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Published in 1983 by Hal Laboratory, Slalom (also known as Ski) was the C64's first skiing game. Although it likely looks excruciatingly boring to today's kids, us 80's kids loved it; A good number of obstacles, the ability to speed up or slow down if you wanted (complete with snow-whooshing sounds) and a pleasant, if loud, soundtrack made this race a fun one. There a 6 courses with rising challenges in each, such as bunnies dashing across the track and additional obstacles and checkpoints. You get treated to a few song snippets, such as See the Conquering Hero Comes and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring; I can only wonder what Handel and Bach would have thought of their pieces used in this game (their heads would have probably exploded just trying to comprehend a video game to begin with). Finishing a course rewards you with a nice bit of crowd applause audio. Japanese developer Hal Laboratory is also the brains behind Kirby and other classic games.

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If you had a Commodore 64, you were guaranteed to have 2 racing games in your collection: Pole Position and Out Run. Released to arcades in 1988 by Sega, nice graphics, gameplay and a bangin' soundtrack (which I've treated you to above!) helped to quickly make it popular, resulting in a conversion to multiple platforms, the C64 port being picked up by U.S. Gold. The cars in the game are modeled after their real life counterparts, a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle, 1971 Chevrolet Corvette, 1985 Porsche 911, and a 1985 BMW 325i Cabriolet E30. The first release of Out Run also included a cassette of the music from the original arcade version.

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The Arkanoid title track by Martin Galway is still one of the best SID tunes ever written.

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Barbarian II title screen.

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r/Imsorryjon caliber manifestation made with Create With Garfield (1986).

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Weird, fun little demo titled, "The Blue Man".

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Graphic demo titled "Happy Day".

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Highly sophisticated Pig Latin translator indie program.

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A disk jacket for GEOS disks. I un-crunched the file but was sadly unable to open it.

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Released in 1980 for arcade, Wizard of Wor quickly became a hit and got ported to Apple II/+, Arcade, Atari 800/XL/XE/2600, the C64, and the Commodore MAX Machine. The gameplay was an addictive mashup between a dungeon crawler and Pac-Man, featuring monster enemies that came in multiple different types and with different abilities, such as one that can turn invisible, to keep gameplay challenging. This was included in among only a few other games that supported the speech output of Commodore's Magic Voice cartridge. With the cartridge in use, the following sentences can be heard during gameplay:

Garwor and Thorwor become invisible! Hahahaha!

Now you get the heavyweights! Hahahaha!

I'm the Wizard, not you!

Reception from critics was warm, with many compliments given to the fidelity of the ports. The 4th Annual Arkie Awards gave it the award for "Best Multi-Player Video Game". A few years later in 1995, Flux Magazine named it 84th on their list of Top 100 Video Games.

And in excruciatingly specific trivia, each dungeon begins with the five-note opening from "Danger Ahead", the theme to the radio and tv series Dragnet. The fifth note only plays upon the "double score dungeon" screen. Also, German Minimal/Electro group Welle: Erdball dedicated a song of the same name on their album "Ich bin aus Plastik" (I am made of plastic) to the game.

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Hi folks! I received a message from someone who is looking to ID a game they once played. It’s sounds vaguely familiar to me, but it’s not ringing enough bells for me to have a definite conclusion, so if anyone recognizes it, please let us know in the comments. Many thanks!

“Educational game, maybe from MECC

You were in control of some kind of lab with a central playing area and pens along the left and right sides.

You could add things to the central area like barricades and various foods (red, green, cyan foods) and heat, light, noise stimulus sources. It was turn based, you’d set stuff up and then press go and stuff would happen, the goal being to not screw everything up as it got more and more complex.

At various times creatures would be released into the pen and you had to observe them but also keep them safe. Some of the stimuli would be hazardous to some of the creatures and some creatures would eat each other.

I guess it was a game about learning about stimuli and making observations? Akin to Odell Lake?

I remember there was one creature that was very bad, it would eat all foods, eat all other creatures and eat barriers, it basically had to be kept contained.

It seemed pretty cool when I was little in the 1980s. Hopefully it’s a real game and not something I imagined.”

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Originally released by Sirius Software for the Apple II in 1983 and ported to the C64 the same year, Wavy Navy capitalized on the popular Galaxian game format, with this game set at sea instead of in space. Unlike Galaxian however, this game employs the extra difficulty of putting your ship on large waves so you have no choice but to get closer to the invading airborne army above you in order to eliminate all the targets. Occasionally one of the planes will leave the formation and swoop in random patterns towards you, and once you blow enough of them up one of the helicopters in the top row will come down and aggressively tell you to stop doing that by shooting at you. Getting hit by a plane or the rounds from the copter cause you to dramatically destruct by flying up in the air and then sinking under the waves once you hit the water again. If you manage to clear the screen, mines appear in higher levels to add an extra layer of challenge.

Because Wavy Navy was essentially a reskin of Galaxian, it lost favor with some critics. Others however viewed it as a clever mash-up of games like Galaga and Moon Patrol, and hailed it for this. Its excellent graphics for the time were likewise deservedly recognized. Keen-eyed players may notice that the plane design and movement are almost identical to the player-controlled plane in Save New York, also released in '83.

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Wie kann ich das spielen?

Ich spreche kein Deutsch, aber ich habe Google Translate nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen verwendet, um dies zu beantworten! Um die hier vorgestellten Spiele zu spielen, benötigen Sie einen Commodore 64-Emulator, der mit dem Betriebssystem Ihres Computers und den ROMs für die spezifischen Spiele, die Sie suchen, kompatibel ist. Es gibt viele Emulatoren und Websites, auf denen ROMs verfügbar sind. Führen Sie einfach eine Suche durch, um diejenigen zu finden, die für Sie am besten geeignet sind.

