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Monday 21 September 2015

New Game, "Jump, Block, Jump" Released

It's the start of a brand new week, and details of a new Amiga game have just surfaced.

Here's English Amiga Board member amiman99 with the details;
"Introducing [a] new game from Amiman99, made with Backbone, called "Jump Block Jump!"  
The game plays similarly to other "run and jump" games popular on mobile platforms. It requires precise jumps and some memorisation. 
The game contains 11 levels and it's playable on Amiga CD32 and other 020 Amigas. [Due] to the fact that Backbone's speed depends on CPU speed, it is recommended to play the game on stock CD32 and plain A1200. I have play tested the game on CD32, A600 030 25MHz, and A1200 030 50MHz.  
The game was primarily tested on A1200 030 50MHz and the feel of the game is perfect, so if you are for a challenge try it on faster machine.
I'm providing 2 versions, one ISO for CD32 and second for other Amigas"
The game can be downloaded via the following links:

CD32 ISO: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8w0v6o3xuun6509/JUMPBLOCKJUMPR7.ISO?dl=0

LHA: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qeu5psbkhzpxwkc/jumpblockjumpR7.lha?dl=0

If you'd like to join in the discussion for this game then pop over to this thread on the English Amiga Board.


Wednesday 16 September 2015

Dylan The Spaceman Demo Now Available

Things have been pretty quiet in the Amiga games scene over the past few weeks, but thankfully I now have something to report!

As work continues apace on the Dizzy-like arcade adventure "Dylan The Spaceman and the Smelly Green Aliens From Mars", author Chris Clarke has decided that the time is right to release a public demo.

Here's Chris with further details;

"[The game] should work [on both the] Amiga 1200 and Amiga 600 - there will be a version for Amiga 500 but it needs different in-game music - or you need to have at least 2 meg in your trusty Amiga 500"

To download the demo, read through the demo feedback, or provide feedback yourself, check out the following thread over on the English Amiga Board:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1041301#post1041301

Sunday 16 August 2015

Dylan The Spaceman - Demo Coming Soon

It's been a fair old while since Chris Clarke updated the Amiga PD web site blog, as most of his free time has been spent working on both "Dylan The Spaceman" and his recently released shoot-em-up "Kingdoms of Steam".

Chris tells us that work has resumed on Dylan, and that he hopes to release a playable demo in the not too distant future.

Having played a work in progress version of this game I can tell you that you're in for a real treat. The game is already shaping up to be something very special, and easily up to the standard of the Codemasters budget titles of old.

To read Chris' latest blog post CLICK HERE.




Thursday 13 August 2015

Mutant League Hockey Sees Full Release!

It was way back in January of this year that the Amiga Gamer blog featured unreleased Ocean / EA sports title Mutant League Hockey.

Back then the long forgotten title had been unearthed by the original programmer Adrian Brown, and he was attempting to get the game up and running into a fully playable state, ready for release.

Well,  some 7 months on the game is now available to play, and it's courtesy of Galahad of legendary cracking group Scoopex.

Check out the Indie Retro News page which has further details about the game including those all important download links.

Could this be the Amiga release of 2015? It's certainly looking that way!

Thursday 6 August 2015

Rock-Hard Platformer Sqrxz 3 Lands on the Amiga

If you like your side-scrolling platformers to be challenging then Sqrxz 3 will certainly test your skills to the very limits. It's unforgiving in a very oldskool kind of way. Here's the press release from one of the Sqrxz developers, phx;
"Sqrxz 3 is a (extremely hard) jump and run puzzle game for any Amiga with 1 MB RAM. The ADF image can be downloaded here: http://www.sqrxz.de/sqrxz-3/ (for free, of course). It is my personal favourite of the series with brilliant graphics by Simon Butler and a dozen of great soundtracks by Alexander Wiklund.

But we also created a physical release, with a small printed box (inside and outside), a small booklet with instructions (20 pages) and a labeled DD-disk with the game. The so-called "deluxe version" can be ordered for at least 9 Euro from us, to cover expenses. Any higher amount is allowed and takes effect as motivation for future games.

Note that these 9 Euro cover all expenses, i.e.: DD-disk, printed box, booklet, package materials, postage, shipping, ... everything. The game and our time is free.

