Sunday 26 June 2011

Edge Grinder Pre-Release Play-Test (C64)

 
I received a pre-release executable of Backward Engineering's Edge Grinder this morning, with a note from T.M.R explaining that the game is essentially finished (this is a "final-ish beta version").  As there is only one (short) level, the gameplay has been geared towards the hardcore end of the difficulty scale so that Edge Grinder still provides a challenge even to shmup veretans (as well as being a caravan-style score attack game due to the wall-grinding bonus system).
 
Today was the first time I saw Edge Grinder running with Smila's fantastic graphics and level map installed.  I've been playing the game on my C64 all afternoon and it's an absolute blast - T.M.R has really outdone himself squeezing this into 16KB!
 
I've still not beaten it, but I recorded some of my early attempts for this blog earlier today (video below).  The game cartridge will be available to buy from our shop page soon after comprehensive testing is complete (at the same price as Not Even Human).
 

2 comments:

  1. How does the gameplay work? It seems a bit too simple. I like the grinding mechanic, though. It reminds me of the excellent PC game, Thrustburst. (http://umlautgames.net/thrustburst/)

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  2. Hi there TideGear - nice to see some modern indie peeps taking notice of this blog ;)

    The gameplay IS simple. It's a score-challenge, short and intense shoot 'em up for the Commodore 64 8-Bit computer. Points are awarded for grinding the walls (and yes, I believe ThrustBurst was an influence) and blasting the bad guys.

    There are some small cosmetic changes being worked on to make this more obvious, but when you consider that the whole game fits in a 16KB cartridge (TINY) it's quite an achievement.

    The whole point of this release was to make a simple game that could be re-written on several other 8-bit machines, and also to showcase what is possible within the limitations of a 16 kilobyte rom (for our development competition). Hope that answers your question :)

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