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Saturday 27 April 2013

Amiga PD Interviews Dave Townsend

Released way back in 1987, Dave Townsend's Bull Run lets you step into the shoes of the Union or Confederate commanders at the Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the American Civil War.

With a modern update now in the works AmigaPD.com have decided it was about time Dave was tracked down and given the APD interview treatment.

The interview is a fascinating read where Dave reveals what attracted him to the Civil War idea, different release versions of the game floating around, how the AI was coded, and much more besides.

To read the review, point your web browser over to the AmigaPD.com web site, and once you're done don't forget to leave a Mencap donation.

Saturday 20 April 2013

Solomon's Key Lands on The Amiga!

While it's great to follow the progress of a new Amiga game or port from inception to completion, it's also just as exciting for an Amiga game to land on the platform completely out of the blue.

Solomon's Key is one such title that firmly follows the latter, as earlier today it was not only announced on the English Amiga Board, but a link to the full download was also supplied!

Coming hot on the heels of earlier 21st century ST to Amiga ports such as Gauntlet, IK, Joust and Super Sprint, this is another highly polished title that for one reason or another failed to appear on the Amiga back in the day.

Now, thanks to the efforts of EAB member Asman and with help from Wanted Team, the ST version has been ported over to the Amiga, and with stunning results.

Not content with porting the game over, the conversion team have even gone to the trouble of making everything that bit more authentic by adding an old-skool and very stylish 'crack' intro, which not only looks good, but also features a lovely tune.

Apologies for the quality of this photo (and me in the background), this was a quick snap I took

So, what's the game like? Well, fans of the arcade original won't be disappointed. Sure, it's not a 100% accurate conversion, but it's extremely well polished. The graphics are lovely and colourful, and sound can be a mix of both music AND sound effects at the same time.

The game supports two button joysticks/pads, with the first button used to create or destroy blocks, and the second to fire spells. It would have been nice if a third button could also have been coded for, as up for jump does make things tricker than they should be. 

Those who wish to use keyboard controls are also well catered for, and there's even an option to redefine your own keys should you wish.

Apologies for the angle of this photo. I took it by pointing my camera phone at my monitor
Gamers looking to go for high scores will be interested to learn that high scores are saved to disk, making it possible to return to the game at a later date/time in an effort to beat your personal best.

System requirements are fairly small for this title. As long as you have at least 1 meg of chip RAM free you'll be able to enjoy the game in its entirety. If you've got 512k chip and 512k fast RAM sound FX will be disabled.

You can even run this on a bog standard 68000 Amiga, but the game will run a little slow.

Those of you who still have your Amiga set up, or an emulated Amiga and use it for games should certainly consider getting this installed and fired-up on your system. You won't regret it.

Check out the English Amiga Board Solomon's Key thread HERE, and download the DMS file HERE.

My thanks go to the Lemon Amiga Facebook page for the heads-up on this one.

Sunday 14 April 2013

Moebius Goatlizard In-Game Footage

Here's a very quick update to the blog.

In yesterday's blog post I announced the release of a new Amiga platformer "Moebius Goatlizard", and with the news also reaching other web sites via the game's author, interest in the title has increased.

Always one to quickly upload Amiga footage as soon as a new game is released, YouTube user s2325 has just uploaded footage of the game in action. So, if you're not able to or can't be bothered (shame on you!) to get this up and running in your own home you now have a chance to see it...


My thanks go to s2325 for making this available.

Saturday 13 April 2013

Moebius Goatlizard Released!

It's been a long time coming, but after months of waiting we can finally get our hands on the full version of Moebius Goatlizard.

Originally released by Dave Hughes of Stonechat Productions for the ZX Spectrum in 2012, and followed by a Sam Coupe conversion by Blackjet that same year, this has now been ported to the Commodore Amiga by Blackjet.

Work on the Amiga conversion began in August of last year, and today (14th April) the completed ADF image was uploaded to the Black Jet web site ready for you to download and play on either real or emulated Amiga systems.

The author tells us that the object of the game is to:
"Run around collecting the inter-galactic aliens, avoiding things and generally have a right rollocking good time doing it"
Full instructions, background information and a download link for the Amiga version of Moebius can be found at: http://blackjet.co.uk/amiga.php

If you're planning to transfer the ADF to disk and want to make a really nice job of it, the disk label can be found here (PDF).

I'd completely forgotten all about this title, so I must thank the Lemon Amiga team for the heads-up on this one. Cheers guys!


Tuesday 9 April 2013

The Top 100 Amiga Public Domain Games Vote

Graham Humphrey of Amiga platformer Downfall, Christian Clarke of AmigaPD.com and myself are working on an article of the 100 best pd games (including Licenceware / shareware / amiga magazine cover disks) and would like some help working out the order to rank them.

Therefore we would really appreciate if you could contribute to our project by voting for your top 30 games from the list below: (we have asked for your top 30 to reduce the chances of 0 votes and games on same number of points, but if you can't stretch to 30 just submit what you can!)

