|  Emotional Iconic Reactions! | | Posted by Csabo on 2025-04-01 |
 Ah, emotional icons, or emoticons (or emotis for short)!... Bright, colorful images that bring joy to us all. The world's first emotis were of course featured in the classic 1984 Commodore 16 game Exorcist, invented by Grigory Duddlovich. The game's happy protagonist, Smiley, shines up the place, while the evil monsters (Frownies) are spreading woe. The rest, as they say, is history - from the breakthrough success of this humble game, emotis are everywhere nowadays, from single-ply toilet paper to accountant hats.
Why mention them now? Well, today we're introducing a wonderful new feature on our forum: react with emotis! Oftentimes, when an enthusiastic programmer releases a game after months of hard work, clicking the "[ Reply ]" button and writing "Heh, neat geam" is just too much work. It's 2025 after all, nobody reads or writes anymore. Suffer and toil no more: forum users can now react with two clicks of the mouse. "But Csabo, you handsome genius, won't I be overwhelmed by the thousands of available emotis?" Worry not, dear fictional question-asker, as we've thought of this; you will find only the absolutely essential ones.
We remain technology innovators with this internet-first feature on Plus/4 World. Any similar features on other, uglier websites are only a figment of your imagination. Enjoy! |
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| | "...And Old Haegar Began To Narrate The Tale" | | Posted by Luca on 2025-03-30 |
 "There are many stories to tell about a world created from fantasy and magic. This is one of many. A small kingdom in this world, whose name has long been forgotten, has been in chaos since the last king died. A dark power has spread causing sinister creatures and figures to emerge. You, a young hero, do not want to accept this and want to restore the order. Can you do it?".
Well... No.
We're kidding guys! Come on, why so serious? Of course we're ready to fight, explore and gamble, playing The Tale, the brand new Synergy labeled RPG! Haegar makes his full-fledged entry in the BASIC category of the Commodore Plus/4 játékfejlesztői verseny, the Plus/4 GameDev competition, leaving its mark in the latest hours available to accept the latest games.
Explore the Kingdom, listen to the stories of its inhabitants, solve pub brawls, catch significant chatting, free caged spirits, get lost among mountains, fight in the deeper caves, and much more, in this classic role-playing game, also featuring large PETSCII graphics shown during the topical moments of the story flow.
Will it be the very last entry in the compo, or should we expect for new challengers? Oh well, this is another fairy tale to tell. Meanwhile, get into this tale, which is... The Tale! |
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| | Gravity Boy! | | Posted by Csabo on 2025-03-25 |
 The game programming competition is heating up: the 11th entry is here! LBM is back once with his second game in the "modern ages" (after the awesome Mad Pod Race). Gravity Boy is a unique flip-screen action game. It was first developed for the Homelab 3 computer.
The game starts with a cinematic intro, which tells the story of the protagonist. After your spaceship breaks down, only gravity controls are working. Your task is to navigate the space station, collect parts, and deliver them to the engine room to fix your ship. You can "switch" the gravity in any direction, which will (naturally) cause you to fall that way. Be sure to avoid the spikes and the various robots haunting the rooms. There's no "lives", you can try as many times as you like, but the clock is ticking! Can you make it out?
It's a stylish, polished game featuring graphics from Jeva and music by Csabo. There's also a small time-waster puzzle game from Csabo called Binary Sudoku.
Be sure to check it out! |
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| | Captain Slim and the Strange Island! | | Posted by Csabo on 2025-03-11 |
 Epy is back with his second (third?) game: Captain Slim and the Strange Island. In the game, you control the titular character (who is actually quite chubby and cute). He's stranded on a mysterious island after a shipwreck; your goal is to gather five ancient relics to unlock a gate and escape, all while navigating dangerous creatures and discovering valuable treasures.
The game is inspired by Treasure Island. There's no real "game over", losing all your health simply means losing some score and returning to the beginning. Can you make it all the way to the end? Be sure to check out the full-sized map, it will be essential for navigating the island! |
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| | Venture Lite Remastered and Bertalan-Simulator! | | Posted by Csabo on 2025-03-10 |
 The Hungarian game development compo received two new entries!
ISS (the coop between Andras and MMS) is back with another game: Venture Lite Remastered. It's an improved version of 2020's Venture Lite. Collect the treasures in every room, then make your way back to the start and escape!
The second game is Bertalan-Simulator. After a mere 30 year hiatus, Proky is back with a new game, in cooperation with his daughter (PKK) who is only 11 years old and is interested in coding.
Check them out and enjoy! |
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| | UfoTofU And Deck Wreck! | | Posted by Csabo on 2025-02-23 |
 Today, we get two more games that have been submitted to the Game Programming competition.
First up is UfoTofU by Kwayne. It's a Commodore Plus/4 implementation of a 2016 PICO-8 game by Albey Amakiir. The object of this game is to snake around on a 7x7 board filled with colorful symbols, trying to build up a palindrome pattern as long as possible. Every turn, the length of each palindrome found is added to the final score. The player has to be careful not to accidentally find a short pattern.
The second is Deck Wreck: Demokracy, a card game by Rachy. It's a unique resource-management-card-game, an implementation of the Android version. Ever dreamt of becoming President? Some say anybody can be President. But can you become one? Climb the political ladder to the top while balancing between opponents, dark forces from the shadows, fluctuating voters and other surprises. Be nice or be awful: it is your choice. Don’t ever forget that you have one final goal and there might be hard calls to achieve it. The game is available in both English and Hungarian.
