Athanor: The Legend of the Birdmen (click to enlarge)
7th June 2018
Athanor: The Legend of the Birdmen
Éric Safar announced the release of an English edition of Athanor:
The Legend of the Birdmen last weekend. This is the second release in what
Éric has intended to be a trilogy of adventures. The first game,
Athanor, was a text adventure with rudimentary black and white graphics,
which was a deliberate choice on the author's part, as the trilogy is intended
to show the evolution of adventure games over the years.
The second part of the trilogy is also a text adventure, but with improved
graphics that are loaded from disc, like Sram or many
of Lankhor's adventures such as La Secte Noire. The
photo on the right shows you what the packaging looks like. Those of you who are
familiar with the 'feelies' that were included with Infocom's range of text
adventures will notice that Athanor: The Legend of the Birdmen also
includes several objects which act as clues to help you solve the game.
To order a copy, visit Safar Games and
follow the instructions there to e-mail Éric.
Hibernated 1: This Place is Death
Stefan Vogt's text adventure Hibernated 1: This Place is Death has
also been released and can be downloaded from
Pond Software.
12th May 2018
Screenshot of Galactic Tomb
Screenshot of The Shadows of Sergoth
Screenshot of Ghosts'n Goblins (cartridge version)
Title screen of The Dawn of Kernel
Title screen of Sir Ababol: NES-OM Edition
Galactic Tomb
ESP Soft released Galactic
Tomb at the RetroMadrid 2018 event last weekend. This
platformer/shoot-'em-up was first previewed in a
YouTube video back in
2016, and after watching it, we all knew it was looking like quite a spectacular
game – and ESP Soft haven't disappointed.
You play an élite commander, and you must travel to the three worlds
of Pherenos, Robota and Microbia, to find the three tombs of Siemb and prevent
the evil emperor Shakar from extending his reign of terror.
Galactic Tomb is a brilliantly presented game with very colourful
graphics and excellent music. You can
download the game
from ESP Soft's site (scroll down to 'Descargas' and click on 'Galactic Tomb
[128K] (dsk)'). Currently the game requires at least 128KB of memory, but a
cassette version which is compatible with 64KB machines is planned. Don't miss
it!
The Shadows of Sergoth
Galactic Tomb wasn't the only game to be released last weekend.
CPC-POWER released a role-playing game called The Shadows of Sergoth. If
you've ever played Dungeon Master on the Atari ST or Amiga, or
Bloodwych on the CPC, The Shadows of Sergoth
should look very familiar to you. All is not well in the kingdom of Chrisandia,
and you have managed to locate the source of the evil that is threatening the
kingdom. You must explore the dungeons of the castle of Sergoth and battle with
many nefarious creatures and discover lots of secrets.
To download The Shadows of Sergoth, visit
CPC-POWER, where you can download a ZIP
file containing the game and instructions in either English, French or Spanish.
This game requires 128KB of memory, and it's also brilliantly presented and
offers many hours of exploration and combat.
Ghosts'n Goblins
Xifos has developed and released a version of Capcom's classic coin-op game
Ghosts'n Goblins for the GX4000 console and Plus machines. I think it's
fair to say that Elite's original conversion of the game could have been better,
although the music was quite good. This remake obviously has a lot more colour
and is more faithful to the original arcade game, with the addition of animated
sequences, power-ups, and the loss of your armour if you hit an enemy, causing
you to run about in just your underwear!
You can download the remake of Ghosts'n Goblins from the
CPCWiki forums, but as it's intended for the GX4000 and Plus
machines and not the normal CPC range, you'll need a suitable emulator such as
WinAPE in order to play it.
The Dawn of Kernel
Juan J. Martínez has been posting on the
CPCWiki forums
and his Twitter feed about a
Cybernoid-influenced space shoot-'em-up he is developing, called The
Dawn of Kernel. Sources suggest it should be out by the end of May, and
poly.play will be releasing a physical
edition. You can watch a short video of how the game is looking on
Juan's twitter feed.
I have to say that I think the choice of colours on the title screen is very
garish and not to my liking, but that is only my opinion – but the in-game
graphics look a lot better!
Sir Ababol: NES-OM Edition
The Mojon Twins have tweeted
that a special edition of Sir Ababol on the Amstrad CPC is planned.