Act of War
Aerial Racers
Agent Lux
Air Taxi
Alien Bash 2
Alien Fish Finger
Aquanaut
Asteroids
Atom Smasher
BabeAnoid
Beetle
Black Dawn 2
Bob's Magic Garden
Breed '96
Bull Run
Burton Bird
Colonial Conquest 2
Crazy Sue
Croak
Cyberman
Cybernetix
Defender
Deluxe Galaga
Deluxe Pacman
Depth Charge
Diamond Caves
Dithell In Space
Dogfight v1.1
Doody
Downfall
Drip
Dynamite Warriors
Elektrek
Elevation
Fatal Mission 2
Fayoh
Fayoh 2
Fleuch
Gravity Power
Hoi AGA Remix
Hydrozone
Infection
Insectoids From Outer
Space Jet Set Willy '97
Jump and Roll
Jump Em
Knights
Larn
Lethal Formula
Llamatron
Lord of Alcandria 2
Mad Bomber
Megaball
Mine Runner
Morton Strikes Back
 Move Em
Mr Beanbag
Og!
Pacman '96
Peg It
Pengo
Pod
Poing
Pollymorf
Premier Picks
Qbic
Quasar Wars
Quicksilva
Relics of Deldroneye
Renegades Return to Earth
Rocketz
Santa and Rudolph
Scorched Tanks
Sneech
Solidquad
Springtime
Stairwoids
Super Foul Egg
Super Obliteration
Tanks N Stuff
Tanx
Toobz
Top Hat Willy
Total Chaos
Total War
Touch 'n' Go
T-Racer
Tracker Hero
Trick or Treat
Truckin On
War
Wibble World Giddy
Willy's Weirdy Nightmare
Wired Chaos
WITNESS
Wizzy's Quest
Zaxxon
Zerg
Zombie Apocalypse

Due to requests from members of the Amiga community the following two games have been added to the list:

Extreme Violence
Knockout 2

They above will replace games which get 0 votes.

If there are any games you've not heard of then visit this link over on the AmigaPD web site, which contains a slideshow of all the games, and a folder where you can download an archive containing all the disk images.

To vote you'll need to be a member of the English Amiga Board. Votes need to be submitted to this thread.

Voting starts now and will close at 23:59 UK time on July 31st. Votes received after this date will not be counted.

After this we'll write up mini reviews of each title and count down to the number one title over the course of a few weeks.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Thursday 4 April 2013

Amiga & CD32 Music Compilation Coming This May

"Paula Agnus Denise" is the name of a new Amiga and CD32 music compilation, due for release this May.

Featuring covers of tracks originally composed by legendary artists such as Chris Huelsbeck, Allister Brimble, Tim Wright, and more, this looks like to be something worth keeping an eye out for.

The album contains a whopping 19 tracks, and will be available to purchase digitally or on CD, which comes with a 12 page booklet.

For more information, including the full track/artists listing and download links, point your web browser over to THIS blog post over on the VG247.com web site.

Wednesday 3 April 2013

Updated versions of Arcade Game Selector

If you're one of the many people who only use their Amiga systems for gaming, then the Arcade Game Selector may be right up your street. Rather than loading up Workbench, you simply switch your Amiga on, and the machine then loads the game selector system up straight from hard drive.

Previously available as an AGA only release, English Amiga Board member tomcat666, has now produced an ECS version of his game selection system, for lower specced Amigas.

Here's the man himself with the details;
"I decided to update the AGS (Arcade Game Selector) menu systems for use in my A1200 (with 030/50Mhz) and my un-exapnded A600. 
As a base I took the OCS version of AGS system that I found on this forum. This version had nice sub-directories handling and a few other enhancements over the original AGS version (and the other enhanced one from lennon)... 
I am also including all of my start scripts and pictures for the games so you can set it up quickly. 
This one is similar to KGLoad with a few differences - menu is bigger (no cover photo), you can start ANY game from it, not just WHD games! 
It was fun to do some work in Amiga E language - never done that before"
 For more information, including download links to both the AGA and OCS versions of the Arcade Game Selector, check out THIS thread over on the English Amiga Board.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Retro Asylum Ep 35 - Swainy's Top 10 Amiga Tunes

Those of you who are big fans of Amiga game music will definitely want to give episode 35 of the Retro Asylum Podcast a listen. Hosted by the one and only Swainy, this latest show covers the presenter's favourite Amiga game tunes of all time.

Here's the blurb for this latest episode;
"Our resident Cockney nutter has returned to take you back to the early 90′s as he play’s his personal favourite top 10 Commodore Amiga tunes from games that he has played on the system.

Also, discover how to join the Retro Asylum team of hosts and there are more details on the UK’s biggest retro event this year. So, sit back and enjoy some real classic tunes chosen by the UK’s No1 Retro Gaming Podcast!"

For more information, and for links enabling you to stream the podcast from the site or to subscribe to the show via iTunes, point your web browser over to:

http://retroasylum.com/ep-35-12-swainys-top-10-amiga-tunes/