Posted By
Luca
on 2019-05-21
15:13:41
 |  They're Back! Berks Four!
 Oh my, they're back! After 34 years they're back, and the story resumes exactly where it was left off, in their impenetrable city of Berks 3!
It's Jon Williams, ladies and gentlemen, straight from the pantheon where the C16/Plus4 VIPs of the heydays populate our memories. But this time, it's a full 64K affair! After a short period spent to leave a footprint in the Atari scene too, the Berks are now back to their original system, in the fourth chapter of the series: Berks Four! If the glorious ancestor did make you search for keys in a 30 rooms environment, the 2019 dated newcomer throws in your face a gauntlet made of 4 different worlds with increasing complexity, from a simple initial one consisting in 16 rooms to a challenging fourth world which needs to be divided in three separate zones to be solved.
At first glance, the game looks like an easier beast to tame: Berks, Drones, blocks, keys, hearts. Your tank shoots double fire this time, and all in all it seems that your enemies won't be up for long time; you can bounce against the walls and the score doesn't reduce, and this time you can hit both Berks and shootaway blocks without loosing a life. And then, in the exact time you feel home & dry while progressing into the game, they become a myriad, the Drones are everywhere till new breeds of them come in, brand new featured items will surprise you, some wicked new baddies will tangle your movement, and soon everything will become a frantic exploit that raises your senses to the max.
 The whole production flows as clean and silky an actual commercial prod would have been, and it changes from the traditional look and gameplay typical of the series so gradually to preserve the oldschool spirit of the game, yet morphing into a modern game's structure based on a classic concept. One over anything else: in this fourth chapter, nobody can comfortably play into those vast worlds without the new live mapping option featured, which gets refreshed time after time, even considering the remaining shootaway blocks. All in all, Berks Four truly represents what the Berks fans have dreamt for so long time.
Jon Williams's fans, let's prepare, you got a long way to go while playing this definitive consecration of the most loved series in the Commodore 16 history ever, even with the password system featured. Surprises won't miss, so you've been warned. And now, no further words, it's time to aim at higher scores by unleashing your best performance, gaining better percentages in solving any single word! Back to our youth, forth to success, it's Berks Four!
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2019-05-21
15:13:41
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Oh, wow! 34 years, eh? I'd say it was worth the wait. Man, I'm sure the accolades are about to pour in, but this is fantastic, and it makes me so happy. Thank you!
First impressions: love the title theme. Love how the shooting is implemented (two characters wide). Everything is so polished  This is going to be fun!
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Posted By
Lavina
on 2019-05-22
11:16:44
 | Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Oh boy! Oh boy!
It is sooo fortunate that coming home from work I slept an hour. I will have a long night.
I guess I will stare at the title screen still for a while longer before jumping in the long awaited adventure.
I cannot describe the feeling, I will not even try.
********** EDIT: **********
********** ------- **********
First impressions:
- the SLOW mode is like a honeymoon to Hawaii. Maybe I got older and rustier but even when playing Berks III a while back I had some difficulty in not running into everything. Now it's much easier to play.
- The double shot, I have some mixed feelings about. Of course it makes the game much more easy but I kinda liked the need of positioning myself and repositioning with the single shot. Just required more planning and of course also made the gameplay slower, now it's faster and easier hence the mixed feelings.
- Not dying from running into the blinking berks is really cool. I like it the most. I hated to wait for them to disappear, made the gameplay slower.
I love it. <3
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Posted By
Fonsis
on 2019-05-22
01:24:41
 | Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Just WOW!
Thanks a lot Jon, Berks4 will make the Plus/4 scene very happy!!
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Posted By
Skoro
on 2019-05-22
04:03:45
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
My childhood ! Thank you Jon Williams!!
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Posted By
SVS
on 2019-05-22
07:08:46
 | Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Great!!
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Posted By
MMS
on 2019-05-22
10:39:54
 | Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Nice game! really polished and fluid gameplay! Thank you !
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Posted By
siz
on 2019-05-22
16:35:54
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Nice game. I have to admit I don't have any memories about the previous versions but I've enjoyed this one.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2019-05-23
09:56:23
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Entering his own best personal for World 2, Lavina is the first to join the score competition for Berks Four! 
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Posted By
retroscener
on 2019-05-23
10:53:42
 | Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Well I haven’t had the chance to download and play it yet, but I love it already!
