Resurgence C64 – 10 Great Games: 2020 (January-June)

That’s half the year gone, already… The world have and might take a turn for the worse at every given point of no return, but the Scene is still alive and healthy. I’m sure the rings on the water following the impact of a certain pandemic have affected countless projects in a negative way during this period… But who knows how many more great and addictive games will be released during the second half of 2020? (We have at least seen a couple of previews and teasers for titles that we hopefully can play full versions of very, very soon…!)

The one who lives will see… (And… Bring us another “Awakening”- and a second “Caren”-game, please…!)

1. Atic Atac

A.C.G. / Nostalgia / RGCD

Of all the eight emblematic Ultimate Play The Game arcade adventures (The Filmation-games included.), Atic Atac is the last one to get ported to the C64…

So this is another unofficial version that Rare hasn’t been involved in in any way whatsoever? Yeah, whatever. It’s not like the options are endless. (And distribution of Ultimate-games have been denied at the World Of Spectrum website.) If exactly nobody bothered to convert Atic Atac to “other systems” for almost forty bloody years, there’s precisely zero shame in doing it now… If you are familiar with Ultimate’s games, you might know that Sabre Wulf and Underwurlde are two of these absolute classics that were released on the C64 shortly after the original ZX Spectrum versions came out. But then, there were the Filmation games: Knight Lore, Alien 8, Nightshade, Pentagram, and Gunfright… And no sign of any proper C64 ports of those until Pentagram was released… In 2016… But after that, we saw approximately one Filmation-game port a year on the C64. Heroic, indeed. (Alien 8 was, as you perhaps know by now, released as late as in 2019.)

And with Atic Atac, the circle is finally complete. A couple of the more action-oriented arcade games from this legendary publisher are still missing on / not converted for the C64, like Cyberun, Pssst, and Martianoids. (Cookie came out in 2017.) The trend-changer if you will, is that Atic Atac wasn’t ported by Rod & Emu (Who did an amazing job with the Filmation-game conversions!), but STE’86 and Tom-Cat (From the team behind Commando Arcade and Ghosts ‘n Goblins Arcade!) But Saul Cross provided the music once again – In this case, an atmospheric title-screen tune. The game itself has very cute and soothing Spectrum-esque sound effects.)

And as soon as you start navigating around the haunted flip-screen mansion as a Wizard, Knight, or a Serf, it simply feels like a refreshed Atic Atac with every single recognizable detail – But with improved graphics (Overlaid high resolution sprites and additional color.) and a bunch of new features. The most notable one of these would be that the game now has an optional side mission (The primary one is to find “the golden key of A.C.G.” and getting out.) that “ties Atic Atac with other Ultimate games”. (It’s well worth finding out how that is done.) The C64-version also has multiple endings (Which is always nice, as it increases the replay value… Not that it’s needed for such a classic game that already has replay value…!), a new lovely title / loading screen, music, and extra animations.

Tim and Chris Stamper’s game quite famously laid out the formula for many arcade adventures that followed like water from a bursting dam in 1983-84. There were so many games that tried to do it better. Some succeeded as time went by, pale imitations came and went, but the innovation realized by Ultimate lead to the aforementioned and groundbreaking Filmation series. Without the slightly surrealistic perspective, the distinct charm, original art-style, and environmental puzzles of Atic Atac – Who knows how the genre would have evolved on its alternate route? — 1 Player · Joystick · Disk / Cassette (Download)

All the 2010s “Ultimate Play The Game”-ports for the C64 can be downloaded for free from the usual great websites like http://www.gb64.com and https://www.csdb.dk.

Additional note: The original version of Atic Atac is also included in the Rare Replay (2015) compilation for the Xbox One. (The other Ultimate Play The Game-titles in Rare Replay include: Jetpac, Lunar Jetman, Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, Knight Lore, and Gunfright.)

2. The Curse Of Rabenstein

Puddle Software

You thought you’ll “never” see a “Level 9”-style graphic adventure again…?

Well, think again, because here is one…! And the best part of the whole deal is that it’s available on eight (!) different platforms, so basically “nobody” needs to feel left out. The Curse Of Rabenstein is Stefan Vogt’s next step after Hibernated 1 – This Place Is Death, which was published by Pond Software in 2018. And with “Curse”, the genre shifts from Sci-Fi to classic horror. (The title and the title screen should reveal that pretty much immediately.)

