Warlock, the newest Commodore 64 project from developer Haplo, is out now. It borrows the mood of old first-person fantasy shooters and drops it onto a top-down map. If you remember Heretic and still keep a breadbin computer within arm's reach, this one is worth a look.
Haplo isn't new to the scene. The developer's earlier C64 titles include Shift and Tenebra, both well regarded in retro circles. Warlock looks like the most ambitious of the three so far, at least on paper.
Heretic, Seen From Above
The idea behind Warlock is simple. Haplo wanted the intense, gloomy energy of classic fantasy shooters like Heretic, but from a completely different angle. Instead of peering down a corridor in first person, you look down on the action from above.
Some games arrive with a serious pitch. Doody Calls - Turd World War is not one of them. It is a brand new top-down squad shooter for the Amiga 1200 from Software Amusements. The team built it from the ground up for the machine's AGA chipset, the upgraded graphics hardware that set the A1200 apart from earlier Amigas.
It's also based on an existing browser game, v1.33, which Software Amusements has reworked into what it calls a family-friendly tactical shooter. The colour scheme is mostly brown. You can probably guess why.
Bombs Away, Squad Alpha
You don't walk into battle here. You get dropped in by a "Poo-nook" helicopter and take command of Squad Alpha. That's a trio of AI teammates who apparently never stop talking. They aren't just there for show, either. According to the developer, they flank enemies and duck into cover on their own, so you aren't babysitting three bodies who walk into every bullet.
SNK's P.O.W. (Prisoners of War) is one of those arcade brawlers that never quite got the home treatment it deserved. A developer known as ESKAY is changing that with a native AGA conversion for the Amiga 1200, built from the arcade code itself. A new alpha is already out, and you can now play it all the way through.
A Teenage Obsession Comes Full Circle
This one is personal. ESKAY owned the original P.O.W. arcade JAMMA board as a teenager, so the love for this game runs deep. Scene figures like Hoffman provided extra inspiration, and the project started with a partial version of the first level running on the A1200.
Some games are simple on paper and nerve-wracking in practice. Bubble Ghost is one of them. The 1990 Game Boy puzzler now has a new home on the Amstrad CPC 6128, thanks to a fan conversion from developer Kirby2000.
It's a fitting release for the spooky season, too. A haunted fortress, a friendly spirit and a very fragile soap bubble make a strange but charming combination, and that combination is now playable on the 8-bit home computer.
Blow Gently, Little Ghost
The premise hasn't changed. You play a helpful ghost whose job is to guide a soap bubble through the chambers of a haunted fortress. There are 35 of them, and none of them are friendly.
Some game pitches need a paragraph of explanation. PIG IRON needs about four words: a pig in a mech. That alone had my attention, and the details only get stranger from there.
PIG IRON is a mech combat FPS (first-person shooter) with a filthy, grimy look and a premise that is part horror and part dark joke. It is currently on Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform where developers ask players to back a project before it is finished. To help make the case, there is a free demo for Windows PCs.
Pork Versus Meat
The pilot is a bioengineered pig, strapped into a hulking war machine. Its mission is grim. A batch of other bioengineered creatures, which the game calls Bioengineered Meat Organisms, has escaped containment. The pig's job is to wipe them out.
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