The Ultimate Guide to Amiga PD Games - Update

Work on the E-book, The Ultimate Guide to Amiga PD Games continues, and all being well it should see the light of day later in 2014.

Below is a quick update from editor Christian Clarke, who also runs the excellent AmigaPD.com web site;

"Just a quick update on our E-book, work is continuing at pace, and we are now quickly approaching the proof reading stage and adding in contents and index sections.

Fingers crossed, the book should be released this year, hopefully in a few months time.  

Spent some time today (25th Jan) looking at formatting, as you can see from [the image to the left]. 

I have also started work on the front cover which I hope to share with you soon, just need to agree permission with the artist".

Naturally, updates detailing the progress of the E-book will be published on this blog as the release date gets ever closer.

Downfall LHP Version Released

Downfall - Title Screen

On a recent visit to the Remainder Software Facebook page (well worth a look!) I was reminded that I'd completely forgotten to post up the announcement from mid December revealing that a modified version of Downfall had now been released.

Well, for those of you who missed it, here's the release announcement from the Lee Hurley Productions web site;

Downfall LHP Version is a modified version of Downfall created by Graham Humphrey of Remainder Software. The original version of Downfall and the source can be found here.

This version attempts to fix some bugs that are present in the original version

• Fixed falling through ice and into girder platforms when the weight pickup is active 
• Added keyboard control for player 1 in 1 player game and player 2 in 2 player game 
• Modified the code to run on 512K CHIP + 512K other memory (From Floppy) 
• Added joystick control for highscore entry (V1.1 Fixed less stupidly this time) 
• Updated font with 2 characters used in joystick highscore entry 
• More stuff mentioned in the guide on the disk 

Requirements 

• 512K CHIP + 512K Other RAM (Floppy Version) 
• Kickstart 1.2 or Later 
• 1MB CHIP or higher for running from HDD (might need to boot with startup-sequence disabled, then loadwb,endshell for low memory environments, 
• Downfall LHP Version requires about 800K CHIP memory to start from HDD)

To download the game point your web browser here.

Lemon Amiga's Latest Play Guide - Risky Woods, 1992

Risky Woods - Title Screen

The latest in Lemon Amiga's play guides has just been uploaded to YouTube, and it's EA's 1992 side-scrolling platformer Risky Woods.

Magazine review scores for Risky Woods were mixed, but the majority of publications scored it well into the eighties.

Here's Lemon Amiga;

"Risky Woods is a cult classic with a large number of fans, to others it's a tricky and unfair game with enemies which must be shot before you even see them!

I put the game through its paces to see if C.U Amiga's 90% score was really worth it"

The review runs for just over 40 minutes and features commentary throughout. If you've never played the game before or if you have and you're after some tips, tricks and tactics, this is well worth some of your time.

Speaking about the recorded footage, Lemon Amiga commented;

"I could have completed the game and yet on the day I recorded this I failed. Some reviewers only show their very best runs but what you get with me is what happened on the day, with generally no retries or savestates to practice with. At least you can see my 1 Million score on the high score table."

Check out the video over on YouTube here.

Amiga PD Interviews Ian West - Creator of Ork Attack

The latest in a long line of exclusive interviews to appear on the Amiga PD web site is with programmer Ian West.

Ian produced some of the most polished PD titles for the Amiga, including Ork Attack, Santa and Rudolph do Christmas and Doctor Strange.

In the interview Ian reveals which one of the games he created is his favourite, the loss of all his source code, where he got the inspiration from for his releases, and much more besides.

Check out the interview here.

Ork Attack - Simple to play and extremely addictive!

Platform Shooter "Enemy 2" Released!

This Christmas is proving to be an exciting one for Amiga gamers. First, Putty Squad is finally released to the public, and then hot on its heels comes platform shooter "Enemy 2".

The original, "Enemy: Tempest of Violence", German language version, was published by Anachronia way back in 1997, with an English version published by Alive Mediasoft in 1999.

Unfortunately, regardless of its quality, this was a title that came too late in the Amiga's commercial lifespan to make much of an impression on the gaming scene.

Years later the author of Enemy 1, Andre Wuthrich, was kind enough to release the game into the public domain.

Before you download and start playing Enemy 2 the authors recommend that you play through Enemy 1 first if you've not done so as the the story in part 2 continues where Enemy 1 left off.

(Enemy 1 footage, captured by einokeino303)

For more information and links to download both parts 1 and 2, point your web browser at the Anachronia web site.

New Arcade Style Joystick From AmigaKit.com

If your trusty Competition Pro, Quickshot or adopted Megadrive pad is starting to show its age then perhaps you're in the market for a new joystick to compliment your Amiga setup.

The problem that you'll no doubt find is that decent brand new Amiga joysticks/controllers are extremely difficult to get hold of, and usually a second hand device purchased from Ebay is your only option. That was until a recent press release posted to the English Amiga Board appeared, courtesy of AmigaKit;

"We will shortly be launching a brand new Amiga joystick which we have developed over the last 6 months. 

The high quality joystick is manufactured for many years of Amiga gaming. 

It features [an] arcade style controller with metal shaft and micro switches. 

It has independent fire A and fire B buttons that can be user switches to single fire A operation if required."

Now, the joystick's not cheap. Weighing in at a hefty £49.15 (odd price, I know) it's certainly out of impulse buy territory. However, if the images on the AmigaKit web site do the device justice then it looks to be an extremely high quality device, and the parts don't come cheap.

For more information or to purchase the joystick, point your web browser over to this page on the AmigaKit web site.

For those of you who received money for Christmas, perhaps this will give you some idea of what to spend it on.

Putty Squad Finally Lands on Amiga!

If you already know about this then move on. This news story has been plugged via Twitter, Facebook and every Amiga and retro related site imaginable. Work's been really hectic as of late, and unfortunately this has been the first chance I've had to give this a plug.

Originally due for release towards the latter part of 1994, and reviewed in the September 1994 issue of Amiga Power (reviews also appeared in other magazines of the time), Putty Squad has been one of the most talked about of all the Amiga's "missing in action" titles. Not surprising really, when it would seem that the game was completely finished and sat there gathering dust.

Now, some 19 years after its release System 3 Software have kindly given us Amiga owners a rather lovely Christmas present - the full version of Putty Squad, to download, for free!

Simply point your web browser over to the System 3 web site at http://www.system3.com/, and you'll see a link to Amiga Putty Squad on the main page.

The zip file contains two disk images, so you'll need to either play these in an emulator, or have some way of getting the images back on to floppy disk.

If you'd like to find out more about how this release came to be, you'll want to read this thread over on the English Amiga Board.

Those of you who'd like to install this to hard drive may want to download the WHDLoad installation, which you'll find here.

It just leaves me to finish by saying a big thank you to all at System 3 and the Amiga community for helping to make this available to the rest of us.

Right, I'm off to give this a go and see what all the fuss is about.

Happy Christmas.