There is just a single drawback: to keep it simple for us we will only accept orders from the EU. This has the advantage that the postage is low enough and the same for everybody and, most important, that you can pay with a SEPA bank transfer.
If you are interested, write me (frank at phoenix dot owl dot de) an email with the subject "Sqrxz Order". Do not forget to include the address, where you want to receive the package. After some time you will eventually get a reply with more details, like the account number of our team leader (Shahzad Sahaib) in Austria. When the money arrived, Shahzad will send the game to you. But you have to fold the box yourself!"
Check out the game below in a longplay compiled by Hipoonios...


For more information, and to download the game, head over to http://www.sqrxz.de/sqrxz-3/. Note, the YouTube video on the Sqrxz web site is the PC version.

Tales of Gorluth II - Pre-Order and Trailer

Yes, it's been yet another long break between blog posts. Unfortunately life gets in the way, meaning that recently I've had very little time to devote to playing games on my trusty Amigas. I've been keeping up-to-date on all things Amiga 30 related, but I'm now in the process of catching-up on what I've missed in the Amiga games world.

First-up, and announced towards the back-end of July, was the news that Tales of Gorluth II is not only under development, but is also available for pre-order.

The original, voted as the best Amiga game of 2014 by many, was an ambitious Zelda, Link to the Past Clone, put together using the popular Backbone development system. While the sequel is also being put together using Backbone (meaning you'll really need an 030 Amiga or higher to play at a decent speed), developer Viddi reports that his new engine is faster.

Check out the trailer below, and listen to the fantastic music that accompanies it.


Along with the development announcement a limited to 200 copies Gold edition pre-order scheme was launched. Demand for this has been so great that all pre-order slots for this tier have now gone. Thankfully, a Silver edition is now available.

For more information visit the Tales of Gorluth web site at http://www.talesofgorluth.de/, where you can also pre-order the Silver edition.

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!

Friday 3 April 2015

Legendary Amiga Coder, Edgar Vigdal Passes Away

Edgar Vigdal
Browsing Facebook this morning I sadly learned that a couple of nights ago legendary Amiga programmer Edgar Vigdal passed away.

Posting via the Warblade MK 2 Facebook group, Simon Quincey left the following message;
"Edgar Vigdal passed away two nights ago, we suspect of cancer. I'm not sure i need to provide more details even if i get them...
One of Edgars close friends has given us this information earlier this evening and right now Kev and I are quite shocked and very saddened by the news.
Edgar and I would talk night after night for hours at a time, often into the early hours of the morning. We became close friends over the many years doing this, skyping till our ipad batteries were flat, sharing jokes and trading our latest music finds... And recently we had agreed that finally i was going to visit Norway so we could actually meet for the first time this May and i'd stay with him and his family... I'm going to miss those chats.
This is a rather sudden shock for all of us and i'm really not sure what else to say. My thoughts and deepest sympathies go to Siv, Marta, Rebekka and Markus and all the rest of the family. 
RIP Edgar my friend."
Like many of you reading this blog I have many happy memories of playing Edgar's creations on the Amiga. Deluxe Galaga was one of my favourite Amiga games, but I also enjoyed Deluxe Pacman, and more recently Pixie, which was about one of the only games I played on my Mac.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Edgar in person, but I did swap a couple of emails with him. I always found him to be a perfect gent and extremely helpful.

If you get chance over this weekend, fire up one of Edgar's creations and hold up a joystick/pad as a celebration of his life, and then settle down to this wonderful interview Amiga PD conducted with him a couple of years back.

Rest in peace, Edgar. You'll be sorely missed.

Thursday 12 March 2015

Rick Dangerous The Other Levels - New Game in Development

2015 is shaping up to be a promising one for the Amiga game scene, as in today's post I bring news of yet another new title that's currently in development.

Using the Backbone games creation system, "Rick Dangerous The Other Levels" is an unofficial sequel to Firebird's Rick Dangerous 1 and 2.

Presented as a side-scrolling affair as opposed to the original flip-screen method used in the original titles, "The Other Levels" looks to be a more run and gun game rather than placing you in the position of being a laboratory rat, whereby you'd regularly get killed without warning, remember where it was you died, and then progress that tiny bit further on your next go, as Firebird's titles did.