It’s the fall of 1862, and you are riding in a carriage on your way home to Germany from Switzerland. Out in the middle of nowhere in Schwarzwald (The Black Forest), the coachman reveals that you seem to be lost and that the maps don’t show this particular area. Since sitting around and waiting for something would almost be as big of a waste of time as Curiosity, you get out and decide to take a look around, only to discover that the forest might be a bit on the haunted side. While the coachman guards the horses and the carriage, he sends you to a village to look for a place to rest. And sure enough – There is a village close by, including an inn and a stable. What follows is of course a peaceful night and a pleasant ride to Strasbourg the next day… Or not quite…

Although The Curse Of Rabenstein isn’t as long as most Level 9 adventures (And not as colossal of an adventure as Colossal Adventure. Rabenstein has fourteen locations and the game can be beaten in just over 90 turns.), its still a phenomenally well-crafted one with an equally phenomenal story and atmosphere. It’s also well-written and does its best to draw the player in. The parser understands verb / noun inputs and includes helpful hints for those who need them. (Or those who are new to interactive fiction. This is an extremely good beginner’s game.) The game also keeps track on screen of how many turns you have taken.

The puzzles range from classic text adventure ones in “two steps” to some that require a bit more logical thinking. (If you have seen some classic horror movies, you could probably figure out some of them through the references.) As the documentation points out, you can’t die in The Curse Of Rabenstein. (Only get stuck.) You can also save and load a game at any time. The graphics are of such a high quality that they could easily have been in any of Level 9’s or Magnetic Scroll’s better games. poly.play also published a physical version of the game, and in true Infocom-spirit, the box includes a couple of Feelies. (Like a MicroSD card, a neck chain with a wooden cross, a sticker, a poster, etc.)

As far as the mission to “meet modern gaming expectations, so that the most sophisticated genre back from the day transforms into a contemporary homage”, I’d say that Vogt succeeded on all fronts imaginable. Not everybody wants to “read a novel” when playing a video game, but Rabenstein could very well awaken the fascination and interest for the text-based classics. — 1 Player · Keyboard · Disk (Physical + Download)

The Curse Of Rabenstein is also available for Plus/4, CPC, ZX Spectrum (+3, ESXDOS, and Next.), Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, and Windows. It’s downloadable for free from https://8bitgames.itch.io/rabenstein. (But you can also donate a couple of bucks if you want to support the developer.)

Additional note: Version played: Release 11 (Serial no. 200329)

3. Fix-It Felix Jr.

Broken Bytes

TobiKomi Company’s 1982 Coin-Op classic on the C64. What took it so long? (38 years!)

Fix-It Felix Jr. is a character in the Wreck-It Ralph-movies. This game by the same name puts Felix into the role as the protagonist as Ralph becomes the antagonist. The C64-version was coded by Antonio Savona (Of P0 Snake, Planet Golf, and L’Abbaye Des Morts fame.) with Saul Cross providing the music, and STE’86 providing the pixels. (That’s right – It’s the same team that brought us the fresh Atari 2600-ports the year earlier.)

The original arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr. was immensely popular and was published by TobiKomi Company… With the crucial difference being that the Coin-Op only exists in the Wreck-It Ralph-universe and that TobiKomi didn’t actually exist… Fix-It Felix Jr., as a game, was created as a throwback to an obvious classic – Donkey Kong. But it also contains references to several other games with recognizable mechanics. It doesn’t get more “Meta” than that, does it? – A video game based on a game that’s in a movie based on video games.

And the game is a platformer with each level divided into vertically scrolling sections. The sections are all part of a house known as a Niceland Apartment. Ralph is royally pissed because they moved his tree stump to a less desirable location than the one where the city built Niceland. He decides to live up to his name and wreck the building. Once he has smashed all the windows by pounding the walls with his fists, Felix appears… The residents say: “Fix it, Felix!” So can you fix it?

Starting on ground level, you run left and right and somehow un-break windows with your hammer. To get the next floor, you jump up. Then you jump between the windowsills to navigate around the outer wall. Meanwhile, Ralph is in full Donkey Kong-mode, and tries to get you off of the building by bombarding you with bricks. And once you have fixed all windows, the view scrolls to the next part of the house. In the last section, you’re rewarded for a good job by the residents before Ralph is thrown off the roof. (!) And so on to the next of the fifteen remaining levels… The subsequent levels include window boxes (That you can’t jump over.), flying ducks (That you must not collide with.), and other things that make your life harder. Every once in a while, a lady puts a fresh pie in one of the windows, which you can eat for a few moments’ protection against physical injuries. And this is also when you also can eliminate the birds.

