#retrogamingshorts

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 106 - Niemandsland

Niemandsland (1985, Commodore 64)

An example of normal PETSCII art. The way PETSCII is rendered here, it looks like it could serve as a rendering "engine" for a dungeon crawling CRPG or Telengard style roguelike (roguelike in the loose modern sense, not the traditional meaning).

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 105 - Space Waste

Space Waste (1985, Commodore 64)

Unusual retrogame art inspiration! This game uses PETSCII with a twist - multicolor mode rather than normal mode. Multicolor mode is rarely used with PETSCII because the font wasn't designed for it. As such, it's pretty random whether or not a character's appearance is even useful at all.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 104 - Space Warriors

Space Warriors (1987, Commodore 64)

I don't have much to say about this one, other than it's an Archon clone and I'm surprised there aren't more Archon clones out there. This game looks pretty bad, with none of the pixel animation charm or tactical variety of Archon. But hey it … uhh … exists?

[isaackuo]

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.

[isaackuo]

Random game idea - Atari 2600 Adventure but with gravity, so it's a platformer.

I just imagined this in a dream. As in Adventure, you control a yellow square, but it's a platformer so you jump and stuff. Gravity does NOT affect objects, so you can "drop" the sword in mid-air and then grab it from below.

Gameplay revolves around trying to funnel enemies into the sword or positioning it so you can attack.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 092 - Dodgem

Dodgem ???? (ZX-81)

Game design inspiration! Dodgem takes a classic old school 1970s pre-CPU racing game paradigm and restricts it to only 4 directions. And it works. So yeah, a racing game works even with only 4 direction movement.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 089 - Catacombs

Catacombs ???? (Commodore 64)

A simple dungeon crawler with a 5x5 sized light. But I want to talk about an Atari 2600 Adventure variant this inspires in me:

So, you can only hold one item at a time, in one of the 8 directions. You have to let go of a weapon in order to "move" its aim direction. But enemies can be killed by guiding them to run into a dropped weapon.

Sword = like Adventure, the sword can kill enemies an unlimited number of times. Pressing the button drops the sword Throwing Star = Can only kill one enemy. Tapping the button drops the star; holding the button throws the star Ax = Like throwing star, but does not disappear when it hits an enemy Spear = like the sword, but longer. When you grab the spear, it rotates to point away from you. Only the tip of the spear is deadly to enemies Great Sword = like the spear, but both tiles are deadly to enemies

Or something like that. Keys are different colors, corresponding to the doors they open.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 088 - Cristoforo Colombo American Cup

Cristoforo Colombo American Cup 1985 (Commodore 64)

Game design inspiration for an exploration game … ignore the sluggishness of the BASIC code, and look at how the use of map-like graphics and the pacing provide a feeling of scale. The same ideas could be adapted to, say, a space Oregon Trail type game, for example.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 087 - Dong Hunter

Dong Hunter 1982 (MZ-80B))

Dong Hunter is a vaguely Donkey Kong style platformer with a twist - every action costs a certain amount of calories. That's an interesting game design idea to ponder.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 086 - The Damsel and the Beast

The Damsel and the Beast 1981 (ZX-81)

The Damsel and the Beast is an interesting simple dungeon crawler with just a couple resources to manage - clubs and torches. It's good game design inspiration for some different ways to think about light management in a pitch dark dungeon. For example, the torches light up a straight line, rather than a short distance all around.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 082 - Dungeons of Zedd

Dungeons of Zedd 2022 (ZX-81)

This modern action dungeon crawler is what we now call a "roguelike", due to its randomly generated dungeons. I think it has twin stick style WASD+IJKL controls, although the pacing of the game makes it look okay with 8 directional movement plus fire as well.

There are a lot of interesting game design details here, like the way you are limited in experience point gain between boss fights, and the way some enemy gangs respawn at their original spawn points when the last member of the gang is killed.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 080 - Byter

Byter 1983? (ZX-81)

"Byter" is the best name for an 8-bit Pac Man clone. That is all.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 079 - Camelot

Camelot 1983 (ZX-81)

Camelot is another sort of old school proto-CRPG, with a board wargame map of regions rather than a typical terrain map of squares. It has graphic adventure style graphics for showing encounters or non-encounters, resulting in sort of a hybrid between graphic text adventures (proto-point-and-clicks) and CRPG mechanics.

Anyway, it could be good game design inspiration for a hybrid point-and-click with CRPG mechanics … even a graphical MUD or something …

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 078 - Black Crystal

Black Crystal 1982 (ZX-81)

Black Crystal is an example of old school proto-CRPG, with lots of death and only rare wins. It shows how you can do a CRPG with very limited resources.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 076 - Binary Parasite

Binary Parasite 2023 (Atari 8-bit)

Some puzzle game design inspiration! These puzzles basically revolve around trying to add up powers of 2 into the target number. Pretty easy peasy stuff for those of us who grew up manually adding binary in our head for POKE data.

[isaackuo]

RetroGaming Shorts Part 062 - Fire Town

Fire Town 1987 (MSX)

I haven't seen any info on Fire Town, which looks a lot like Rise Out From Dungeons. Basically like Lode Runner, but not quite. Puzzle platformers are pretty popular today, but it's also cool to look at real old school puzzle platformers for game design inspiration.

Fire Town and Rise Out show how small modifications to the "rules" and goals can really change things up compared to Lode Runner.