Another tweet
shows an in-game screen in MODE 0 (the
original version of the game was in MODE
1), and there may even be a physical release of the game on cassette, containing
the special edition and the sequel, Sir Ababol II: The Ice Palace, along
with ZX Spectrum versions of the first and second games. If it is released, I
hope they will fix Sir Ababol II, which is unfortunately severely bugged
on the CPC.
Hibernated 1: This Place is Death
Stefan Vogt has developed a text adventure called Hibernated 1: This Place
is Death for the Amstrad CPC. It's already available for the Commodore 64
and ZX Spectrum from Pond Software
as free downloads, and the CPC version should be available soon, according to a
tweet from
Stefan. It's written using Professional Adventure Writer (PAW), so
it's text only and runs on CP/M.
ZEUSDAZ's YouTube channel added
I've added links to videos on
ZEUSDAZ's YouTube channel on
my site. Zeus' channel features videos of 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit games, nearly
all of which use unemulated footage – in other words, the games are all
played on the original machines and not an emulator.
9th January 2018
Missas is back with reviews of three recently released games:
4th January 2018
Screenshot of Robbie Strikes Back
The first Amstrad CPC game of 2018 has already been released! It's a version
of the ZX Spectrum game Pssst!, which was one of the earlier releases by
the legendary software house Ultimate Play the Game. Pssst! starred
Robbie, a robot who had to spray insects in order to prevent them from eating a
growing flower. However, there are three different types of spray, and only one
type will work on each type of insect, so you have to constantly move from one
side of the screen to the other, avoiding the insects while trying to pick up
the correct spray to use.
Robbie Strikes Back may play a bit more slowly than Pssst!, but
it features colourful MODE 0 graphics and it plays music throughout the game.
You can download it from Play on Retro.
30th December 2017
Over the Christmas holidays, CNGSoft (César Nicolás
González) uploaded two new releases to his web site – one new game
(on the CPC, at least) and an updated version of a previous release.
Screenshot of Duck Out
Duck Out
Duck Out is a Spanish game that was originally released under the
Dro Soft label in 1989 for the ZX Spectrum and MSX. It's a fairly strange game;
you play a duck who is in a kitchen and has decided to make a bid for freedom to
avoid ending up as someone's dinner! Armed with a frying pan, you must bash
various humans, animals and flying hazards, and avoid contact with them. CNGSoft
has made some improvements to the controls to make it more playable, as well as
adding sound effects and music (provided by Daniel Canales).
You can visit CNGSoft's web
site to find more details about the conversion, and download Duck
Out; go to the bottom of the page to find the link to download the game.
Basket Cases
CNGSoft has also released an updated version of Basket Cases –
his entry for the 2017
#CPCRetroDev Game Creation Contest, which was ranked in third place out of
29 entries. This update fixes some bugs and features some improvements in the
graphics – including some very
strange-looking opponents, if you are skilled enough to reach level 6!
You can visit
CNGSoft's web site to
download the new version, as well as the original version which also includes
source code; go to the bottom of the page to find the link to download the game.
23rd December 2017
Screenshot of BEARS!
BEARS!
Issue 176 of Retro Gamer
came through my letterbox this morning, just in time for Christmas. As well as
an article about the history of Amstrad which includes interviews with Lord
Sugar and Roland Perry, there is also a review of a new game called
BEARS!, which came as quite a surprise, as I had heard nothing at all
about this game previously, or its developers, the SOHDE Team.
BEARS! is a cartridge-only game for GX4000 and Plus machines, in which
you control a young bear who has to locate Lady Grumpleton of Grizzly Manor, who
has been missing for several days. Along the way, you meet many different
characters, and you must also engage in combat with various enemies, which
involves you and your opponent taking it in turns to select a method of attack
and depleting each other's hit points. If you succeed, you either gain hit
points or receive new skills, and you may also get an item to add to your
inventory.
BEARS! can be downloaded from
The SOHDE Team's web site, and
you can use it on a real GX4000 or Plus machine in conjunction with the
C4CPC device.
Pinball Dreams
Batman Group has tweeted
screenshots of all four tables that will feature on their Amstrad CPC
conversion of the classic Amiga game Pinball Dreams. There is still no
confirmation of when it will be ready for release, but all the tables look
gorgeous!
If you still haven't played the preview version of Pinball Dreams,
then I urge you to download it
and try it for yourself. If it is released, it will definitely be the best
pinball game on the CPC by far.
E-mail: nich <AT> durge <DOT> org
