New Amiga games in 2021
It's 2021, and it seems I have gone back 30 years! There are so many new release games on Amiga and Commodore 64 in the past few years and I wanted to highlight some of these new games.
In my case, I really wanted the game boxes too. I know that game authors don't make a lot of money selling digital versions of their games, but they DO make more money when the box up the games and add another margin on top.
For me, it just makes sense to buy these full "collector's edition" games, as I like to think I am supporting the developers even more. If nothing else, if gives me that "new Amiga game" feel I used to get 30 years ago when buying games for the Amiga at the peak of its popularity. It never gets old!
For those who think that the Amiga didn't get much in the way of new games since Commodore went under in 1994, you would be surprised how many games have been released since then!
In the late 1990's and early 2000's (with the main remaining commercial game developers like Team 17, Bitmap Brothers, Vulcan) having left the Amiga market) we saw new games released in smaller numbers that explored the full speed of accelerated 060 Classic Amigas, RTG graphics, and more.
Games like Payback, Virtual GP, Napalm, T-Zero, Foundation, Tales from Heaven, Nightlong, Desert Racing of BarDos and others continued the ongoing new games on the Classic Amiga, now with much higher system requirements.
The new games released moved on to PowerPC based Amigas and the Next Generation AmigaOne systems using PowerPC and AmigaOS 4, MorphOS and AROS. I have covered most of these games in this very blog over the past 10 years,
Then we had the whole Retro computing era come in during the mid 2010's and with the stagnation of development on AmigaOS 4.1 and the expense of these new PowerPC systems, people moved back to the Classic Amiga platform again, either with old hardware, FPGA solutions like MIST/Minimig or via emulation on modern Windows, Mac, Raspberry Pi or Linux systems.
We then started to see a steady increase in new games for the Amiga again, with some new commercial game publishers emerging to take advantage of the increased interest in Retro platforms like the Amiga.
There really is a lot of new and old gaming to be done on the Amiga in 2021! If you have not been in the Amiga scene in the last few years and have just come back after a long time away - there is a lot to catch up on and enjoy!
Today I want to focus on new Amiga specific games in 2021.
The first title to look at is the 2021 released Amiga game called Inviyya, from Tigerskunk, available from Poly Play in boxed form and also via digital on itch.io.
Here is a closer look at the impressive game box:
Inside I got a Amiga CD32 game sleeve, manual and CD32 bootable CD, a poster, ship patch for your jacket, stickers, story book and the games on MicroSD card in ADF and CD32 ISO for use with emulators or if you want to write out the floppy disk version for use on a real Amiga.
A nice feature of Turbo Tomato is the level codes as you progress, so as long as you make a note of them as you go, you can always resume where you got up to, without having to start from the beginning.
The presentation of the game is polished and runs great.
The game itself involves collecting and firing bombs with timers that run down to zero quickly (when they explode) at enemies on screen. New enemies are introduced as you progress through the game.
I will admit I found this game to be a lot of fun, and very easy to get into and play.
As you progress through the game, as mentioned, you get the level codes to continue from that point.
The levels naturally get more difficult as you go, with obstacles on the levels to make progress more difficult, and the variety of enemies also presenting quite a fun challenge.
Watch out for the radiation, as it quickly saps your life if you stay close to it for too long.
The sure sign of a good game is when you get hooked on it and end up playing it for far longer than you had planned. Turbo Tomato is definitely an addictive game.
I tackled the Potty Shed but failed - I'll have to have another go later on!
You also get a unique code for your high score to add it to a website to show off your skills at Turbo Tomato! This is a fun game and recommended!
Inside the box you get the Amiga floppy disk (labelled), CD32 version, and a cool F1 car shaped USB drive.
Turbo Sprint has all the usual tracks you expect from Super Sprint:
As a simple racing game, the hook was competing against the other drivers, with shortcuts, oil slicks and tornados to make life more difficult.
Presentation is slick and runs well on my Amiga 1200.
As I loved the original Super Sprint and the many different variants released on the Amiga like Badlands, Offroad Racer, Indy Heat, Supercars 1/2, Nitro and others too, it is easy for me to recommend this game!
It is clear someone spent a lot of time on the graphics for this game to make it sing, and it shows.
From the beginning of the game, it is clear that this games graphics sparkle and draw you in.
With this platform game, you need to keep shooting and pushing dazed enemies you have shot so they land on top of another enemy to produce one of 5 keys you need to complete the level.
The green arrows indicate where you can fall through the level and land back at the top again. This is important to use when choosing when and where to push an dazed enemy to land on another one to get another key:
This game is a lot of fun and does require thinking to complete each level, which makes it quite an interesting challenge!
This comes with a floppy disk and CD with the game files on it for hard disk installation or to rewrite the ADF file to floppy disk.
Another OCS Amiga game, Tiny Little Slug is a platform game with a twist.
The slug you control in this game can only travel around the edges of the screen using the walls, and drop onto other levels when on top of them,
Actually, this game is a lot harder than it looks, and the graphics look great!
As the game progresses, the levels get ever more difficult to navigate.
Inside the box you get a badge, stickers, manual, poster and Amiga floppy disk (labelled):
Not reading the manual to start with I selected the first game called Mixed, and instantly regretted it!
Basically you are pitted against a number of other armies, all trying to conquer the whole map. For this game, my castles are in light green, and I need to turn all the colours and castles on the map to my colour in order to win.
When you click on your castles, some have available men to deploy outside to take over lands, others are collecting various attributes you need to progress through the game.
I moved my 10 men to the next square, and then need to end my turn:
That done, the computer does the moves for the other armies on the map:
Things are improving, with more resources now available to me, and I can start to spread my armies out to conquer more land:
You can only move your armies one square beyond your current ring of controlled lands.
There is a lot to this game, and I admit I don't fully understand all the various logics at play. It is interesting though, and worth continuing to try to learn how to play the game to get further into it.
As you can see, my area of control is increasing each turn as I make more progress and defeat other armies controlling various parts of the map:
At this point I thought I was doing really well:
Suddenly though, all my armies died simultaneously (no idea why!) on turn 10.
There is a learning curve to the game, but it is worth trying a few times to get the hang of it.
You are searching for a magic lantern:
As the game opens I realise the main Wiz game character sprite is huge!
As you travel through the level, you can collect additional potions to unlock other spells, which can be selected by pulling down on the joystick to toggle between them.
The heal potion is especially useful as I seem to have a natural attraction to hitting enemies in this game...
I didn't give up though, and as I started to get used to the slightly strange platform orientation, which are huge, I found this to be an enjoyable game:
I still get killed quite often though, and ended up reliving the first level many times before I managed to finish it!
Eventually though, I made it!
As you move into later levels you also get to ride a masked animal (Dragon?) that helps you quickly navigate enemies on the level:
The animal (whatever it is!) certainly makes life a lot easier.
I found Wiz to be an enjoyable game and very pretty indeed.
Reshoot R (AGA/CD32), a shoot em up available on the author's website:
Bridge Strike (OCS/ECS) Shoot em up, and Pong 4K (CD32), a pong variant with a twist:
Power Glove Reloaded (OCS/ECS/CDTV), a C64 conversion platform game published by RGCD:
Zerosphere (CD32), a platform game with a novel blurred playscape that comes into focus for short periods, published by Poly Play:
Black Dawn Rebirth (OCS/ECS), a strategy Dungeon Master/Hired Guns style game, published by Doublesided Games:
