Amikill Vers 1.0 (Demo) Released

Fans of Operation Wolf style games may be interested to learn that a demo of Amigakill is now available for download.

Coded in AMOS, this zombie shooter is still in the very early stages of development, but progress so far seems to have been extremely swift.

There's currently a short thread discussing the game, over on the English Amiga Board forums. If you'd like to take part or simply read what's been talked about so far, I suggest visiting this link.

So far, the main subject of feedback has been the suggestion that the digitised backdrop is replaced with a nice pixelated image instead. At present things do look a little odd as the backdrop is a scan whilst the enemies are animated hand drawn sprites.

If you'd like to get the demo up and running on your own Amiga you can find the download link at http://clubamiten.blogspot.com.es. Amiten, author of Amikill, suggests that the game is run on at least an A1200.

Those of you who don't have access to an Amiga, or simply don't have the time or inclination to install this on your system can find footage of the game in action below.

AmiQuake AGA V1.11 - Footage and Final Released

I'm not sure how I missed this one, but on the 31st January Novacoder uploaded footage of version 1.11 of his AmiQuake port to YouTube.

What's exciting about this is that it shows not only the game up and running, but how well it performs being played. You'll need a decent spec 68060 machine to get this running at a good speed, but for those of you lucky enough to have such set-ups it looks like you'll be in for a real treat.

Take a look...


Here's Novacoder;

"This is an actual recording of a game that I was playing yesterday so it gives a good idea of how fast is is now, even when lots of bad guys are on screen at once".

If you want to get this up and running on your Amiga, you can download what Novacoder tells us is the final release, at this Aminet link.

Before you do that, though, you need to make sure your set-up matches these requirements:

1) An AGA Amiga
2) A very fast 68060 processor (with FPU)
3) 32MB of FASTRAM
4) The original game or demo

Looking at the footage (my Amiga's just not powerful enough to run this) it looks as if Novacoder's completed yet another amazing project. If he turns his attentions to something else I'll be sure to report on it.

DOSBox Amiga 0.74 - Wing Commander 2

As you can see from the navigation bar on the right-hand-side, one of the most read updates I've posted to this blog relates to the Amiga port of DOSBOX, an application enabling you to run old MSDOS titles on your trusty Miggy.

NovaCoder's work developing this for the Amiga continues, and at version 0.74 he decided it was time to demonstrate Wing Commander 2 running on the Amiga. Yes, it's slow and you'll need a decent speed 060 processor, but as the emulator's not even reached version 1 yet it's already generating some impressive results.

Take a look at the video below to see it in action;
Naturally, as soon as further news breaks on this fascinating project I'll update the blog.

*** UPDATE *** Since posting this blog Novacoder has significantly improved the performance of DOSBox Amiga, and has uploaded new footage of Wing Commander 2 in action.

Top Amiga Games 2012 - Results!

Towards the end of January I reported that the Obligement web site were asking you to vote for your "Top Amiga Games of 2012", giving you the chance to nominate your favourite Amiga game releases over the past 12 months.

Well, the closing date for nominations has now closed, and the top three results have been revealed as being;

1 - Sqrxz by Retroguru
2 - Sqrxz 2 by Retroguru
3 - Super Sprint by State Of The Art, Philippe Guichardon

I can't comment on Sqrxz 2, as I've not yet had a chance to play it, but I found the original to be well polished but extremely frustrating, and judging from responses on the English Amiga Board, the sequel is even more irritating.

The Super Sprint ST conversion was one of my favourite Amiga releases of the past 12 months, so I'm pleased to see that it's been ranked. It's a smashing game, wonderfully playable, and you can find out more about it and two other ST to Amiga conversions by reading this old blog post of mine from November last year.


Super Sprint - ST version running on an Amiga
The top 2012 games for OS 4.0, MorphOS and AROS were also tallied-up, and if those interest you, you can find them here: http://obligement.free.fr/hitparade/award2012.php

My thanks go to the guys over at http://www.amigans.net for the heads-up on this one.

Discovering The Joys of "Fayoh 2"

One of the many things I love about the Amiga is that even after owning a machine for over two decades I'm still stumbling upon games that, for whatever reason, I missed when they were originally released.

My most recent discovery is the 1998 release Fayoh 2, an AGA only platform arcade adventure, which, although worked on by a number of bedroom programmers, has been polished to an extremely high standard. I'd actually go as far as saying that if you paid £14.99 or £19.99 for this back in the day you wouldn't feel cheated at all.

The game begins with you entering the main tower of Don Jockface (this is what it says in the instructions!), a room filled with numerous mirrors that lead to strange areas of the black gum's home. Entering an unlocked mirror is as simple as moving your character in front of it, and then pulling down.

Once you've entered an area you're unable to leave until you've found all the hidden stars located there. Once that task's complete you must return to the mirror you used to enter, and you'll then be returned back to the main tower, ready to enter the next section.

At the bottom of the tower you'll find two very special mirrors. The first enables you to save your progress in one of the three save slots (yes, the game is so big that saving your progress is essential), and the second is a bonus room, giving you the chance to trade your points against extra lives.

The author describes the game as a Super Mario World clone, but I'd disagree. With the maps laid out as they are you'll often find the need to return to areas you've already visited, either to exit the level or to collect items you missed when you first passed through. To me it has the arcade platform feel of Super Mario World and the adventuring aspect of the Spectrum classic Jet Set Willy.


As you can see from the YouTube footage above, the game looks beautiful, and very console-like, with bright colours and some lovely parallax scrolling, a feature so often neglected on the Amiga. Music is also to an extremely high standard, with what seems like a massive number of in-game tunes, which sound great and really add to the atmosphere.