Fix-It Felix Jr. features funny cut-scenes, perfect controls, balanced gameplay (Although Level 16 will give even the most hardened arcade game player something to sweat over.), sampled speech (The excellent in-game tune can be turned off.), nice Sprites and animations, plus the most classic-looking title screen that you can imagine. And there are no recurring glitches or nasty bugs. It’s more and more obvious that Broken Bytes handles C64-action games as well as the old Masters… I’m sure some of latter would have successfully ported Fix-It Felix Jr. in the mid-80s had it, you know, been a real Coin-Op. — 1 Player · Joystick · Cassette / Disk (Download)

Get Fix-It Felix Jr. for free from: https://brokenbytes.itch.io/fix-it-felix-jr.

4. Hired Sword 2

Double Sided Games

The not very long awaited sequel to Hired Sword…!

But– Hired Sword…?! No…? Never heard of it either? No worries. You haven’t missed out on another 80s cult-classic. The original, Ultima-style (and slightly crude) Dungeon Crawler RPG happens to get delivered, for the first time, with Hired Sword 2…! The original is more like a curiosity than a god-damn-is-it-a-must-play before you venture into the sequel, because it’s really simple and… Rough around the edges. Comparing the two games is like night and day even if they graphically remind of each other and take place in a place called Kadazanos.

Roy Riggs’ classic lesson in RPGs tells the tale that hasn’t probably been told through many 8-bit adventures before, and definitely not from the point of view of this mercenary that you play as. You wake up, hungover and broke… You don’t shy away from spending every coin on wine, women, and song. Or fine wine and even finer women – Especially this Elf that came and went just as fast, following a very pleasant night. It’s also an Elf that you simply can’t forget… And the rest of your money? Probably wasted on unimportant shit.

So you get up with the head in pieces and decide to find this white-haired beauty for amorous reasons. This isn’t exactly how you become the Avatar or the Hero of the realms, but it sounds way funnier… If you have played Ultima, you recognize everything from the first movement on screen. (Except instead of goblins and orcs, you initially attack defenseless mice and rabbits!) Hired Sword 2 doesn’t quite wholeheartedly attempt to tell an epic story, but its approach is way more light-hearted. It’s also based on silliness and humor. (Which for the centillionth time may not be everybody’s jug of ale… But! Some people laugh at Candid Camera – Others laugh at Monty Python. That’s all I’m saying.) Plus an overdose of innuendo and double entendres.

But that doesn’t mean that the game can’t be ambitious and well made. This actually is a full-fledged RPG with everything that such a game needs – Exploration, leveling up, multiple maps and dungeons (Around twenty in total.), different monsters and “monsters” (All 37 are listed in the manual’s cute Bestiary.), plus a system for randomly generated weapons and armor. The fights are based on dice rolls (Shown on screen during combat.), and the combat system is very nice laid out. Everything that “happens” outside the exploration is shown in pop-up windows. The same goes for the inventory management. (Equipping and discarding items is as uncomplicated as it could ever be.)

Your inventory and stats are shown in a separate narrow window on the right side of the screen. (The game counts wounds as “ouches”.) In other words: The game has an indirectly defined system that has been perfected since the Ultima-games, and which lives on to this day. And it makes the gameplay flow in an uninterrupted way. (We saw some examples from the absolute opposite side of the spectrum during the 16-bit era, didn’t we?) You don’t go into a game like Hired Sword 2 expecting graphics that are almost better than what the hardware can handle. No. You get maps that scroll one character block at a time. You get square-shaped tiles that represent various types of terrain. And if you see animated Sprites anywhere, it’s a an anecdote that you can tell the (or any) grandchildren. And in this case, you get an excellent cover / variation of Greensleeves by Mike Richmond. And the best part of all is that you already know if this game is worth investing time and energy into. — 1 Player · Joystick · Disk (Physical + Download)

And now that your thirst for 8-bit RPGs has got the best of you, you can get digital and physical copies of Hired Sword 2 at: https://www.doublesidedgames.com.

5. The Isle Of The Cursed Prophet

Psytronik Software / Icon64

The things we do for (unfairly) lost love… (Resurrection especially!)

There luckily doesn’t seem to anything stopping Icon64 from delivering hit game after hit game. We have had three so far, in three different genres, and only half the year has passed! Achim Volkers and Trevor Storey have been hard at work during these tough times and delivers their second RPG-style adventure after The Lord Of Dragonspire. (That’s next on this list!) And what’s the icing on the cake? That is Jason Page AND Saul Cross delivering the SIDs this time – One haunting intro piece and the atmospheric in-game tune respectively.

