|  Plus 44 | | Posted by Chronos on 2019-12-31 |
 It's said that the coming year will be just like the last day of the previous one, so we quickly made a demo!
1975: what a year was that! Not only celebrities, TV stars, sportsmen but a lot of our favourite sceners were born that year.
We salute them with this little demo. Enjoy! 2020! Here we come! |
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| | New Suite For Classic Games: 2048 Octaluxe | | Posted by Luca on 2019-12-30 |
 In the very last hours of the '10 millennium here come surprises that had been in the pipeline for a long time now.
2048 Octaluxe gives a new twist to its original predecessor 2048, being based on the same source code signed by Csabo/LOD but with the aim of overturning the global style: instead of pursuing a minimal application of the classic logical game, now the will is to put as many features as possible within the limits of the Commodore 16. Luca/FIRE achieves this result, initially starting from the simple need to adjust a small aspect of the gameplay, and finally pointing to a complete distortion of the original game's surprising code, cutting the classy original macros in order to make as much space as possible in the memory.
This "Octagon Deluxe" brand new version features the already named adjusting in the gameplay, fresh new graphics, mixable music and sfx, a storable hiscores table, a tidy titlescreen, a medal system to reward intermediate goals and many more. Works flawlessly on PAL and NTSC systems, on any drive including SD2IEC. All this, works within the 16kB boundaries, due to a raging fight of memory optimization battled on the fields of the stack, and the kernel's driven locations but I/O.
 2048 Octaluxe gives the opportunity to mark two premieres. First, this is the first Plus/4 production on disk to show an animated directory. Second and most important one, this is the first release to use a music composed on Knaecketraecker to use a new and debugged player with additional features, which doesn't need to be reloaded anew due to its faulty reinitializing; this wonderful fix bears the signature of none other than Doug, then Luca finished it to make it work.
Let's end the millennium playing a playing a classic game so democratic that it can be played on any 264 series machine, that would be like starting from the past to aim to what the 202Xs will offer to the once forgotten Commodore's black family, unleashing its real power as gaming machine just in the last years. Happy 20...16+4 year! |
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| | HVTC Update Dec 2019 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-12-29 |
It's the end of the year, the end of a decade, the end of an era, and after a 2019 full of releases High Voltage TED Collection, also known as HVTC, must get an update: 40 new entries plus one single fix!
Battle of the Bits open arenas have taken in their support even this time, the TED is a weird and powerless machine for sound, but stands as an exotic one, and, if sceners would keep to compose on it better and better, it would be typically recognized from now. Finally, the complete Alpharay OST by 5tarbuck has been totally entered, and generally there's a 80/20 ratio between new releases' music (Csabo, Jon Williams, spiikki...) and old recoveries (Peter Wirbelauer, Derek Reynolds...).
Don't forget to completely delete the whole previous collection (that's the way to do at any new update!), then download/unzip the new one!
This is the straight link to the ZIP file. |
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| | Trick Or Treat? Unhallowed! | | Posted by Luca on 2019-12-25 |
 Unhallowed, a text adventure by Blerkotron on ZX Spectrum, running on the PAWs engine, was just released for the Plus/4!
It's Stefan Vogt, the man behind the great DAAD engine resurrection, deus ex machina and first cause of the dozens adventures that have literally rained during the last months, who created ANTUR, a PAWs to DAAD converter opening a brand new path for more and more forthcoming games. Unhallowed has seen the light as dual release C64/Plus4, and will be released in full commercial shape quite soon, under the Puddle label.
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| | Merry Christmas From Doug! | | Posted by Doug on 2019-12-24 |
 "Wishing everyone a great Christmas, and prosperous 2020!
In true Christmas tradition I've frantically thrown together a little present at the last possible minute to get everyone in the Christmas mood! Here it is, somewhat amateurishly wrapped, and with the price tag still attached...
All the best!" |
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| | Stercore 264! | | Posted by gerliczer on 2019-12-22 |
 About a year ago, TMR released a simple shooter for the Commodore 64 called Stercore 64. During his days off in the sunny and hot summer gerliczer thought Maybe I should do something useful. For example, I could try and convert this Stercore thingy to Plus/4. And he did! After the job done, he realised maybe he should have consulted about that with the game's author. T.M.R didn't have too many objections, although he too planned converting the game but with redesigned levels and native music. gerliczer tried to wait until the official port is released, but in the end he ran out of patience and anyway: everything for the fame! So belatedly, here is Stercore 264.
The game was originally made for the ZX Spectrum then quickly converted to the Commodore 64. It is a horizontal scrolling shooter with fast pace, colourful levels that sometimes overlap all fighting forces, few and dumb enemies and no real story. But it is good for a little relaxing blasting if you have no mood for demanding shooters like Alpharay. Unfortunately, the author seems to have changed his mind and given up on porting this game himself to our machines, but let's hope one day he himself will rework Stercore with glorious TED colours and chirpy TED music anyway. |
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| | Carrion's Last Hidden Bullet | | Posted by Luca on 2019-12-15 |
 Carrion's gun had a last bullet in a remote chamber of his cylinder!
There had been another winning picture, this time from the Atari 8bit compo at Silly Venture 2017 (Gdańsk, Poland), released more than two years ago. Now it has been offically unearthed and can shine on your Plus/4 in its full 320x240 MFLI glory.
Keep the great work up, Carrion, we never get enough wonderful pieces of art from you! |
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|  | Inexplicably, Chicken released the SID + 1551 version of Bloby with only level one included, so Luca accomplished the task by putting on a complete version. | [ comment ] |
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| | YoomBlazer | | Posted by Luca on 2019-12-09 |
 Carrion's art continues to amaze the circle of oldschool scene, and to collect first prizes from the graphics competitions all around Europe!
