Something slightly different for todays retro heads up, as if you are a huge fan of Dungeon Crawlers, especially games such as Eye of the Beholder or Lands of Lore. Then you may be interested to know that Captain DarkN3m0 is still working on a new Dungeon Crawler for the Amiga called ‘The Cthulhu Project’; A horror like RPG which the creator says “is being developed using AMOS PRO as a 3D old school Dungeon Master like game”. To coincide with this news, a new video has been posted which demonstrates the updated dialog system.

Although it is still at a work in progress state as seen by the video above, we can already see a lot of love has gone into The Cthulhu Project. As it doesn’t just feature a dark atmospheric vibe with gritty dungeon themes, but there’s NPC’s to talk to, deadly disgusting enemies to fight, an automap, new music by Simone Bernacchia and much much more which will hopefully appear in a future video! So yes certainly one to keep an eye on when it gets an eventual release for the Commodore Amiga.

Links :1) Source – Cheers for the heads up Saberman

While you can still play the awesome remade version of Frogger for the C64 called ‘ Frogger Arcade ‘ by Hokuto Force (Digital Monastery). There’s another version that’s being created which you may be interested in playing when it’s finished, and that’s RMJ & JoeJoe’s latest project of Frogger for the Commodore Amiga. A new version of the game which the creator says “is a 1:1 arcade port using of course the original Z80 code that he reverse-engineered & transcoded to 68000”. To coincide with this news, we have some footage of the beta that can be viewed below.

Here is what the creator says via the itch io page linked below. “Frogger is a one or two player game in which players move their frog from the bottom to the top of the screen. This is achieved by overcoming a number of hazards without getting run over or drowned. The first half of the screen is a bi-directional flow of traffic including buses, cars and race cars. Players must avoid these vehicles. Frogs can move safely with the flow of traffic to make their way to the second half of the screen which consists of a river with fast moving logs and sinkable turtles. Frogs must hop on the backs of the logs and the sinkable turtles to get to the home base at the top of the screen. At random times throughout the game play a lady frog will appear on a log”.

As we said before in our previous article : In the 1980’s Data East released the Arcade fighting game of Karate Champ; A game which established and popularized the one-on-one fighting game genre, for which it is considered one of the most influential games of all time. Well fast forward to today and thanks to another heads up from Saberman, we’ve been told JOTD has made available a beta version of this Arcade game: A game that was also released for systems such as the Apple II, C64 and the NES.

“Karate Champ is a 1984 arcade fighting game developed by Technōs Japan and released by Data East. A variety of moves can be performed using the dual-joystick controls using a best-of-three matches format like later fighting games. The game was a commercial blockbuster where it was the highest-grossing arcade game of 1985 and the best-selling home computer game up until 1989. An updated version that allows two players the option to compete against each other was released in 1984 under the title Karate Champ — Player vs Player. It featured a multiplayer mode and more varied gameplay. It was released for the arcades shortly after the original during the same year, also published by Data East”. – Wikipedia

Dev Notes : A very early alpha version with a lot of bugs & crashes, also slow, but game is playable up to a point (bull stage is buggy and may crash the machine). ATM it needs 2MB of memory so no A500/1MB. I’ll try to reduce that. Also game will be slow on real machines without fastmem for the moment. As always before I add better controls: 5 inserts coins, 1 or 2 start games. It also needs CD32 joypads and on real CD32 joypads you’ll find that the controls are awkwards because of a different position on WinUAE joypads. But it’s a start. Controls are joystick + buttons (2nd joystick). There’s a practice mode that shows most of the moves.

Links 1) Discussion  2) Download ( Save As ) [New Version 19/08/23]

Lemming880 has been mentioned a number of times on Indie Retro News, with games appearing such as Boxx, Boxx 2, Boxx 3 and even Boxx 4 which was released earlier this year. Well here with another Amiga news story from the same creator, as he has released a beta remake of ‘Boxx 3’. An enjoyable game originally from 2017 created in Backbone, which is now being ported over to Earok’s excellent Scorpion Engine. To coincide with this news, Saberman was kind enough to do another video showing the game in action. 

In this colourful game you play as a green guy who has to collect all the coins, avoid deadly traps, kill nasties and jump from platform to platform to reach the end exit. Once he’s done all that, it’s a level complete and it’s on to the next ever harder stage! And that’s all there is to say about the game thus far, (It’s still a beta) but make sure to download the latest version via the itch io page linked (HERE).

Another interesting news story has just hit our inbox and one I think Commodore Amiga gamers across the globe will loading up when it’s finished, is the recently announced Amiga CD32 game called ‘King Arthur: Rise of the Round Table’; A game in which the creator says is “an action RPG inspired by Moonstone but still very much in the middle of development”. To coincide with this news, we’ve got some brand new footage of this work in progress game below thanks to Saberman.