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Posted By
George
on 2019-05-23
11:15:47
 | Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Great to see a new games appearing for our system. Great game and great work!
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Posted By
Lavina
on 2019-05-23
11:25:14
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
OMG World 4 is a pure adrenaline ride full of surprises and unexpected situations. It's really fortunate that one of the other favorite classic of mine is Arena 3000 
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2019-05-23
12:42:29
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Yeah, World 4 is where the game truly shines. The previous worlds are cakewalks compared to what it throws at you. I hope people don't dismiss the game too quickly and actually make it there!
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Posted By
Lavina
on 2019-05-23
13:10:49
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
I think I ran into some kind of a serious bug. I'm at world 4 room A4, one key left to collect, but I cannot exit to any directions because only black screen awaits me. Also when I die, black screen, nothing else. 
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Posted By
nojeee
on 2019-05-23
14:07:17
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Oh! That's not good
I have played through all the levels lots of times and haven't come across that problem. I've just checked again and that room is working fine for me on Yape.
Can you tell me if you're playing on real hardware or an emulator? Also, have you played through World 4 from the start or using a password?
Is there any more information you could give that might help? Can you enter the location map or are you just stuck on a black screen?
Jon
..
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Posted By
Luca
on 2019-05-23
17:57:54
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Aaah what a pity! I've tested this game, few hours but deeper in the game, and it didn't happened to me. I tried to replicate the bug but it worked flawlessly to me. Did you play with some forced cheats or the plain game? Emulator or real machine?
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Posted By
nojeee
on 2019-05-23
18:42:36
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Lavina kindly emailed me a Yape snapshot and I was able to find that the timer $FF02 / $FF03 had stopped running. I'm using this register in my random number generator - it's a routine that I found here on the forum. The random number wasn't changing which caused the game to lock up when it tried to generate the next room. Simply restarting the timer from the monitor (setting $FF03 to $FF) brought everything back to life.
I've never experienced this problem in many weeks of testing so I'm wondering if it's caused by Yape's snapshot system? There's nowhere in the game where I write to the timer so I can't imagine why it would stop. Maybe there's something I should be doing differently? Any advice would be appreciated .
..
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2019-05-23
21:17:12
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Yeah, I checked the code. It looks like $FF02 is only read, once. The timer should not be affected.
I would say with 99% confidence that this is emulator shenanigans. Therefore no action needs to be taken.
A completely separate matter is whether Lavina actually used the load/save snapshot feature for his submitted high-score... But I don't want to derail this thread with that stuff.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2019-05-24
02:03:54
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Apropos, OT: who is Karl Colella, entering the Zolyx challenge with no pictures or videos at all? /OT
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Posted By
Lavina
on 2019-05-24
04:16:27
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
Hi,
I have a snapshot of every level ending, because I thought that somehow at the end of the day the game should be played through straight and the level scores would add up... But of course I don't save and reload inside a world, at least it was not necessary for the first 3 worlds, they are really a piece of cake with these new features I mentioned in my upper edited post.
World 4 is different, I died really quickly several times and thought it would be a good idea finishing it up to see all new threats and finally the ending and then restart the world to get the highscore at a later time. Using invulnerability is not an option, rather reload to practice the new needed techniques.
I'm now at the last screen, I guess, and it's a real fun!! I finally figured out what to do there!! Can't wait to finish it.
In the early 90's when no more commercial games came out for C16/Plus4 I always ended up wondering what to play. I had two games that I liked completing over and over again, one was Mercenary, I knew my way around without any map, the other was Berks III.
One more thing I remembered. AFAIK the berks do not overlap, they evade each other. I think I saw them once or twice overlapping each other by one char position. Is it possible? It was only in World 4 where ***** SPOILER ALERT ***** the endless waves of berks come.
EDIT! :) Turned out it was not the last screen, rather the last puzzle room... :)) Now I'm at the last screen. :))
EDIT AGAIN: :)) Now I'm finished. Great game!!! Masterpiece!!!! Thanks so much for this adventure! I guess I'll give this now to my sons to try it (7 and 12).
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Posted By
Luca
on 2019-05-24
04:54:51
| Re: They're Back! Berks Four!
When I took care of this release, I was thinking right about you, Lavina 
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