Gravitrix Available! (Commodore 64)
Woah! Ok, so here's a first - and quite a milestone for RGCD. GRAVITRIX, the long-awaited and totally-ace gravity-themed puzzle 'em up by Robot Riot Games, was released a couple of weeks back on our all-new 512KB cartridge PCB developed by new RGCD member Siem Appelman together with Shareware Plus. An updated rework of an unreleased game that Nils Hammerich originally completed over 20 years ago, GRAVITRIX brings arcade-style, mind-bending puzzle-action to your Commodore 64 like never seen before!
To complete each of the 120 levels, you must clear the screen of all of the coloured GRAVITRIX stones. ALL of the stones of EACH colour must be connected in a single 'group' in order for them to vanish, ie. you cannot have multiple, unconnected groups of the same colour in different areas of the screen. The big challenge in GRAVITRIX is that the stones don't just have different colours - they have different 'directions' (or gravity) as well!
Each coloured stone 'falls' in its assigned direction (symbolised by an arrow) whenever there is nothing blocking its path, and this leads to some tricky chain reactions that must be solved. To make your life even harder there is also a time limit, environmental blocks and other gameplay elements that are introduced during the early levels.
Available to purchase on cartridge (with an initial limited run of 50 numbered copies), 5.25" diskette or even as a digital download, GRAVITRIX is superb fun - but don't take our word for it, grab yourself a copy of the free demo from our itch.io page!
P0 Snake Available! (Commodore 64)
Ok, we're on a roll here! Launched a week after the release of Gravitrix, last year's competition-winning P0 SNAKE has been given the RGCD release treatment, featuring eight additional screens, an all-new intro sequence, improved sound samples, a password save system, bug fixes and other minor tweaks.
P0 SNAKE is a super simple game to play - but don't let that fool you into thinking that it's easy! Holding down the fire button rotates the snake counter-clockwise, whereas releasing the button rotates the snake clockwise. Alternating these two basic movements allows the snake to be steered around the screen. As you eat the dots (by passing over them), your snake will grow in length - but be careful not to crash into your own tail!
In addition to a variety of classic arcade cameos, there's also enemies, obstacles and movement-altering terrains to discover, avoid and master. Luckily, the head is the only vulnerable part of the snake - and you'll need to use this to your advantage!
Available to purchase exclusively on cartridge from our online store (with an initial limited run of 50 numbered copies) and available as a download for free/pay-what-you-want over at itch.io, there's no excuse for not adding P0 SNAKE to your collection!
2015 C64 16KB Cartridge Competition?
Ok, ok! I hear you! Apologies for the lack of communication on this front (I still haven't even published last years results outside of the little diskmag we released!) but rest assured that the competition will go ahead, same rules as always. However(!) this time the deadline will be the end of January 2016.
The change of deadline is simply due to me changing jobs recently. November/December is crazy busy in my new role and I don't want a repeat of last year when I wasn't even around when the deadline came up. This should also give you coders some extra time to fix things up over that quiet post-Christmas period too :)
So, yes(!) it is happening - more news on that soon.
RGCD Photo Competition
Over the years we've received loads of great photos of people playing their fave RGCD games on real hardware, and to be honest I'm pretty dreadful at photography, so these shots are super useful for helping us promote our games. I mean look at that one above from Arvid Weber - how awesome is that?
So what we're offering is this: between now and the 1st of September, send us your cool RGCD shots (with the understanding that we might use them for promo purposes) and in return we'll send a free game to whoever sends in our overall favourite photo.
To submit, just email us using the subject 'RGCD Photo Compo' or similar. Of course, if you want to just send us photos for us to retweet or whatever for fun, we're happy to do that too :)
Moonspire & Jam It Coming Soon!
Finally, before bringing this newsletter to a close, let's have a look at a couple of upcoming releases! Next to hit our store (mid July) will be JAM IT from Throwback Games, a hectic 2-on-2 arcade style basketball sim. Supporting up to four players (using the Protovision adapter) and available for download on the 12th of July, with a cartridge and disk release to follow soon after.
Leigh White has been working super hard on ensuring that JAM IT is both accessible to newcomers to the sport as well as b-ball veterans alike, with a variety of difficulty settings and simple controls, and the game has already caused quite a stir at the game expos he's showcased it at so far. In short, JAM IT looks set to become the definitive basketball game available for the Commodore 64!
Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away, DuĊĦan Milivojevic has been working together with us and Atlantis on the final version of MOONSPIRE. For those of you who follow the releases on CSDB, an early preview of MOONSPIRE was released some months back, and the final game is set to be complete by the end of the Summer. With multiple sprawling levels, improved controls and some kick-ass sci-fi theme music and sonics from Agemixer, MOONSPIRE looks set to be one of our biggest game releases to date.
Ok, so that's all for now peeps. Catch you again soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment