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RetroGaming Shorts Part 100 - Coup D'Etat
Coup D'Etat (Commodore 64)
Old school BASIC inspiration! This game has evocative greyscale PETSCII art. You're trying to overthrow the government, with old school BASIC action where you simply input choices and numbers to spend/buy/etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9XK89cQg0
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 098 - Angry Ninja
Angry Ninja 1994 (Commodore 64)
Awesome PETSCII art inspiration! This game really shows off what old school C64 PETSCII aesthetic can do. Just because you CAN fill up the whole screen doesn't mean you should. The small size of the map view gives an interesting sense of scale, and cropping the fights to just around the two (well animated!) characters makes combat feel more focused and deadly.
Oh yeah, the PETSCII animation of the melee fights is excellent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DefcRDflDv4
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 077 - The A Team
The A Team 1985 (Commodore 64)
This game is so bad. It is so bad. I pity the fool that payed for this game.
I feel like there may be some retrogame design inspiration somewhere in here ... or maybe just what not to do ...
... or maybe it's just a train wreck worth gawking at.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3JG-xoYJYo
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 073 - Lost Realms of Murkasada Episode II
Lost Realms of Murkasada Episode II 2023 (Commodore 64)
This "RPG-lite" has lovely 8x8 pixel art. Lots of pixel art inspiration here! It may also serve as game design inspiration, showing how you don't really need complex RPG systems or even battle animation for a cool CRPG experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqEPzJYaQaQ
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 067 - Sea Route to India
Sea Route to India 1984 (Commodore 64)
A COMPUTE type in BASIC game of the Oregon Trail type, with nice little minigames, all in PETSCII.
I think it could serve as good inspiration for mobile game design and aesthetics. For example, the PETSCII map and travelogue "dot" movement gives a particularly effective feeling of scale and adventure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG5WvhyFp44
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 066 - Coil Cop
Coil Cop 1985 (Commodore 64)
Thing on a Spring is a cute platformer where you control a cute cartoon creature with a springy pogo leg. Here in the USA, though, it was renamed Coil Cop and advertised by Epyx as part of its totally rad MAXX OUT series.
So look at the totally rad COP OUT magazine ad for Coil Cop. And then contrast with the cutesy gameplay. I still wish the game I imagined from the ad existed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwEiKJXPpMA
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 064 - Chopper Hunt
Chopper Hunt 1984 (Atari 800/C64)
Buried Bucks/Chopper Hunt is an interesting game with small sprites and a whole lot of pixel level terrain destruction. This sort of game design was never terribly common, but there's a lot of fun little possibilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffoztcxOkB8
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 063 - Ad Astra
Ad Astra 2023 (Commodore 64)
Ad Astra is a recent space trading action game, with an overhead view similar to Asteroids. It's deliberately slow paced rather than relying upon quick arcade action reflexes. The space trading genre, born in 1973, is one of the oldest computer game genres but it's still going strong.
It's a good place to try a game design, since the basic space trading framework gives the player a reason to travel different places and accomplishments to achieve by traveling around, without too much explicit developer effort designing "levels" or explicit missions. And it's not just the same game over and over again, since you can randomize which goods are more expensive where, as well as randomize prices rising/falling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzzNgZ-BUAo
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 061 - Various Star Raiders type C64 games
Various Star Raiders type C64 games (C64)
Here are a few Star Trek type C64 games with first person shooting action (as popularized by Star Raiders).
3D Time Trek (Anirog 1983) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ckKxDZprDE
Star Force (ECP 1987) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKyt8KNu8Mw
PETSCII StarForce (???) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUFlhAsBOHk - actually a Star Fire clone
Okay, that last one isn't actually a full Star Trek/Star Raiders type game, but its PETSCII graphics could be used for a PETSCII Star Raiders type game.
Just throwing these out there for Star Trek or Space Trading game inspiration!
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 060 - On the Tiles
On the Tiles 1987 (Commodore 64)
I really love the pixel art and animation here, especially the cat. The dancing mouse and demonic cat face add something also.
The backgrounds also look really nice, and are a bit of a puzzle how they did it if you're familiar with C64 graphics modes. Despite the high resolution look, it's actually using multi-color mode with dark grey background and blue/yellow for the multi-colors. All tiles with high resolution have dark grey as one of the colors, and the other color is always one of the restricted MC colors 0-7 (for example, black or white). The lower resolution of the tiles with blue/yellow is disguised with clever pixel art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGOKFwPpwxM
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 059 - Adrenalin
Adrenalin 1991 (Commodore 64)
An obscure little shooter with a potentially interesting game mechanic idea - you have a limited number of bullets, but each bullet can go through any number of enemies.
So, the idea is to try and figure out where/when to aim in order to take out as many of them as possible with the limited number of bullets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=164_LFwSbcY
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 058 - Chomper Man
Chomper Man 1983 (Commodore 64)
This Pac Man clone looks inspired by another Pac Man clone, Munch Man for the TI-99/4A. It uses the same small 8x8 pixel sprites that made Munch Man suitable for the TI video chip, even though C64 sprites are much larger.
The maze design also feels like Munch Man. I really like how it makes the maze feel a lot bigger, although the original Pac Man actually has small 8x8 hit detection boxes so the feeling is actually illusory. Nevertheless, I really like the look and feel of the small sprites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUciKftgywA
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RetroGaming Shorts Part 054 - Rootin Tootin
Rootin Tootin 1983 (Commodore 64)
This enchanting Pac Man type game has a lot of interesting features that make is more than just another Pac Man clone.
First off, the main mechanism is that you "shoot" a note when you "eat" it, which makes it difficult and interesting to attack enemies, as they usually chase you.
Second, when an enemy is shot, it instantly respawns from its pen. This makes getting at notes near the pens an interesting challenge.
I'm this principle of instant respawning for my Rivers of Impossibility game. It's sort of like Gauntlet, but each generator only spawns one creature at a time. You need to touch a spawn point to seal it, but a simple direct assault won't generally work well because the creature will simply respawn instantly no matter how many times you shoot it. So you have to think about how you will lead away the creature or get around it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIM8OtNf1yg
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