Both games are strong, fun contenders so be sure to check them out! |
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| | A Deadly Game Completion | | Posted by Luca on 2025-02-22 |
 Come on kids, let's sit around the fireplace that burns with passion for retrogaming archaeology, I'll tell you a tale that starts in Szeged in Hungary, and ends in Portland in Oregon!
Deadly Adventure would have been the swan song for Homesoft, the one-man personal label of Jimy, before he eventually would join EDC, as announced by the author himself on Big Angler in the full spring of the year 1991. Although absorbed in the brand new crew, Jimy had a couple of games which he'd started to write by alone, so they still refer to the Homesoft label. One is Golden II, the other is Deadly Adventure.
While the former was more of an update of the previous one than a new game from scratch, the author evidently lost interest in the latter, publishing it as incomplete, and then moving on to fully dedicate himself to the demoscene with EDC. The fate of Deadly Adventure couldn't be more 'deadly' than this.
It's been 34 years (thirty-four years, guys? Damn, are we *that* old? Spoiler: yes, we are, argh!), and the passion for preserving old software has allowed to restore and complete what Jimy left unfinished. Enter Fishhack, which takes the structure of the old adventure, builds a compelling story around it, throws in nine puzzles and 25 locations, translates it all into more usable English, fits all of this into the memory constraints of a Commodore 16, and finishes with a first class release: here's Deadly Adventure (Fishhack)!
Now the story sets the game in 18th century central Europe, where you are tasked by the Prince Elecktor of your duchy to retrieve his Elector's Ring, stolen by a devious burgermeister from a city over the mountains and through a forest.
This story ends here, kids. But for Fishhack it's just the first chapter of a long (maybe!) story of future releases. |
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| | Alpha Man and Docster's Digger! | | Posted by Csabo on 2025-02-02 |
  Excellent news for the Plus/4 scene: we're welcoming not one, but two new games!
Eagle-eyed sceners may have already noticed that Kwayne, who released several BASIC PETSCII games for both C=64 and Plus/4 has released Alpha Man... but only for the C=64. "Where is the Plus/4 version?" you may have wondered; wonder no more - it's been submitted to the Game Development Compo! The game is a difficult sokoban-like puzzle: push each letter to its destination location. There's a single green block that you can freely maneuver around to help you accomplish this task.
The second brand-new game is Docster's Digger. After the recent awesome trailer; the game is already here! TRP has done a great job porting this 2019 Megastyle game to our beloved Plus/4. In the game, you must prevent the evil genie Khezam's plans: he flies across on his flying carpet bombing holes in the ground, and you must fill the holes to prevent the zombies from making it to the ground.
Be sure to give both of these games a shot! |
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| | Docster's Digger official petscii trailer | | Posted by TRP on 2025-01-28 |
 TRP is back with a trailer for the new game from 220 volt team. Check it out! Docster's Digger coming soon ;-) |
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|  | White Max: The First Commercial Hungarian Game? A newly turned up cassette photo is the perfect opportunity to shine some light onto this not-so-well-known game. Read on if you're interested! | [ comments ] |
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| | Mieyen: Inufuto's 18th | | Posted by Luca on 2025-01-11 |
 Inufuto's 18th game invariably breaks into the new year 2025 after he closes the past one, exceeding the symbolic threshold of one hundred different systems where to run. His own C compiler and assembler are getting more and more refined.
In Mieyen, the monsters are invisible but hungry and can be spotted by following the trail of vanishing crumbs, to be burnt out, because they're seeking the burgers. If they reach all the burgers on a screen, or they catch you, you're done. Deal with more burgers and baddies on the further screens.
Inufuto grinds ground constantly and decisively. It goes like a train and shows no sign of wanting to stop. Let's have a run at this, too! |
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| | A Micro Oniric 2025: "Microsonix 001" | | Posted by Luca on 2025-01-03 |
 Getting the maximum profit with the minimum expenditure of resources: the Retroscene is actually based on this sacrosanct principle, and our long-time friend Mermaid, leading artist and historic member of Genesis Project, seems to have learned this lesson very well!
Her Microsonix 001 music box is the perfect example: eight SID chip codes that use it as a sound envelope machine, to produce dreamlike and convincing soundscapes in a handful of bytes. This work brings together technical knowledge, artistic taste, cultural references – ranging from musique concrete to modern field recording – and, inevitably, a lot of love for our machines.
Mermaid also added the source codes – both in Turbo Assembler format (e.g.: Turbo Assembler 6) and as text files for use with 64TASS – in order to encourage the usage of those SID tunes into further productions. |
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| | Dune Arcade Game Announced | | Posted by Luca on 2025-01-02 |
 A delightful new year's eve surprise! A forthcoming game, a great comeback, a famous saga. All this, has been announced with the release of the game's intro which has been modified to act as advert.
Point by point? Why not!
A great comeback. The mind behind all this is Phoenix. No bells are ringing into your head? Well, the mythical firebird rises up from the ashes of who was better known as Charles, leader of that Delta System group which has largely signed the second part of the Scene's golden era. Early '90s, mates!
A famous saga. Phoenix has refurbished the Dune franchise straight on our Plus/4! Classic Sci-Fi aficionados, consider all of you as warned, this Dune Intro is decisely winking to that specific crowd!
A forthcoming game. After a two-years work around it, Phoenix has done the working core of his Dune Arcade, and now it's time to have care of the aspect of his prod. The music has already been assigned to Narcisound and will be a SIDcard affair; soon, Unreal should be in the team too. If you too feel some interest into this project, leave a comment in order to he heard, and you might be part of the forthcoming Phoenix Design group.
Dune Intro is a juicy prelude to what to expect from Dune Arcade. Additional screenshots of the game itself are in the first comment, take a look! |
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