Some games pitch themselves with a big hook. Cinderline goes for a strange one, and it works. You are a bird, you drive a train, and the fate of a dying world rests on one final S'MORE.
A beta demo for this surreal adventure game is now on Steam, and it was recently highlighted by Alpha Beta Gamer, a site that tracks early builds, alphas and betas of indie projects. Here's what's waiting at the platform.
All Aboard the Ash Express
The star of Cinderline is an anthropomorphic bird. You aren't a tourist. You're the one at the controls of a train, rolling through an underground system that has clearly seen better days.
The Commodore 64 still gets new racing games, and this one is easy to like. ZeroG Labs has released version 1.3c of Lemans 2, a top-down arcade racer built for the old 8-bit machine. It takes clear cues from the classic racer Lemans. The goal is to keep that familiar feel, not to reinvent it.
The headline change in this update is cosmetic but welcome. There is a brand-new full-screen title cover to greet you when the game loads. The racing behind it has been left alone, and that seems to be the point. Fans of the original formula get what they came for.
Doom has run on calculators, fridges and pregnancy tests, so a Commodore 64 version shouldn't be surprising. Still, DOOM64 from developer Kweepa is worth a closer look. The final version is now out on Itch.io, and it's not a straight port. Think of it as a careful demake that knows exactly what the old breadbox can and can't do.
Kweepa calls it the second entry in a planned trilogy of id Software conversions for the C64. If the name rings a bell, that's because he already got a version of Doom running on the VIC-20, Commodore's even weaker machine from before the C64.
RetroWorks has a new one out, and it's aimed squarely at people who still keep a ZX Spectrum 128k within arm's reach. Shadows of Belial is an action-adventure built for Sinclair's classic 8-bit home computer, and the studio is pitching it as a dark, atmospheric journey rather than a quick arcade romp.
The news reached us through IndieRetroNews, which called the game visually stunning. Judging by what RetroWorks has shared about the structure, it also sounds like a game that won't go easy on you.
A Knight With Unfinished Business
At the center of it all is Sir Fred, a hero who has to face the ghosts of his own past. The game frames his quest around justice and redemption. That is a heavier premise than you might expect from a machine that fits under a TV, and I like that.
Some arcade games never really leave us. Defender, the 1980s scrolling shooter from Williams Electronics, is one of them. It is now heading to the Commodore Amiga thanks to developer Acidbottle, and you can already try an early version yourself.
Acidbottle has announced the project as a horizontal shoot-'em-up that aims to be a faithful recreation of the arcade original. That is a bold promise. Defender has a reputation, and fans of the cabinet will notice if something feels off.
From Godot to the Amiga
How this port came together is the interesting part. The game did not start life on the Amiga at all. Acidbottle first began building it on PC in the Godot engine, a free and open-source game engine popular with indie developers. That version was never finished.
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