1966. Oliver Taylor lost his wife Madalin five excruciating years ago. In the tireless and desperate search for possibilities to bring Madalin back from the dead, Olli has now found out that the Necronomicon might have a solution. When he also hears about an abandoned island once inhabited by Driuds, he figures that it might be the right place to conduct some resurrection business. Said and done. A boat-ride from the Northern English coast later, he stands on the shore of the Isle Of The Prophet… You walk around the multi-directional scrolling island in top-down perspective and look for items and various good stuff. Weapons like daggers and swords are always good to have on a journey like this one (As the island isn’t quite as abandoned as “people” say.), but also hammers, torches, shovels, etc. are useful during the exploration. And then, there are the many jade- and elemental stones. What purpose do they have?

The game has eighteen items for you to collect, and you’ll probably need all of them sooner or later. You attack or use items with the Fire-button, and the only keys you’ll be using are the function ones on the title screen. (F1 – Load Game, F3 – Toggle music, F5 – Pause, and F7 – Save Game.) Your health, experience, items, and keys are shown in the status panel at the bottom of the screen. Logically, you gain more hearts (health) the more experience you gain. And experience is earned through killing attackers. Some of them drop hearts, and picking them up is the only way to restore lost health.

You can dive right in without reading the manual, but the “Diary Of Henry Gray” and the various bits on the island is well worth reading. Not only does the back-story increase the atmosphere around the game, but it also provides some vital (and cryptic) clues for your quest. (There is also a hand-drawn map of the island.) And the quest… It’s a sorrow-filled one with only the regained, frail hope driving Oliver to unfold the potential secret of life beyond death… Upon first glance, Isle Of The Cursed Prophet may look like a throwback to The Legend Of Zelda, but it plays very differently and the entire feel around it is almost on Zelda’s opposite side. Olli sure looks like the saddest 8-bit character in video game history. But on the other hand – Who the hell can blame him? And if you ever lose hope, remember that you don’t lose your items and keys if you “get tired” from injuries. You don’t really die in the game – You only lose all experience with the last heart.

Also make sure to check out the cinematic intro for the game. It’s one of the best-looking ones in any game on the platform in modern times. (Silhouettes and blue / purple late evening skies look absolutely wonderful.) And an outro as a reward for completing yet another excellent Icon64-game goes without saying. If Icon64 keeps releasing high quality stuff like this, we might have to start coming up with “reasons” for “returning” to our contemporary gaming platforms…!

The graphics? Excellent, of course. Tremendous use of color. Hi-res sprites over multi-colored ones. Lovely design and animations. Gorgeous exteriors and interiors. Smooth scrolling. Even smoother action. Nothing is missing in the least. Top it off with a really good OST. — 1 Player · Joystick + Keyboard · Disk / Cassette / Binary Executable (Physical + Download)

But where can you get this particular gem? You know the Cyberplace – https://psytronik.itch.io/cursed-prophet-c64. $6.99, and that also gets you the gorgeous 36-page manual as a PDF. (Physical editions can be ordered via Binary Zone Interactive. Unfortunately, they don’t come with the Necronomicon.)

Isle Of The Cursed Prophet was released in June… And speaking of RPG-style games from Icon64… Let’s go back to April for:

6. The Lord Of Dragonspire

Psytronik Software / Icon64

And could this be a long awaited spiritual successor to Richard Darling’s The Master Of Magic?

Whatever the case is, you’ve got to have a slew of more serious RPGs as well – Games without silliness around every corner. One The Lord Of Dragonspire for every Hired Sword 2. That’s the preferable, perfect balance during any year.

The back story for this top down window-based adventure game is nothing you haven’t heard before in some variation – A demon is bringing back monsters and creatures that you necessarily don’t want to share your neighborhood with. So you have to locate this Dragonspire where the demon resides, and then give him a permanent and painful send off. (But with everything from spiders to big dragons getting in your way first.) The Lord Of Dragonspire doesn’t have anything in the shape of character creation, but there are some heavier RPG mechanics. You select between a bunch of commands (Eat, Attack, Run, etc.) from a narrow menu looking like a cyan-colored scroll in the middle of the screen. The upper third of the screen displays what you see and what enemies are close by. There are two more windows below the command-selection scroll. The left one shows your top-down surroundings with you walking around these in eight directions, and the other one (Also looking like a (yellow) scroll.) explains what’s happening in, e.g., a battle. “You attack the bat with sturdy club.”, “You hit 4 DMG.”, etc.