The controls also seem to have had a lot of love and care put into them. Your character has a small bit of inertia, but is really easy to control, and best of all it's fire to jump and not up!

Staying on the subject of the controls a moment longer, and this is where the game offers some real variety. One level you'll be running and jumping your way around, the next you'll have picked up a helicopter power-up and be hovering about the game, and the next you'll have transformed into a fish, and descending into the depths. This differing set of control schemes all work really well, and peppered throughout the game ensure that things are kept fresh and interesting.

Surely the game must have some negative points, and it does. The difficulty level is set extremely high, and clearing many of the areas may see you pulling your hair out after you die time and time again. The other issue is that when you die the area you're in gets completely reset. So, if you've just spent the last five minutes collecting every cherry, bonus and killing every monster, you're going to have to do it all over again.

My final gripe is that sometimes it's difficult to work out what will kill you and what won't. Sure, you'll only make the mistake once, but what I thought was a yellow platform turned out to be a pit of lava, and a stretch of water which looked innocent enough soon lost me a life.

Minor niggles aside, I'd rank this as one of the Amiga's best platform games, and one that deserves your attention as soon as possible. It's a real shame the author has long since abandoned our favourite platform, as he has some serious talent, and it's a big loss to the Amiga scene.

Those of you who are after further reading may be interested to learn that you can find a fascinating interview with Fayoh 2 programmer, Marcus Johansson over on the AmigaPD web site. The game was also AmigaPD's "Game of The Month" for June 2011, of which you can read about here.

If this blog post has whetted your appetite, you can download the full version of "Fayoh 2" from The Aminet.

The Top 10 Worst Amiga Games - Review

In Sunday’s blog post I gave a brief heads-up on Lemon Amiga’s latest video production “The Top 10 Worst Amiga Games”, and pointed you in the direction of the trailer and links to the PayPal page.

Why a PayPal link? Well, this time a small donation was being asked for before you could access the full video. Sure, the amount requested was only $3 USD / £1.89, but was it worth the money? It was time to find out...

Upon starting the video you’re greeting with a nice intro sequence featuring numerous characters from many classic Amiga games. This is all complimented by some nice mod music, and rounded off with the Amiga’s “Say” application providing the voice-over.

Dan from Lemon Amiga then chips-in, gives some brief background information about this latest video, and explains that Matt “Matt Chat” Baton and Filmnstuff will also be reviewing titles for this production.

So, what of the titles? Well, I don’t want to spoil things and reveal the 10 games nominated as “The Top 10 Worst Amiga Games of All Time”, but compared to some Amiga games I’ve had the misfortune to play during my years as an Amiga owner, a number of the titles shown in the video are nowhere near the standard of the Amiga’s worst. That said, there are some truly terrible titles that have made it into the Lemon Amiga top 10, and deservedly so!

Having watched numerous Lemon Amiga videos I was already familiar with Dan’s style of commentary and reviewing. Call me boring, but I like the way he covers a title. His voice overs are clear, informative, and reviews are often peppered with nice nuggets of background information about each game.

Moving on, and Matt “Matt Chat” Barton’s review style is similar to Dan’s. It’s well paced, comes across as having spent time researching each game, and again is full of tidbits of information about each title.

Finally, there’s Filmnstuff, and it’s here that I struggled somewhat. His reviews have more of a comedy slant to them, and along with the vast amounts of swearing in them, just seemed really out of place when sat amongst Dan and Matt’s reviewing style. I enjoyed the comedy, just not the swearing. (Sorry. I guess I’m just getting old!)

So, is the video worth shelling out $3 USD / £1.89 for? That’s a difficult one. Running at just over 40 minutes there’s no doubt that this would have taken a serious amount of time to put together. In fact, in the background notes to the full version, Dan explains that the project took about 3 weeks of editing, with the last 4 days being spent filtering out any bugs and adding in a few extra things. So, it’s clear that a serious amount of love has gone into producing this.

On the other hand you have to remember that the money won’t be going to fund any future Lemon Amiga produced videos. Dan seems to be about to give the Amiga scene a break, so the profits generated from this video will simply be divided between Dan, Matt and Filmnstuff.

If I knew the money was going back into helping produce further Lemon Amiga produced videos then I wouldn’t hesitate saying that it’s worth the money. As it’s not you need to think of how much enjoyment you’ve had from Dan’s, Matt’s and FilmnStuff’s videos over the years, as it’s only then can you decide whether it’s worth shelling out for. Perhaps you'd simply like to donate as a way of saying "Thank you".

It’ll be a real shame if Dan decides to call time on the Amiga scene, and a real loss to the community. Here’s hoping that his time away will be a short-lived one.

*** UPDATE *** Since submitting this blog post there has now been a change of plan. Dan, Matt and Filmnstuff have now decided to make the film FREE to view, and only ask that you make a donation (link is contained in the info section of the clip) if you wish to do so. The video can be found HERE!

AmiQuake 2 AGA - Beta 5 Demonstration

In the final few days of 2012 I reported that NovaCoder was busy working on an AGA port of the legendary first person shooter, Quake 2. Well, it would seem that work is still underway on this ambitious but exciting project, as a YouTube clip from the beta 5 version of the game has just been uploaded to the video sharing web site.

The video doesn't demonstrate any wandering around rooms or corridors, but does show how well things work when the player attempts to look up, down and around their current location.

The test hardware is an Amiga 1200 with 75mhz Blizzard accelerator, which I'm assuming is an 060.

You can see beta 5 in action below;


As soon as I hear any further news regarding this project I'll let you know via the blog.