There's clearly a lot more development work required on this title before it can be fully released, but you can see the current dev build in action below. (Note, it's not my reflection you can see in the monitor)


If you'd like to try out an early build of the game for yourself then check out this thread over on the English Amiga Board.

As with all games in development, as soon as details of any notable progress are released I'll post the updates on the blog.

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Dylan The Spaceman - Coming to an Amiga Near You Soon!

I've been meaning to cover this for some time, but for one reason or another I've not found time to do it... until now.

This originally started out life as a Dangermouse themed arcade adventure, but the subject matter soon changed following the fallout from the Smurfgate saga.

The change has brought with it a set of never before seen characters and environments, and a new mascot to the Amiga platform, Dylan The Spaceman.

Created by Chris Clarke, who is using the Reality construction system, Dylan The Spaceman is a Dizzy-style arcade adventure, where objects collected in one location are used to progress in another.

Chris has been dishing out regular progress updates for the project on his active Amiga PD Facebook page. Here you can check out all the latest work in progress screenshots along with developer notes Chris uploads.

Development of the game seems to be progressing well, and at present the game is pencilled-in for a Summer 2015 release. Chris is keen to get the game up and running on as many Amiga platforms as possible, and a work in progress version has already been successfully tested on the CD32 games console.

This really looks like a game to keep an eye out for, and could be one of the Amiga gaming highlights of the year.

I'll have further updates on Dylan The Spaceman as and when they surface.

Sunday 8 March 2015

Starquake Amiga Conversion WIP and Footage

Programmed by Stephen Crow, and originally released by Bubble Bus Software way back in 1985, Starquake was a fast-paced, sprawling arcade adventure.

Three years later saw the Atari ST version released in 1998, with an Amiga version was planned for release in 1991. Unfortunately, for whatever reason this failed to see the light of day.

This situation looks like it may soon change, as Fairlight's Galahad has been busy working on converting the ST code to run on the Amiga platform. Check out the version 1.0 work in progress footage below.


Along with a link to the above YouTube footage, Galahad commented that;
"The encoder for WInUAE i'm using makes the game look like arse, its 100% stable and the graphics don't look like they are under water.
On Amiga the character moves smoothly, not taking 30 pixel leaps across the screen, oh and you can see everything properly, looks like I applied a Vaseline filter to the output."
I'll post further updates regarding this project as and when they surface. If, in the meantime you'd like to read-up on the progress so far then check out this thread over on the English Amiga Board.

Sunday 1 March 2015

From Bedrooms to Billions The Amiga Years

It seems like only two minutes since Nicola and Anthony Caufield's "From Bedrooms to Billions" project, telling the story of the UK video games industry from 1979 to the present day, was finally completed, but already the pair are looking towards their next production.

Entitled "From Bedrooms to Billions The Amiga Years", this newly proposed 90 minute documentary aims to;
"explore the influence of the Commodore Amiga and how it took video game development, music and publishing to a whole new level and changed the video games industry forever!"
As with "From Bedrooms", the "Amiga Years" production is being financed through Kickstarter donations. Check out the promotional video below.


Nicoloa and Anthony's plan is to release the film in January 2016. Clearly this is a much shorter timescale than that taken to produce the original "From Bedrooms" production. Nicola and Anthony explain why this release will appear much sooner than the original did;
"From Bedrooms to Billions took more time due to the huge amount of research, contacting and sourcing of archive and interviewees. However for The Amiga Years! we have a huge head start on that due to how much work has already been done so we aim to film all our new interviews by September 2015 with an intensive post-production of 16 weeks to follow".
For more information, and to sign-up/donate to this project point your web browser over to the "From Bedrooms to Billions The Amiga Years" Kickstarter page.

Sunday 15 February 2015

Results of the 2014 Amiga Games Award

For the past few few years the Obligement web site have been running their annual Amiga Games Award, which aims to chart the most popular games released in the previous 12 months for either Amiga OS 68K, Amiga OS4.x, Morph OS or AROS platforms.

Each of the four charts are kept separate, meaning that there's no overall winner across all formats, and as this blog concentrates its coverage on the classic Amiga platform I'm only interested in the Amiga OS 68K chart.