(Anonymous asked: How do you play these?

I don’t speak German but I have used Google translate to the best of my ability to answer this! in order to play the games you see featured here, you will need a Commodore 64 emulator compatible with your computer’s operating system and ROMs for the specific games you are looking for. There are many emulators and sites that have ROMs available, just do a search to find the ones that work best for you.)

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A week or so ago I was browsing a thread on Reddit titled, "What is that one childhood video game that you loved to bits, yet no-one else seems to have ever heard of?" That sort of thing is right up my alley, so I searched through it hoping to find some C64-specific posts and, I did! They are also ones I haven't yet featured, so let's do so!

First up, u/MELMHC posted: "Below the root on C64"

Below the Root was a nice little sidescroller RPG released in 1984 by Windham Classics, a once-division of Spinnaker Software. It's based on a series of fantasy novels titled The Green Sky trilogy by Zilpha Keatley Snyder which were published between 1975-77, which I actually didn't know until now so I looked up the books for more backstory.

In the books, a race of people called The Kindar of Green-sky are a utopian society, ruled by leaders called the Ol-zhaan, who are considered deities. "Unjoyful" emotions like anger and sorrow are banned and kept under strict control by a system of meditation, chant and ritual, accompanied by the use of narcotic berries. The people are vegetarians and surround themselves with pets. Babies are born with paranormal powers, which is kept into adulthood, but were disappearing earlier with each successive generation. The people lived in fear of the forest floor and the pash-shan, legendary monsters said to stalk below the roots of their magnificent tree-cities.

A novice Ol-zhaan named Raamo and his friend Neric (one of the game's playable characters) set out to discover if the monsters truly exist. What they found were the Erdlings, a race made up of exiled Kindar dissidents and their descendants. Where the Kindar live their whole lives in the shade, the Erdlings seek places where the sun penetrates the caverns. They have been living in the caverns and subsisting on plants, mushrooms and the occasional unwary rabbit (lapan) or ground bird, plus fallen fruits from the Kindar orchards. They are superb craftsmen, metalworkers and jewelers; they have fire, which is unknown in Green-sky, and transport people and supplies by railway, using steam propulsion. They have no taboos against anger, sadness or other "unjoyful" emotions, and (possibly as a result) appear to have retained much more of their psychic powers than have the Kindar.

Their discovery shakes the very foundation of Green-sky's social order. The Erdlings are released from their exile and the Ol-zhaan disbanded, but reconciling the two societies takes a long time. An unnamed society of disgruntled Ol-zhaan (called Salite in the game) and the Nekom, vengeance-seeking Erdlings, began patrolling the branch-paths and causing unrest. Furthermore, Raamo himself apparently perished, silencing a voice for tolerance and unity.

In the game's manual, you are told that the wise old woman (and former Ol-zhaan high priestess) D'ol Falla has a vision, in which she heard these words: "The Spirit fades, in Darkness lying. A quest proclaim - the Light is dying." Your character (one of five from the series) then begins the game looking for clues to the meaning of D'ol Falla's vision in hopes of restoring peace to both nations.

The game does a great job in sticking close to details of the books, such as making you unable to steal as that behaviour is banned in the society. To obtain and item you must ask characters for permission to take it, or to pay with tokens you can gain in-game. Also adhering to this, the game was made to be almost entirely non-violent. You can only be hurt by contact with venomous animals, falling, or colliding with a barrier. Your character can also be kidnapped and taken hostage, and collect weapons, which can mostly only be used to cut vine barriers. Killing someone renders the game unwinnable.

The nicely coloured graphics were considered advanced for the time, and competent controls made gameplay easy. The game was well-received, and now has a fanpage for the game and the books up online.

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Murder on the Zinderneuf was a great little whodunit game published by Electronic Arts in 1983. Set in 1936, you are a detective (whose persona you have a choice of, with punny names based on fictional literary, film, radio and TV detectives - I chose Inspector Klutzeau, lol) onboard a posh dirigible where a murder has occurred. Much like characters in a dungeon crawler, each detective has a distinct set of strengths and weaknesses. The ship is full of passengers who can be questioned (and accused) and rooms which can be searched for clues. If you wrongfully accuse a suspect, you can no longer interact with them for the remainder of the game, which could negatively impact your ability to gather intelligence. However if you are right, the killer will provide an explanation of their motives and you will be assigned 1 of 6 possible ratings depending on your thoroughness and accuracy. A randomized murderer each time the game is played, along with the wide variety of dialogue and consequences available gives this game high replayability.

The game's replayable value as well as its originality garnered favorable reviews from critics and consumers alike. Small but noticeable details such as the engine noise increasing as the player moved towards the back of the dirigible were also shown appreciation.

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180 was a 501 darts game released by Mastertronic in 1986 for a number of platforms. Normal darts rules apply in this championship tournament. The objective is to win a best of three match, then one match at the semifinals to progress to the final boss, Jammy Jim. If you win just one leg against him you win the tournament. There are 8 opponents you can choose from to play against, all with silly names (Del Boy Desmond, Sure Shot Sidney, Devious Dave, Limp Wrist Larry, Beer Belly Bill, Mega Mick, Tactical Tel, and Jammy Jim).

180 enjoyed a warm reception, with the C64 version getting a 70% rating from ZZAP! Magazine.

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Fantastic "Space Movie and Song" Anthony Crowther-involved demo with great music and animation. Essentially a short film at nearly 10 minutes long and complete with credits.