While there is very little to go other than the game being submitted to the AmiGameJam 2022 and you can play a very early version of King Arthur: Rise of the Round Table right now. Here is what the website says about the current stage of development. “The AI is till being worked on, as are all aspects of the gameplay, there are several major known bugs, graphics are unfinished and it’s completely unoptimized (requires an 030 and fast RAM, though the final game should run at 50FPS on a stock CD32)”.

Links :1) Website 

Because of the ongoing Amijam competition, we have been swamped with new Amiga games! Games such as King Arthur, The Last Dungeon and RogueCraft, are just some of the games we’ve mentioned this week. Well here’s another Amiga game to play that you’ll either enjoy or feel sick playing (It’s that fast), it’s Caravandalf; A Super fast scrolling shooter for the Amiga AGA by Peter & Gordon Mackay. To coincide with this news that was sent to us earlier this afternoon, Saberman has done a video of the game in action.

Once again we don’t have much detail to go on with Caravandalf, as there is no story or game description via the website. However from what we can see from the video above, it features lush Amiga graphics, a smooth scrolling frame rate, multiple enemy types, and lots of lots of bullets! As the creator says in regards to us feeling a bit sick :p  “Sorry, I was just trying to do something you don’t often see on Amiga ”.

Links :1) Website (Please see the Website for Credits etc)

Something different for today on Indie Retro News, as looking through the EAB forums for something interesting to write up, and we were contacted by Lifeschool22, about the latest game that they created for the Commodore Amiga called ‘Holiday’. A game in which the creator says your task is to survive the next 11 days in a climate of heat, humidity and the air smelling sweet like ripe bananas at a Spanish resort. To coincide with this news, Saberman had done a video of the game some time back but will be used for this news heads up.

While a more in-depth description can be found via the website below, this is what the creator says about Holiday for the Amiga OCS/ECS. “Recently I posted two threads, one on Lemon and the other on EAB, asking for help with making a game. And the reply was Cando, Can Do it!  At first the interface put me off, but after a lot of head scratching to get through the initial brick wall, I found it came to me eventually. It was strange to have to remind myself of If Then Else, and Loops and Variables from my College days. I even have a While loop in there!, to delay the rooms. The whole thing took just over a month to create. One issue was I didn’t send the code from the side bar buttons to a sub-routine, and instead did the code routines per page. Big mistake! I had to go through each page to make small changes!”

Requirements

• Any Amiga with 1MB chip ram and at least 6MB of other ram.
• Kickstart 3.0 or better (untested on other roms).
• An Emulator capable of reading Amiga .HDF files.
• Optional: A way to copy the files onto a real Amiga.
• Optional: Assign CanDo: to the destination location.

Links :1) Website  

Some very special news has appeared in our inbox, as thanks to a heads up by Saberman, we’ve been told that AttentionWhore has announced that Teletext has come to the Commodore Amiga ‘AGA’. As in the words of one reply under the 1st place interactive winner “I haven’t even watched it yet. Just giving thumb up for the techno breakthrough of generating teletext on Amiga. Mighty coders have tried and failed at this task before. It should be a good candidate for a ‘technical wonder’ award of some kind next year”.

As the technical aspects goes over my head I’m more of a retro gamer, this is what AttentionWhore has said via the competition entry page linked (HERE) ” The game generates teletext via the normal chinch output on the TV, using signals that are above the visible screen. There are 312 lines in the PAL image. The teletext data is placed on lines 6-22, during which the so-called frame return blanking takes place. In a classic TV, the electron spot of the cathode ray tube is extinguished and the deflection coils move it back to the top left corner of the screen (or the centre depending on whether an even or odd half picture) during this time. This must take time because the current in the coil cannot be changed in an instant”.

Here’s another great Commodore Amiga news story for all you fine retro gamers out there, as we’ve recently been informed via our good friend Nivrig Games, who also designed the highly enjoyable game of ‘Turbo Tomato’. That if you head on over to his itch io website, you’ll be able to play Nivrig’s newest of creations called ‘Rogue Declan : Zero’; a twin stick roguelite shooter for the Amiga which was originally started as a demonstration game to support the in-development twin-stick controller from Abstraction Games!

While the background of the game can be found at the old page linked (HERE), this is what the website says about the game “Rogue Declan Zero is an all-action, procedurally generated twin-stick roguelite shooter for the Classic Amiga 68k OCS/ECS platform. Delve with brave, brave Sir Declan into the demon-infested dungeons and find enough magical shards to open the final barrier to the Hellgate that is allowing the demons access to this realm. Then cast your carefully collected shards into the gate to close it and close it forever!”