In third place was the much-discussed (and pulled from download) "Smurf Rescue", by Mikael Persson. I must admit to not having tried this, as links to download this title were swiftly removed once Peyo's solicitors got involved.

In second place was "Renegades Deluxe 2014", a remastered version of Wayne Ashworth's original two player shooter, originally released way back in 1995. As with the initial release this is a two-player only title, so you'll need someone to play with.


Finally, in first place is the only commercially released game in the chart; "Tales of Gorluth: The Tearstone Saga". This Legend of Zelda-like RPG pushes the Backbone game creation software to its very limits. Featuring over 5 hours of gameplay, 64 colour graphics, and over 40 pieces of music, this is one of the most ambitious games released for the Amiga in many years.


Minimum specs for Tales of Gorluth is an ECS Amiga with a 68020 CPU, 2MB of graphics RAM and 1MB of FastRam. Recommended CPU is a 68030.

The game can be purchased for £10.99 from the Amigakit web site.

We're now well and truly into 2015, and it'll be interesting to see what games will be released for the Amiga this year. With the recently released "Solomon's Key 2" now available for download we're off to a very strong start. Here's hoping the trend continues!

Monday 9 February 2015

Fire & Ice: Solomon's Key 2 Released!

Back in April 2013 I reported that the Atari ST version of Techmo's platformer puzzler, "Solomon's Key" had been converted to the trusty Amiga. The team did a smashing job porting over the ST version, and it played brilliantly. (If you've not yet installed it then you really should do so at once!)

Fast forward almost two years, and I was pleased to see that a couple of weeks back the prequel, "Solomon's Key 2: Fire and Ice" had been released for the Amiga, having been converted from the humble Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) version.

Released by Techmo back in 1993, the object of the game is to extinguish all fires on each level in order to proceed to the next. To do this you need to either melt ice blocks or kick them into the raging infernos.

Here's hukka with the details;
"I have released my Amiga remake of the underrated NES puzzle platformer Solomon's Key 2 aka Fire'N Ice. Written in 100% assembly and should run on any setup.
Features include [a] built-in level editor and saving/loading [of] your progress. Some features from the original are missing: levels containing lava or enemies; some cutscenes and sound effects; final boss battle. Still, the game can be completed normally and bonus worlds are included. 
The game can be played using either the keyboard, normal joystick or 2-button joystick/gamepad (tested using Megadrive pad). This version will run from Workbench. 
More info and ADF download: http://hukka.yiff.fi/sk2/"
Check out the game in action below, and then get yourself over to hukka's Solomon's Key 2 page to download the brand spanking new Amiga version.

Sunday 25 January 2015

Homebrew Amiga Game Brings Out The Lawyers

Released on new year's eve 2014, Smurf Rescue was yet another Amiga game produced using Backbone; a games creation system that seems to be gaining some degree of popularity at the moment.

Unfortunately, what started out as a bit of fun and a gift to the Amiga community quickly got nasty as Studio Peyo's solicitors sued the author, hipoonios, for creating an unlicensed videogame of their blue coloured creations.

Here's hipoonios;
"Yes, it is true! 
Remember my crappy Smurf game I made in Backbone just a few weeks ago? "Studio Peyo" (the owners of The Smurfs trademark) have sued me for have creating an unlicensed video game of The Smurfs. 
Now I know pretty well that you are not allowed to make unlicensed video games or use others work without permission, but this is just a game made in BACKBONE for a 30 year old computer. LOL... this is insane! I'm sure they don't even know what an Amiga is. And I doubt more than 50 people have downloaded it. 
How much do you think I must pay for this? ... (see the attached screenshots)"


Initially hipoonios assumed this to be a scam, but that was until a huge pile of legal documentation was delivered to his house.

While the game does infringe on Peyo's copyright, you'd think that a simple email to the author asking him to take the game down from his web site would be enough. This really is a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

Hopefully this story will have a happy ending and no money will be required to change hands, as this is quite clearly an over the top reaction to a Public Domain game on a computer platform that's not been commercially available for around 20 years.

You can follow the progress of this sorry tale in this thread over on the English Amiga Board.