Usually, you can determine the level of ambitions of a game by studying its manual. The Lord Of Dragonspire comes to us via the top developers from Icon64, well known for putting a lot of content in their games. “Dragonspire” is not an exception as much as it raises the bar for 8-bit RPGs. Thirteen items (Keys for chests and doors, food, etc.), nine weapons, and twenty-five enemies (With the Demon Lord as the obvious boss.) may not sound standard-setting, but these are all ingredients that must be a part of an RPG that’s worth getting into. Because there is also the, quote, huge map to explore, unquote (You begin your quest in the forest where you search for an entrance to the tower.) and a leveling system. (From 1-10.) And this is necessary as the outcome of battles depends on factors like HP, armor, and weapon. I’m just saying that you probably wouldn’t want the battles to be randomized in such a well made game.

And well made it is. As expected. You should know the current generation of 8-bit video game creating celebrities of Icon64 by now – Stuart Collier (Who coded the game.) and Trevor Storey (Graphics artist.) However, this time Saul Cross didn’t provide the soundtrack. Instead, C64-veteran Jason Page composed the slow and atmospheric “Rob Hubbard inspired” piece that clocks in at around ten and a half minutes. (!) (God damn, have we missed simple video games with long, “hand-made” tunes, or what…?!) The track is melodic and immediately reminds of the right stuff and the early evolution of computer adventuring. You might ask yourself if The Lord Of Dragonspire is worth your time… It might depend on how starved you are, but one thing is certain: The game has a lot to offer. And it both looks and sound great. — 1 Player · Joystick · Disk / Cassette / Binary Executable (Physical + Download)

The game is delivered with a music demo called “Dragonspire Live” where an animated band plays the music from the game – Two percussionists, a horn blower, and two singing Moai on stage. And a rat that runs across the stage sometimes.

Digital version for $4.99 from: https://psytronik.itch.io/dragonspire.

7. Mars

Psytronik Software / Sputnik World

A mission to Mars. It’s a ride up shit creek – Even if you know what you are supposed to do with the paddle…

Destination: The red planet. Capsule 2 just launched from the I.S.S., and Capsule 1 is about to do the same. Capsule 2 holds the gear and in Capsule 1, we find the crew of eight to be the first humans to set foot on Mars… That’s the plan, at least… And with you as the commander, nothing can go wrong, right?

Some aspects of Mars reminds, gameplay-wise, of Accolade’s classic Psi 5 Trading Company sans the light-hearted humor. (And to some extent, Mars is reminiscent of Apollo 18 – Mission To The Moon.) You select among the crew members and give them tasks via a handful of option screens, which depend on the situation. And you don’t get that many moments to think about the consequences before you act. Or second chances. It’s all in real-time.

Mars focuses solely on the tense, living nightmare of traveling 50+ million kilometers (That’s one way!) through a space with Solar radiation, meteorites, and other dangers. The game can be played on a trial and error basis, but how fun is it to start all over again, again and again? Not very. So you need to know your crew and know what their job is. There is: “Rulas International” from NASA – The aerospace engineer specialized in nuclear propulsion. “Igor Errazking” from the European Space Agency is the space geologist – Specialized in physical and chemical reactions. “Bieno64” (Also from ESA.) is the space engineer specialized in robotics and instrumentation. “Baron Ashler” (ESA) and “LADDH” (NASA) are both aerospace engineers whose specialties include control tasks and module control. “Almighty God” happens to also be from NASA. A. God is the crew’s space physics engineer specialized in medicine and space biochemistry. And finally, from TESLA, inc., “Robot MKII” who does “external works”.

You might think that with Almighty God aboard, everything should be smooth sailing. (And if isn’t, well, then A. God simply doesn’t know how to do a good job.) But he can actually be the first of the crew to die. (So in a less metaphysical game, it’s just a character name based on the game’s graphics artist Domingo Álvarez’s handle. Just like the other characters are named after the developers.) Once you get to know which tasks each crew member can do, you can make the lightning fast decisions via the menus while keeping your head cool. The crew names act as buttons and are shown on the lower part of the screen. The text and menus appear in the middle of the screen while the action takes place in two smaller separate smaller windows above the menu / text screen.

And then, there is the collective energy-bar. It’s depleted every time you make a wrong decision or waste precious time in critical moments. (The crew members can get injured and need to be sent to the infirmary.) It’s a very sticky scenario that can turn from bad to worse in moments. That’s what separates a real astronaut from someone who loses control of both himself / herself AND the situation. And this is the main attraction of this game. Mars manages to bring this tension to the player without being very cinematic in nature. The visual effects and graphics work well and create a certain atmosphere. The same goes for the soundscape. But the most impressive part is how Mars is all designed and executed. Less is often more, and in this case, it rings very true. Mission failures sting extra hard when you have managed to get a bit further in the game. — 1 Player · Joystick · Disk (Physical + Download)

Mars a.k.a. Marte was simultaneously released in Spanish. It’s included in both the digital download version and the Collector’s Edition.

