LumASCII (ZX Spectrum)

Bob Smith's latest Spectrum game LumASCII is a side scrolling shooter, with an aesthetic twist - it's all rendered in the Spectrum ROM font. The game plays as a tricky (power-up free) shoot-em-up, with your character and all the baddies and environments rendered in a screen full of squint-tastic coloured text. (Insert your own R-'TYPE' pun here.) If you touch a baddie your energy bar is chipped away - run out of energy and you lose one of your five lives. Classic stuff.

The text based 'sprites' in the game are often animated, and are amazingly recognizable given the limited palette of shapes available to draw them. Jellyfish, crabs, plants and other more abstract baddies come alive within this textual world. Graphical polish is evident, and the effort put in to make these look good shines through. Neat touches such as background star-fields (made of full stops) drift by in the background, and the main character (the wonderfully named "Chi-Chi Skyrocket") leaves a movement trail that fades as she moves around. Bosses come at the end of each stage, complete with their own energy bar to eat into. The production values are very high in this release, and continue to the loading screen, an ASCII homage to the iconic JetPac artwork.

Introducing The New RGCD Shop!

Well, it's not the system that was initially proposed about six months ago, but damn, it is at least better than a ridiculously long page full of PayPal buttons! The new RGCD Shop has finally arrived, courtesy of BigCartel - check it out here.

I know it isn't perfect, but at least it offers combined shipping and a proper shopping cart. More of interest perhaps is the fact that we've been working away behind the scenes to extend the new 'deluxe' packaging across our entire catalogue of Commodore 64 games - and you can even buy the empty boxes too. Nice!

Many thanks to all the people who helped me with testing and tweaking the interface (Sandro Mestre, Dave Almer and Stefan Nowak). It'll no doubt be improved further over the next couple of weeks, but for now I'm letting it settle as we open the doors to the public for the first time...

Kaikan (PC)

For as long as I can remember, a sure-fire way to get a smile on my face has been to sit me in front of a gamepad/arcade stick and a screen full of explosions and bullets. And Kaikan has left me grinning inanely, ear to ear.

Heavily inspired by Battle Garegga and other Raizing games, Kaikan is a joyous cacophony of pixellated fire and death. At times there is so much going on it takes on the appearance of a technical demo, with the computer spamming the screen with sprites to see how many it can vomit into your eyes during a single screen refresh. And despite its doujin shortcomings and non-intuitive design, I found myself sniggering away as I piloted my ridiculously over-powered fighter craft from one chaotic encounter to another. It's by no means the perfect shooter, but hot damn, I had fun beating it - and I confess that I even enjoyed the trial and error investigative experience of figuring out how the gameplay mechanics worked.

Chompston (PC)

It's exceedingly rare that I would use the word "delightful" to describe anything. Yet, I can't find a better word to describe Chompston, a bite-size gem created by contralogic.

Chompston is essentially what would pop out if Pac-Man and Bomberman were to somehow fuse their DNA in a Forget-Me-Not themed laboratory. Gameplay is absolutely straightforward to anyone who has ever played the classic arcade gobble-em-up, and there's only one other key to know besides the movement key... the bomb key. The player's cheery little yellow cube thing with the silly grin will happily place little bombs that will, hopefully, destroy the oncoming enemies before they can sap a health heart. Snap up all the multicolored dots and the stage is won.

Papers, Please (Preview) (PC/Mac)

I've always had a patchy relationship with immigration and customs officers. I'm the genius who, on having triggered the metal detector three times at an airport in Norway, decided to reach inside his jacket looking for all the world like he was going to whip out a shooter (or a travel wallet with a big metal zip, now thankfully lost). I'm the smart guy who had a passport photo taken with shoulder length hair then got a load of it cut off just before a barely successful attempt to enter Japan. I'm honestly surprised I've never been strip searched for my general failure at being a competent world traveller.

Papers, Please is an indie game still in its rickety alpha stage which sees the player take on the role of an immigration officer in a dystopian Eastern Bloc country in the grim, grey 1980s. With travel restrictions having just been lifted (stop yawning at the back, this game is pretty fun. Don't make me call the Secret Police on you) vigilance is required to make sure only the right people get in.

Assembloids & Spike/MineStorm Available! (C64)

STOP PRESS! Two new C64 game cartridges from RGCD have just arrived and are available to buy from our shop page now!

First up is the final retail version of Assembloids, the frantic-paced puzzle/reaction game from Enthusi, iLKke and Conrad that came second in last year's RGCD game development competition. Based on Quartet, an original flash game by Photon Storm, Assembloids is all about assembling faces from four sets as quickly (and completely) as possible against an increasingly tight time limit.

Already proven to be one of our most addictive and highly acclaimed C64 releases to date, the game is available on cartridge from RGCD (in either standard or deluxe packaging, complete with manual, sticker and printed code sheets) or on cassette from Psytronik Software.