Saturday 24 January 2015

Retro-Style Platformer "Boxx 2" Now Available!

If you're fans of oldskool platform games you could do a lot worse than downloading and firing-up Boxx 2 on your trusty Amiga.

Developed by English Amiga Board member Lemming880, Boxx 2 is similar in style to the original platformer released in September of last year, but features many enhancements including a greater variety of platform 'blocks', more sprites, carefully selected chiptunes, bosses, turrets, ropes and more.

While the original game was made from scratch in just two weeks this sequel has had a much longer development time meaning this latest title is far more polished than the previous release. Here's Lemming880;
"Boxx was my first game and I made it in just 2 weeks. I was quite surprised to see it popping up on Amiga fan sites and forums and I never expected it to be mentioned by print magazines like Amiga Future and Retro Gamer! If I had known I would probably have spent more time on the first Boxx. So to make up for that I've spent extra time on Boxx2. It took me about 3 months so it got a little out of hand but I hope it paid off."
Both the original Boxx and the follow-up were created using Backbone game creation system, which gives those of us without strong coding abilities the chance to create our very own Amiga games.

Lemming880 explains;
"When I made the first Boxx game I wanted it to run on my real Amiga 500 but I already knew about Backbone games being slow so I used very low settings like a screen resolution of 256x176 and only 8 colours.
Well, it runs on an A500 but not as fast as I wanted, it's quite sluggish. But using low settings wasn't for nothing. At least both Boxx's now run smooth(ish) on an A1200 and if I hadn't used 8 colours the game wouldn't have it's "distinctive likeable look" like Graham said in Amiga Future magazine."
As the game's been created in Backbone it does mean that system requirements are rather high. For the game to be playable you'll need an Amiga 1200 with an 030 processor. Those of you running your Amiga set-ups though emulation, you'll need a WinUAE configuration of an A1200 with an 030 processor, with it set to Fastest Possible and no Cycle Exact.

Check out the game in action, below...


If you'd like to download and try the game out for yourself you can get it from the following locations:
Once you've played the game, please consider giving the author some feedback on his latest title by contributing to this thread over on the English Amiga Board.

Sunday 18 January 2015

Coffee on the Brain - Maxwell Mouse Updates

The team over at Remainder Software have either been too polite to say anything or simply haven't noticed that all my recent references to platform adventure Maxwell Mouse have actually referred to it as Maxwell House.

Well, they do say that any publicity is good publicity, and perhaps I've given them and other Amiga users some amusement at the same time.

Regardless, I can only apologise to Remainder Software for getting this wrong. Sorry gents!

Ahem! Moving on...

Following Remainder Software's recent announcement that a 29-screen work in progress version of the game have been released for public beta testing, the feedback has been coming in thick and fast. The comments seem to have been almost universally positive, with the main bugbear being that the collision detection is a little off. Here's Remainder Software's Graham Humphrey;
"The biggest issue by far seems to be the collision, which is causing some frustration.
I've used Blitz's collision commands but they do seem a bit stingy so I might need to work on using my own collision routines to make it more accurate."
Other players seem to be reporting of control issues which seem to be resolved by aborting the game and then running again. Thankfully Graham was quick on the development updates, and the addition of offering a standard joystick or CD32 controller option at the start seems to have resolved the issue.

Version 1.1 was released on Wednesday (14th) and is available to download from http://maxwell.mikendezign.com/

Updates in this version are:
  • Bug that mistakenly detected normal joysticks as CD32 pads removed, now both modes selectable on title screen 
  • Collision detection on ladybird fixed 
  • Manual updated with changes, and memory requirements fixed (needs 1MB RAM but not all of it needs to be Chip 

Here's Graham;
"I won't be adding any new features to this version. Basically it's a dress rehearsal for the game proper, we built an engine and figured we may as well bolt on a small game to test it out.
There were things that could be improved even before release but it got to the stage where I just wanted it out there.
So basically: the full game will have a different title, a different storyline and some new features, some of which we have discussed even before release and one or two that have been suggested here.
The basic engine and gameplay won't be dramatically different but hopefully the things we add will improve things somewhat and we can then fully concentrate on the actual game design"
The game will have a different title? Perhaps Maxwell House isn't such a bad name after all? ;)

More news on this as and when it surfaces.

