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Friday 19 June 2015

New Shoot-em-up, "Kingdoms of Steam", in Development

Although busy working on his Dizzy-like-adventure "Dylan The Spaceman", Chris Clarke has taken time out from developing this game to begin work on a side-scrolling shoot-em-up, provisionally titled "Kingdoms of Steam".

Here's Chris;
"As well as a Dizzy Game Maker - Reality also has a horizontal Shoot Em up creator - had a quick look at this, using some background tiles from the Dylan the Spaceman game and some quickly drawn Steel Empire type / inspired sprites, I have a working demo level - perhaps this will be included as a bonus game with the CD release of Dylan the Spaceman.
The Shoot em up construction kit isn't as good as the Dizzy game maker but better than SEUCK - the only two major flaws are - no in game music - an the enemy and background tiles are limited to 16 colours - whilst the main player ship can use a different 16. Also you can't change the speed of the scrolling."
Check out the screenshots below...


All being well, Chris hopes for a two level demo to be released towards the end of June, at which point he'll continue to work on completing "Dylan The Spaceman". If there's enough interest in "Kingdoms of Steam" Chris says he would work on turning this into a full three level game.

Chris has been kind enough to send me a beta release of the game, which, if I get time this weekend I'll fire up on the trusty A1200 tower and try out.

In the meantime, you can keep up-to-date on all things "Dylan" and "Kingdoms of Steam" related by visiting Chris' Amiga PD Facebook Group.

Thursday 18 June 2015

New Amiga Adventure "Star Wars: Escape From Mos Eisley"

Those of you who grew up playing classic text adventures such as The Ship of Doom and The Hobbit, may be interested to learn that a new text adventure has just been released for the Amiga.

"Star Wars: Escape From Mos Eisley" is described by its author, Umpal as "Nothing special", and is his first Amiga release.

The game was originally announced on the Amiga.org forums, and so far discussion in the thread seems to be more concerned with copyright than the game itself. This isn't totally surprising when you consider the problems the author of Smurf Rescue encountered with his Amiga homebrew release.

If you'd like to find out more about the release (or join in the discussion) check out this thread over on the Amiga.org Forums. You'll also find a download link there.

Lemon Amiga Takes a Look at Liquid Kids

For around half a decade from the mid 1980s, Taito were one of if not the kings of arcade platform games. Rainbow Islands, Rastan Saga and The New Zealand Story were just some of the classics released by the Japanese company during this time, and these games are still enjoyed by gamers today.

Spotting an opportunity, UK based Ocean Software would licence many a Taito title for conversion to the various home computer platforms of the day. All three of the above titles, for example, were snapped up by the gaming giant, and saw release either under the Ocean or Imagine brand.

Among their numerous licenses was a 1990 Taito release by the name of Liquid Kids. A colourful side-scrolling platform affair, this was ported to the Amiga by arcade conversion specialists (check out the quality of their Toki and Pang conversions) Ocean France.

I remember looking forward to the release of Liquid Kids for the Amiga, and then, after months of waiting, reading in an issue of Amiga Power magazine that Ocean had decided the market had changed and that it would no longer be publishing the game despite it being pretty much complete.

A number of years later I recall swapping a few emails with Paul Carrington of Vulcan Software, who'd seen a post of mine on Usenet relating to the unreleased Amiga game. Paul was asking for more information on the title and was considering contacting Ocean with an idea of releasing it on his own Vulcan Software label.

However far (if at all) discussions got with Ocean we'll probably never know. One thing I do know is that the game vanished from trace until 2003 when Galahad of Fairlight got hold of a copy, fixed umpteen bugs, spelling mistakes, disk routines and much more besides.

Finally, after almost a decade and a half, the Amiga version of Liquid Kids was available to Amiga users.

So, why am I talking about a game that surfaced on our favourite platform some 12 years ago? Well, one of the recent Playguide and Review videos by the Lemon Amiga team is this very game, and I had a feeling that this may have been a title that had passed a good number of Amiga users by.

If you're one of these people, check out the Lemon Amiga video below, and then continue down for a Liquid Kids download link.


If the above has whetted your appetite for this game you can download the WHDload version for your Amiga via this link on the WHDownload web site.

While I feel the Amiga version of Liquid Kids isn't up to the same standard of polish as some earlier Ocean France arcade to Amiga conversions I still think it's worth checking out and spending some time on. It's a fun little game, and it's a real shame that it failed to see a commercial release back in the day.

Have fun!

Monday 15 June 2015

A Quick Update

It's been well over a month since I last updated the blog, and for that I must apologise.

A combination of work and holidays have been to blame, meaning my time for tinkering around on the Amiga has been sorely limited. That said, I have been lucky enough to have been invited to play test a work in progress version of forthcoming arcade adventure "Dylan The Spaceman", which is shaping up to be something rather special indeed.

I'll be reporting more on Dylan over the coming weeks, and at the same time hope to find more opportunities to keep the blog updated.

Happy gaming!