The standard version of Assembloids is priced at £20 inclusive of UK/Europe shipping, and £21 for the rest of the world, whereas the deluxe version costs £25 (UK/Europe) and £27 (rest of world). The Psytronik cassette version costs £3.99 (plus shipping). Read more about the game on the Assembloids project page here.

Also released today, and following on from last year's authorised cartridge release of Fortress of Narzod, this compilation of frantic shooter MineStorm and oddball platformer Spike complete Peiselulli and Linus' acclaimed 'Vectrex Trilogy'. Originally developed exclusively for the Vectrex console, through negotiating with Jay Smith of Smith Engineering/Western Technologies (via his son Spencer) RGCD and TRSI are proud to present the official C64 conversions of two undisputed retro classics.

With this retail compilation featuring PAL/NTSC compatibility and save-disk support to keep a record of those high scores, Spike and MineStorm require no keyboard input and are designed to work on the C64GS as well as regular commodore computers. More information can be found on the games over on the Spike/MineStorm project page here.

Available now from RGCD, again in both standard or deluxe packaging complete with a printed manual and RGCD sticker. The standard version of Spike/MineStorm is priced at £25 inclusive of UK/Europe shipping, and £26 for the rest of the world, whereas the deluxe version costs £30 (UK/Europe) and £32 (rest of world).

Assembloids (C64) (2013)

System Requirements

* A Commodore 64/128/GS (PAL/NTSC).
* A joystick/joypad.
* A VDU preferably connected to a loud sound-system.


Downloads

Download the Retail Version of Assembloids in .crt/.prg format HERE!
Download the Competition Version of Assembloids in .crt/.prg format HERE!

EMULATOR PACKAGE! Download the Retail Version of the game ready-to-run combined with the Windows 32-Bit version of the VICE emulator HERE!


Introduction

During the Autumn of 2012, RGCD collaborator and friend iLKke (Ilija Melentijevic) joined us as an official member of our game development team, and after wrapping up Endurion's Get Em DX was keen to work on another release. At the same time, Enthusi (Dr. Martin Wendt) was toying with the idea of entering a game in our 16KB Cartridge Development Competition, but hadn't yet decided upon a particular design.

After discussing a few ideas, a port of Photon Storm's excellent Quartet game was suggested. Playable online via the gimme5games flash portal, its simple design and frantic reflex-based gameplay made it a perfect contender for the limitations of the competition.

Spike/MineStorm (C64) (2013)

System Requirements

* A Commodore 64/128/GS (PAL/NTSC) (8580 SID Recommended).
* A joystick/joypad.
* A VDU preferably connected to a loud sound-system.


Downloads

The retail version of the Spike/MineStorm cartridge is currently not available for free download, but if you are interested in trying the games you should check out the original PAL-only releases on CSDB.

Download Spike (PAL) in .d64 disk format HERE!
Download MineStorm (PAL) in .d64 disk format HERE!

BONUS! Check out TRSI's 'Meet Linus' music collection in C64 .prg format HERE!
BONUS! Download the Spike soundtrack by Linus HERE!
BONUS! Download the MineStorm soundtrack by Linus HERE!


Introduction

Following on from last year's authorised cartridge release of Fortress of Narzod, this compilation of frantic shooter MineStorm and oddball platformer Spike complete Peiselulli's acclaimed 'Vectrex Trilogy'. Originally developed exclusively for the Vectrex console, through negotiating with Jay Smith of Smith Engineering/Western Technologies (via his son Spencer) RGCD and TRSI are proud to present the official C64 conversions of two undisputed retro classics.

Soulless, Get 'Em DX and Space Lords are FREE!

Regular readers may recall my from my previous post that I casually explained away some of the inactivity here due to my PC dying last month. Well one of the direct results of this mishap is that I completely failed to announce that the retail versions of C64 hits Soulless, Space Lords and Get 'Em DX are now all available for free download! (This was originally planned for Christmas 2012, so I guess a belated seasons greetings are in order from RGCD, Psytronik Software and p1x3l.net).

You can grab the games from CSDB using the links above, or Get 'Em DX direct from our own game page and Space Lords via p1x3l.net, and they all come complete with instructions and are available in multiple formats (where possible). If you don't have a real Commodore 64 computer handy to play them on, we recommend the VICE emulator (which has recently been upgraded to version 2.4, don't you know).

Of course, if you want physical copies of the games for your collections (and who wouldn't?) then they are all still available to buy on cartridge from us here, and disk and tape users can buy Get 'Em DX and Soulless from Psytronik Software.

With two new C64 releases about to roll off the assembly line here at RGCD, these should keep you busy for a few days. Stay tuned for more news very soon!