Unreleased Amiga Conversion - Mutant League Hockey

Due for release by Ocean in the final quarter of 1994, Mutant League Hockey was one of a number of games the Manchester software giant had licensed from Electronic Arts for conversion from Megadrive to Amiga. Unfortunately, this was one of the many games cancelled following the demise of Commodore.

Between August and November of that year the game was previewed in a number of Amiga magazines of the day including Amiga Power, CU Amiga and The One (see this link on the Amiga Magazine Rack site for the full lowdown and links to the reviews).

CU Amiga commented in their preview;
"EA have a superb reputation for their sport sims and hopefully this will come across in the conversion process. 
Mutant League is an ideal two-player game and the A1200 version should be fast enough to prove to the console buffs that the Amiga is still a force to be reckoned with."
The One, meanwhile, devoted a whopping two pages of their magazine to previewing the game and interviewing one of the programmers, Adrian Brown. Adrian commented at the time that two versions were in the works - one for Amiga 500/600 machines and one for A1200/4000 systems.

The A1200/4000 versions were to include extra features including action replays, smoother animation, and a greater roster of characters in a match at any one point. The A1200/4000 version was also planned to be hard drive installable. If the game was installed to hard drive further enhancements were planned, which were removed from the floppy version due to excessive disk swapping.

So, why the blog post? Well, in a recent posting to the Amiga Facebook group Adrian commented;
"Unreleased Amiga conversion - MUTANT LEAGUE HOCKEY... Well I got the copylock removed, 
Can't remember if this was fully working or not. If not I'll have to reverse engineer it to fix the bugs, but it seems good :) 
Only about 20 years late :D I'll have to sort out the ADF files."
Check out the game in action below...

As soon as any further information surfaces regarding Mutant League Hockey I'll post the details up in a subsequent blog post.

My thanks go to the Amiga Magazine Rack web site for references and images.



Sunday 11 January 2015

Maxwell House Demo Now Available for Download!

You may recall that in yesterday's blog post I detailed the recent progress made in the development of platform adventure "Maxwell House and the Missing Game Mystery".

Well, I certainly didn't expect to be covering further developments quite so soon, but following my previous post some exciting news quickly landed on the official Remainder Software Facebook page.

Here's the announcement;
"We are very happy to announce the release of Maxwell Mouse And The Missing Game Mystery - a 29-screen demo of our upcoming platform/adventure game. You can find LHA and ADF downloads on our website and full instructions are included within.
It should run on any 1MB Amiga. Please Like and Share and spread the word, all feedback welcome!  
Thank you all very much for your support"
You can download the playable demo from the official Maxwell House web site at http://maxwell.mikendezign.com/.

If you do install the demo please let the developers know what you think by dropping them a message via the official Remainder Software Facebook page.

Saturday 10 January 2015

Maxwell House & The Missing Game Mystery - In-game Footage

Apologies for yet another delay in updating the Amiga Gamer blog. I'd hoped to get a few posts under my belt over the Christmas period, but what with visiting relations, relaxing and having to work a few days in-between Christmas and the new year I soon ran out of time.

Anyway, the first blog update of 2015 details exciting progress with regards to Remainder Software's latest title "Maxwell House and The Missing Game Mystery".

You may recall my blog post back towards the end of November, where I updated you with the game's progress, and that following the addition of a new graphics artist things were progressing nicely. Since then work has continued, and as the final few hours of 2014 ticked down the Remainder Software team uploaded video footage of the latest game build in action.

While the video quality's not brilliant, it does help to give you a good idea of what the final game will hopefully play like.

The footage has been uploaded to the Remainder Software's Facebook page, but you can check it out below.



With a new year upon us it looks like work is continuing, as the latest post to the Remainder Software Facebook page shows;
"Maxwell Mouse And The Missing Game Mystery should finally be coming sometime next week... at last.  Just got to work on the full-length game now"
Naturally, as soon as anything further develops regarding this project I'll report back. In the meantime, I recommend you check out the Remainder Software Facebook page for a mass of in-game and development screenshots.

Maxwell House looks to be turning out to be rather nice indeed!