How much? Where? $3.99. From Psytronik – https://psytronik.itch.io/mars.

8. Millie & Molly

Carleton Handley

It has to be said now, all these decades later: A couple of super effective time-killers should be released on every platform every year…

And they certainly are released… Like Millie & Molly from C64-veteran Carleton Handley. This charm-fest of a game is based on Yutaka Isokawa’s Catrap (1990) for the GameBoy and the Nintendo 3DS. (MobyGames describes it as a mix between Boulder Dash and Soko-Ban.) Millie & Molly is like an updated version of Catrap in that case. And once you start playing the game, you might soon be surprised over how fast half an hour just vanishes from existence. A familiar feeling and a reminder that you’re playing a good video game? Yes. Yes, it is.

Twin sisters Millie and Molly walk and climb around on single-screen levels and eradicate monsters simply by walking right into them. This process is of course made more and more difficult over the course of the game’s 100 levels. (The first level, you can most likely beat without even looking at the screen… But somewhere around level fifteen, it’s time to start plugging in some gray matter.) You begin the game as Millie. Millie is strong enough to push certain obstacles on the ground. But she can’t jump, and she can’t climb over stationary objects. A level can have loose soil like in Boulder Dash. (That Millie can move through – Just like Rockford.) But the solid rock stays where it is forever. Millie can also stand on the monster, but to vaporize them, they have to be bumped into from the sides.

Molly appears on level 21, which is the second world. (Of five.) Your next question should be: “But is there an Egypt-world?” Of course there is an Egypt-world! (Plus an underwater- and a horror-themed one.) With the simple press of the Fire-button, you switch between the girls. One of the main features of the game is that you can’t die since there are no dangerous monsters or time limits. However, you can get stuck. But you can rewind up to 650 steps. As soon as you notice that you’re trapped or something equally gameplay- and fun-stopping, just hold the Fire-button and the game is rewound. (Complete with a “VHS-tape”-visual tracking glitch!) Release Fire where you want to jump back in again. This is one hell of a neat feature that we have seen in some instances, like in the 25th Anniversary Edition of Flashback, but probably never in a C64-game.

After every completed level, you get a six-digit password that you can punch in on the title screen. Millie & Molly also features a bloody good and easy to use level editor… It’s always heart-warming to see a developer from the 80s return to the scene of the benignity. Handley is perhaps most well known for 64’ers for bringing an excellent version of Tengen’s APB – All Points Bulletin to the platform. (And I “always” like the C64-version of Skull And Crossbones better than the one for the Amiga… That was the old Tengen-disease.) Saul Cross did the graphics and Hans Axelsson-Svala wrote the rather soothing and beautiful soundtrack. Millie & Molly does every little thing right, and it effectively falls under the same category as hundred upon hundreds of other games: Games that you just can’t play once. (Or play one round of.) — 1 Player · Joystick · Disk (Physical + Download)

Get the game for three bucks at https://carletonhandley.itch.io/millie-and-molly.

The physical edition was released through Bitmap Soft.

9. The Shadow Over Hawksmill

Psytronik Software / Icon64

8-bit Call Of Cthulhu-related horror. Finally. It’s like searching for the Necronomicon and finally finding it.

There has been a bunch of video games connected to the Cthulhu mythos throughout the years, but on the C=, it has been one very dry source. (Wikipedia lists 20+ games that are based on H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.) Until now, that is. Icon64 is back again with another excellent arcade adventure. And you know a year looks promising when Stuart Collier, Trevor Storey, and Saul Cross hit the market with two games – Just like they did in 2018. (Short-term nostalgia runs strong, already!) Comparisons to Rocky Memphis – The Legend Of Atlantis are more or less unavoidable. The Icon64 team crafts these kinds of games extremely well on this 38 year old machine, and they have easily secured the C64-legend status just like System 3 did in the late 80s. It doesn’t hurt that Icon64’s games are a joy to play from the first moment… (If you are into 8-bit action, that is!)

