera, he's just ordered the prototypes for version 4 of the board.
Features * 100% Plus/4 compatible User Port * 512 kB Hannes-style RAM expansion *
Onboard SID (either 6581 or 8580+Digifix) + 3rd joystick port (SID
audio is mixed with the TED/Ext audio with configurable volume but
direct dedicated output is also available) * Joystick swapper *
Ability to replace keyboard MOS 6529 with 74x273 (so that 6529 can be
recycled for User Port, but that one as well can be replaced with a
74x654) * Removed FB13 in order to reduce luma/chroma crosstalk and improve video quality (Thanks @TLC!) * Direct TED output connector (experimental) * Pin header with all tape signals (think Internal Tapuino) * Pin header with all IEC signals (think Internal SD2IEC)
An action RPG inspired by Moonstone, but still very much in the middle of development.
Features Uses a 4 button CD32 controller (but also playable using the keyboard for emulation) 50FPS gory action in glorious AGA Part of the AmiGameJam 2022
A wizardly caravan mode shmup, by Peter & Gordon Mackay. Made for AmiGameJam 2022. Unfortunately there is no game description at all, which I found a bit unusual. Anyway head over to petmac.itch.io/caravandalf to grab the download.
Lunar City is a fun and challenging space shooting gallery type of game written for the Zzap! 64 Micro Action Covermount. The game was inspired by Atlantis for the ATARI, but Lunar City is slightly different, as you will probably see when you play the game.
Features Nicely presented loading bitmap with loading music Front end presentation with Drum 'n Bass style music End scene presentation Hi score table with saver (if playing in disk mode) 16 action-packed levels with an increasing level of difficulty Arcade style sound effects 4 different landscapes 8 different aliens (where newer aliens will appear after completing every fourth level).
New Features - 16 new screens - taking the total to 25 - 5 more scientists to rescue (now 8 in total) - Improved controls - Improved chars and animation, based on C64 release - New scoring system - Respawn death bug removed - Infinite score bug removed - Cheat modes built in - NTSC fixed - All still crammed into 16K!
Hello.. I’m Flood! Not the most well
known game from EA, Quiffy is a little green dude (What exactly is he?
Starfish, Mutant Frog?) who is on a mission to clear his world of litter
that someone has thoughtlessly left lying around. Quiffy also has to
switch off the leaky taps on each level to stop the water gathering
below, rising up and flooding his underground lair, killing everything
in its path. Hence the game title ‘Flood’
This is one of those platformers which instantly draws you in from
the beginning, with its fantastic title music, superb colourful graphics
and addictive but sometimes puzzling gameplay. I still own the original
boxed version of Flood, although during my Amiga 500 days, we mostly
had (cough) a lot of ‘backup disks’. The Amiga had big game piracy
issues back in the day, a long story maybe for a future article.
Bad Guys There are 42 levels on Quiffy’s big
clean up mission and through each level he will come across some
particularly nasty creatures (Hey we never said this would be easy!) One
of the most annoying of all these beasties is Quiffy’s scary ghost
aunt! She will follow Quiffy’s specific path that he has made throughout
the level and if you double back or get near, her deadly touch will
lead you to your demise. Collecting your trash and getting through the
level as quickly as possible is your main priority.
Other baddies you should avoid are freakishly named the following..
‘Bulbous Headed Vongs’, ‘Plonkin Donkins’, ‘Vacuous Gombos’ and ‘Psycho
Teddy’! Psycho Teddy has sharp teeth in his stomach, so be sure to avoid
this guy as he’s not your average cuddly toy! However this game isn’t
about completely avoiding the enemy, luckily Quiffy has a small arsenal
of weaponry at hand to protect himself. Grenades, flame-throwers and
dynamite on timers will help him though his adventure to victory!
As well as great music in the game, Flood has some excellent sound effects, echoing splashes when Quiffy jumps into water and loud gulp noises when in contact with enemy snails, Flood has a certain charm that you just don’t see in games today. The games difficulty is spot on and will keep you entertained for many fun filled hours.
Flood. An awesome platformer frozen in time when Amiga was the king of gaming.
I have played a fair few games in my time, but in all
honesty, nothing has really stood out for me as far as amazing sports
games go. However there is always a first time and this particular title
for one reason or another stuck with me during my childhood and I
couldn’t stop playing it. I think the first thing that struck me as
particularly amazing was the intro, a lovely big Ocean logo with catchy
music playing, then a huge golden trophy slowly appears on the screen.
Loading up the game for this alone was worth it!
As we all know, Ocean was a big name in the video game industry back
in the eighties and nineties and although a lot of games by Ocean were
rushed released, (Yes, there are some bad Ocean titles too, Lethal Weapon and Total Recall come to mind) Ocean Beach Volley, for me, was something special.
Ocean Beach Volley is a 2 on 2 game of Beach Volley, go figure.. ‘Well that sounds pretty boring!’ I hear you shout, and why would I put this in my top five? For
me (As old games go) this is a very addictive sports title, and one of
the best looking on the Amiga. Ocean have a knack of creating polished
good looking games and the graphics certainly do not disappoint. Sprites
are big and cartoony and the various backdrops depicting each country
you visit are really nice.
Welcome to London! There are eight different
countries to play against including France, Russia and Egypt, you start
the game in your home country London England. You need to score 7 points
to win a match. Your player has three basic moves, bump, set and smash.
Bump is a move using both forearms to deflect a smash from your
opponent, Set is used for setting up the shot for a smash shot, and
smash is a move you can use if you are serving or if you want to slam
the ball over the net really hard at close range.
You control both players on your team, whatever player you are in
control of at the time will be shown by a big hand pointing downwards
above you and a blue cursor will show where the ball is going to land,
but in my experience this isn’t always accurate and sometimes the cursor
shows up after it’s too late, making the game more difficult than it
should be. Every match is played against the clock and when you’re close
to running out of time, the music changes to a fast rock’n’roll melody to let you know you must hurry if you want to win that quarter million!
If I have one grudge regarding Ocean Beach Volley, it would be that it’s very difficult to get any further than level 3, (if your lucky) Yes that’s right, there seems to be an issue within the game, where every level has the same difficulty, even the first level! The CPU Players show no mercy and you will have to really concentrate and try your very hardest to beat them if you want to win the trophy. The game also has a 2 player option if you get bored with the CPU players awesomeness and you would prefer to play a friend who is less competitive.
Overall Ocean Beach Volley is a great sports game on the Amiga that will provide hours of fun and entertainment. (and frustration!)
Hello.. I’m Flood!