RGCD News Update

Hey there - let me start this post by wishing you all a belated Happy New Year! There's a reason for the recent inactivity here at RGCD towers - my ancient old desktop PC (built in 2005) decided to finally die once and for all after months of random crashes and automatic turn-offs. This meant it was time to upgrade - and a direct result of this has been me wasting away the hours playing loads of new games that my old PC couldn't cope with. Fortunately, the novelty of having a new computer has now finally worn off and it's back to business as normal.

So, what has been cooking on the back burners here at RGCD? First off, and following on from my last post, the C64 competition cartridges have now all been sent out to their new owners across Europe, each housed in a neat little box designed by Redcrab of Goin' Sideways/Genesis Project. I'd like to say thanks again to everyone for making the 2012 competition such a success, especially Tim Harris for providing the hardware that makes this all possible, and Enthusi for his vital technical support.

Streemerz (NES)

Taking inspiration from the old arcade and NES classic Bionic Commando, Streemerz started life as a mock-NES game on Flash and the video game development tool, Multimedia Fusion, only to almost inevitably be reborn as the genuine NES article, one of a growing number of demakes spreading throughout the retro homebrew scene like Japanese knotweed.

Although the name might suggest otherwise, Streemerz is not a game where you run around throwing streamers into the air to enforce a children's party atmosphere wherever you go. In fact you are a member of the Super Strength Emergency Squad Zeta, (Streemerz, geddit?) who has just infiltrated one of the evil Master Y's (aka Derek Yu of TIGSource and Spelunky fame) flying fortresses and set a bomb to charge. With Master Y and his minions alerted to your presence, your mission is to ascend to the top of the fortress where a helicopter rescue awaits.

Teleglitch (PC/Linux)

"A Roguelike top-down shooter with pixel graphics." Before I had even finished reading this description, I was PayPal'ing $13 USD to the folks behind the game, anxiously awaiting the first playthrough. Information about the origins of Teleglitch are mysterious, much like the game itself; the Facebook page has only a handful of posts, and the official site contains no wisdom as to the background of its creators Johann and Mihkel Tael. I am fine with this, as the sublime beauty of the game is what matters here, and that you purchase it immediately, if you're a fan of Quake, Doom, Alien Breed, the Aliens franchise, or roguelike and survival horror genre games in general.

Red Rogue (PC/Mac/Linux)

My first ever contact with a roguelike RPG was in the early 1990's when I turned left down a tunnel and ended up losing almost a whole day to a public domain game on the Amiga, the name of which sadly now escapes me (possibly Moria? - JM). It was a game with that brilliant stupidity that often appears with roguelikes, and was bags of "ah well, I died, who cares" fun.

That's the big secret about roguelikes. They look complex and poindexterish but a lot of them are pure distilled gameplay crammed into a single dimension and covered in ASCII sauce. Or at least, they are how I play them.

Red Rogue throws a Potion of Side Scroller over the standard roguelike setup, flipping the roguelike genre on its side and giving us a lateral look into the dungeon as our heroine Rogue and her minion Minion battle orcs, kobolds and vampires among others and try to get past level four of the dungeon without Minion dying. Or at least, that's how I play it!

Callisto (Atari XE/XL)

Jason Kelk's Callisto, written for the ABBUC Games Competition 2012, has taken me back to a simpler, happier age of gaming. Come on, you remember: a time when you didn't need a tutorial to learn the controls of a new game, seventeen fingers to execute that elusive special move, or a degree in computer science to install the darn thing on your computer.

It's a sideways scrolling shoot 'em up: fly, shoot, dodge and weave. That's it. No pyrotechnics when you pull the trigger, no quadruple shot with plasma cannon and confetti power-up, no super-nukes or chain reaction mega-explosions.

You might describe it as a purists' shoot 'em up. Everything it does, it does smoothly and beautifully, but it is the genre stripped to its essentials. There are no power-ups or bonuses for destroying enemy waves, and there are no end-of-level guardians to defeat.

2012 C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition Results

After several weeks of playing, analysing, discussing, praising and criticising, our judging panel has finally turned in the results of this year's C64 Cartridge Development Competition!

As explained in the scoring section of the competition page, the scores were calculated using mean averages with the highest achievable score being 65 points (if all judges had scored a game 13 points in all categories). I won't bore you with lists and tables of who scored each game what, instead I have listed the games below in order of placing with the final scores and comments.

Before continuing I'd like to say a massive 'thank you' to everyone involved - 2012 was another fantastic year for C64 gaming because of your work and dedication. I can only hope that you'll be back again for another round in 2013!

(Note that in the following comments I specifically asked the judges to constructively criticise the games submitted - not because they were bad, but because they were all very good! Therefore, although the tone of the comments may seem negative in places, no hard feelings are meant by our panel - the goal of this is simply to point out where (in their opinion) the entries could have been improved.