It’s a rainy night in July 1947. You have figured out that something seriously shit is about to go down a one-way street in a Northeastern English village called Hawksmill – Everybody has suddenly disappeared without a trace, and the Necronomicon talks about the return of the Old Gods and a certain being that resides in the ocean. And there just might be a bunch of very dedicated followers who are willing to make sure that all this happens. After writing down your observations (In the game’s lovely intro.), you leave for Hawksmill… And you know what you’re up against – Looking for items and clues, running and climbing around places quite possibly unfit for first romantic dates, shooting and jumping, and having a good time. The atmosphere in Hawksmill is fantastic. Dark blue skies, silhouettes, and rain. Check. Old European-style houses. 72 flip-screens to explore. (The subterranean locations make up a majority of the game map.) Excellent. What about bats and wolves? A check-mark on that as well. And if you think that the in-game rain isn’t heavy enough, you can change it on the title screen by pressing the F1-key. (This cycles between no rain, light rain, and heavy rain.)

So you step into Hawksmill and prepare for some nice horror adventuring and puzzle solving. The back story is as classic as the style of gameplay. Very early on, you’ll probably notice that all the items that you can pick up aren’t actually visible on screen. This means that you have to search the ground. (By pushing the Joystick down.) Flipping through your items can either be done with the F1- and F3-keys, or, by pushing down on the Joystick, then holding the Fire-button and pushing up or down. Items are used with one single hit of the Fire-button, and this includes the use of weapons. Holding Fire activates automatic shooting and by pushing up or down, you can aim in different directions in front of you. F7 is another very important key, and that… Is for eating an apple…!

The Shadow Over Hawksmill looks wonderful. Saul Cross’ soundtrack is more ambient than what we usually expect from the SID-maestro. But that’s exactly what fits a game like this. The sound effects have a bigger part of the soundscape instead… We can only hope that there are a couple more of these Icon64-style horror themed games in the works. — 1 Player · Joystick + Keyboard (Optional) · Disk / Cassette / Binary Executable (Physical + Download)

If you want to purchase a digital version of the game, surf the tides of the information highway, the Cyberspace, to: https://psytronik.itch.io/hawksmill for v2.0 – It’s $6.99 right now. (Mid-2020)

The game is delivered with a music demo called “Hawksmill Music”. It includes two tunes – None from The Shadow Over Hawksmill, but one from My Life and one from Sizzler. Good shit, man.

Trivia: This is Psytronik Software’s release no. 100.

10. Wormhole

Protovision / TRS

Top quality platform shooter, and a game of “agains”.

The human error has caused a fuck-up that threatens the human race again. Scientists have experimented with a wormhole, and naturally lost control of their own project. Again. Aliens take the opportunity to invade Earth. Again. And you have to put every right…

It’s a good thing these things happen every now and then in the world of video games, because we wouldn’t have got as many action-packed, sweaty, satisfying, and hellishly hard experiences otherwise. What certainly feels like a fresh breeze, again, is Thorsten and Thomas Rosenbaum’s game called Wormhole. It includes tons of references and throwbacks to the C=lassics, but when they are presented this way in a game that works so well… Well, it just melts an old C64-geek’s heart and turns it red like the screen with POKE 53281,2…

Wormhole is a horizontally two-way scrolling (Meaning that you can go back and forth.) action game with 3 levels times fives. The emergency mission this time is to find a Professor who is the only dude who knows how to close this wormhole. Preferably some time right before Earth is obliterated. Luckily, what you need to do in this game is to kill aliens and mutants (Giant wasps, bugs, worms, and who the hell knows what else?) before they kill you, collect vitamins, retrieve keys for the exits on each level, and… Avoid dangerous shit as a way of survival.

The weapon upgrades (Laser rifle and rocket launcher.) and bombs help, as does the fuel that you need to fly your MMU – Manned Maneuvering Unit with. Your nifty suit is what keeps you alive from the outset, but its air-supply doesn’t last forever either. So you need to refill that good old nitrogen/oxygen-mix ever so often. You also need to upgrade the suits horizontal and vertical jumping abilities. (These are separate.) If you guessed that the environments sooner or later require you to jump on specific pixels and do some crazy acrobatics to progress, you’re either a promising psychic or have played these kinds of games before. The score in this game is called your “salary”, and it’s basically the cash you make in-game by killing.

Wormhole has a whole set of options that can be selected via the title screen menu. The game supports two Joysticks (But the two-player option is of the alternating kind.) and Joysticks / controllers with three Fire-buttons – One for shooting, one for switching weapons, and one for the bombs. With one button on your stick, you use the Space-bar and the F7-key for weapon switching and bomb blasting. The latter can also be done with the down direction on the Joystick. (If that option is selected from the main menu.) Wormhole additionally has a “Give Up”- and a “Cyanide”-key. The first one is for an immediate Game Over, and the cyanide is for losing a life. This could be useful if you get stuck in a shitty situation. Hi-scores are manually saved. The game has a built-in Trainer option (With eight settings.), but understandably, playing with cheats doesn’t get you one single cent. But it lets you practice the game. The graphics, musics, and sounds are of top class – It’s like the guys behind Wormhole took over right where the 80s ended. — 1 – 2 Players (Alternating) / Joystick + Keyboard (Optional) · Cartridge / Disk (Physical + Download)

Grab this fine piece of computer software for $4.99 from https://protovision.itch.io/wormhole or https://www.protovision.games.

… And finally, a couple of honorable mentions:

1. Ghost Town (Kingsoft) – This was originally a C16 / Plus/4 game by Udo Gertz and P. Hartmann, but Ingo Hinterding recreated this 1985 cult-classic flip-screen arcade adventure for the C64 as well as expanding on the original version. Bugs were fixed and graphics were improved. (There are actually no animations in the game…!) And the music was remixed by Spider Jerusalem. (An excellent and short / looping tune that nicely gets stuck in the head like Loctite after a few rounds with this oddity.) Ghost Town is hard (But not unfair, even if it might feel so once in a “while”.) by nature with (often invisible) death lurking around nearly every other corner. But basically, you have to collect various items and use them in their right locations. There is almost less than zero hand-holding. Trial, error, discovery, and hard-learned lessons is what this all is about. Mistakes are severely punished. Failures take everything from you. And you have one life. Around twenty screens may not sound like much at all, but the mercilessness of the game is an hellish compensation enough. And somehow, it feels like a breath of strong gale.

2. Into Hinterland World (Abyss Connection) – 2085. 90% of all life on Earth is extinct due to epidemics and diseases… It’s time to go back in time to set things right aboard a vessel known as the D14 Zeitgeist…! And here comes a horizontally scrolling Shoot ‘Em-Up with thoroughly neat design, lovely graphics, great gameplay, and exceptionally good music… You can never have too many of those kinds of games. And trust a Demo group to create something of this caliber. Into Hinterland World has six stages. (Where the first one is a winding tunnel scrolling at different speeds. You don’t shoot anything – You just have to avoid the walls.) Simultaneous two-player co-op (The second player controls a satellite.), and seven weapon upgrades are also featured. You need to collect energy and shield capsules to be able to survive… The game was developed during five (!) years by Background, who also made the graphics and some of the tunes. This is the second game from Abyss Connection after 1337 Karate in 2019. (Which primarily was made by fieserWolf, who wrote some additional music for this game.) Into Hinterland World is one of those Shmups that I can’t “help” thinking about randomly every now and then – Until I have to play (and listen to) it. Mostly to relieve the itch… Really, really good stuff…

3. You Had One Job! (Xellas / KK / Traq / Denys) – And finally, for even better measure, some genuine Old School with a new core… The sinks are geysering water, the toilets are flooding, the stove is in flames, the water pipes are busted… And you (And another player in simultaneous co-op mode.) have to make some quick and dirty fixing. The idea is to bullshit the landlord into thinking that the house is good enough to live in when he inspects the rooms. And we haven’t even mentioned the giant spiders and the cats and rats roaming around… You run from floor to floor on a single-screen level and fix stuff (very temporarily) and try to avoid immediate trouble. The house is divided into four floors and these are separated via ladders. Once you have done your job, you can exit… Before your “repairs” are discovered and you lose one of five chances. This fun and hectic game was made for the Global Game Jam 2020, and it features a bloody great in-game tune. (KK’s SID-licious cover of Marek Biliński’s “Escape From The Tropics”.)

…

Phew. What a year for the C= so far…!

Icon64 must get an extra mention. They are are on a mad roll right now. Not only have they announced Soulless 2 (The sequel, obviously, to Georg Rottensteiner’s game from 2012.), but upcoming games include: Arcade Daze, Age Of Heroes 2 – Path Of The Titans, Battle Kingdom, AND Dragon Punch! It will most likely be an exciting summer and fall for the fans of Icon64.

It’s quite amazing to at least to some extent feel that “all energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet”. Why else would some phenomena work as well today as they did in 1987? In this case – Focusing on C64-games while trying to ignore everything that is turning to shit on the outside.

Stay a while… Stay forever…! (Yeah, some of us kind of did.)

Anyway. When, and if, we summarize ten Games Of The Year 2020 going into 2021, I’m totally convinced that some of the games mentioned are in that list as well.

And when you have reached the now, there is only one way to go…