This time is the turn of YoomBlazer, winner of the Atari 8bit compo at Silly Venture 2K19, held in Gdańsk, Poland, just the past weekend, so why missing the chance to port it on Plus/4, in the respectful 320x240 pixels shape? It seems a straight task, nonetheless this time, once the two version are put in comparision, is quite easy to spot out how much work has been required in order to let the Commodore twin run on Plus/4 at its best.
Another success, Carrion, congratulations! Keep up and beyond the standards agan! |
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| | Thriller Series Adventures! | | Posted by Chronos on 2019-11-29 |
 Are you ready for three more new adventure? From the treasure chest of KiCHY, this time we fished out the "Thriller Series" for you, and as a bonus, you shall receive a picture based on the original covers. In Night of the Walking Dead, Lousiana is surprisingly full of living dead, then in Perils of Darkest Africa, you must find King Solomon's treasure, and finally in Revenge of the Moon Goddess, you end up deep in the south-African jungle, searching for the Moon Goddess' statue.
Happy adventuring! |
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| | The Revenge Of Moriarty | | Posted by Chronos on 2019-11-23 |
 The Revenge of Moriarty (c) Spectral Images and Gareth Pitchford (1989/2019)
Thanks to Absence, another DAAD-based adventure has just arrived on our beloved platform. In The Revenge Of Moriarty, you play the role of the world's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. Moriarty is coming for you, and you must use your wits to find a way out of this mysterious situation.
Have fun! |
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| | We got a Car Racing Tech Demo for you! | | Posted by Mad on 2019-11-14 |
 This year we (5tarbuck, Kichy and me) decided to create a racing game for the Plus/4. Our goal was to create a new "Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge" like racer on the Plus/4. Unfortunately ran into a problem - mainly the FPS, as it's all drawn in bitmap mode.
However, we got it running and having some proper audio tracks from 5tarbuck for your ears, as well as some fresh graphical work by KiCHY Maestro... So here it is... It's a fully running tech-demo providing two original roads.
Have fun! |
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| | Nick Hardy Adventures! | | Posted by Chronos on 2019-11-11 |
 The last quarter of the year could not be more adventurous! In October, we could enjoy DAAD-based adventure games thanks to siz. Coming up in November and December: English-language games made for the Quill engine ported by Kichy Maestro! The first batch of games should make you think of Tom Selleck's face, who could play the role of Nick Hardy in the Real Software adventure trilogy as a poor man's Indiana Jones.
The first part is based on the Inca curse, in the second one we visit an alien planet and attempt to repair our wrecked spaceship; finally, in the last part of the trilogy we must survive on an island.
While on Commodore 64 these games came on a single disc, on the Plus/4 you can run the episodes individually, as well as save to either disk or cassette.
Stay tuned, check out these games and get ready for much more coming up :-)
Have fun! |
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| | The Hut - The Leaf Edition: An Unexpected +1 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-11-05 |
 There's one more of Balrog's adventures, one unexpected trickier version of The Hut, but implementing the enhanced DAAD engine's Plus/4 porting by siz, whch, for example, supports color text.
The Hut - The Leaf Edition has been reviewed as a plus in the John Wilson's games line, advancing his own Plus/4 softography to 26 adventure games, again in dual C64/Plus4 disk files. |
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| | The Hut: Last In The Row | | Posted by Luca on 2019-11-01 |
 This is the end. But limited to just one of the available sources activated by the DAAD engine's Plus/4 porting by siz.
John Wilson has just completed the conversion to Plus/4 of all the games he created, and the last one in row is The Hut. It has been a pretty furious ride, 'coz he worked out 25 (25!) adventure games in about one week, all in dual C64/Plus4 disk files.
Congratulations Mr. Wilson, and thank you again for your fantastic job, looking forward to the next releases signed Pension Productions! |
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| | Too Many (Closed) Doors! | | Posted by Luca on 2019-10-31 |
 Closed doors...closed doors everywhere! It's now, that hour of the day, when a new branch of the DAAD adventures unstoppable avalanche push toward you all some new converted textual games, like coming from nowhere.
It's John Wilson again, under the sign of Zenobi Softtware/Pension Productions, continuing to port his own adventure games thank to the DAAD Plus/4 porting code by siz, and this time he has chosen a six-in-a-row target, in order to complete the whole series of "Behind Closed Doors" screenplay. Here they are in one shot: Behind Closed Door, Behind Closed Door 2, Behind Closed Door 3, Behind Closed Door 4, Behind Closed Door 5, and, unexpectedly, Behind Closed Door 6. With the previously released Behind Closed Doors 7, we can consider to bunch as complete!
So, what awaits us around the corner in the coming days? Stay tuned to Plus/4 World and you will know it for sure!
*** UPDATE! ***
Before the very end of the day, three spinoff stories have been added to the whole series: Behind Closed Doors - The Director's Cut, Behind Closed Doors 2 - Cat's Choice Edition, Behind Closed Doors 3 - Cockroach Edition. |
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| | YAPE 1.1.7 Released! | | Posted by Gaia on 2019-10-31 |
It's been quite a while but a much needed update of YAPE is finally ready. 2019's first release delivers some fixes, most notably:
- updated to new compiler versions (MSVC++ 2019 and MinGW-64 8.1)
- more DPI-aware on Win8/Win10
- digitized palette table lookup fix
- TED delayed DMA regression fixed
- fixed TED noise regression bug introduced by optimizations in version 1.1.3
- weird bug with autostart code ironed out
- maximize window positioning fixed for all resolutions
Download the new release from here. |
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| | ISS Emercency: Time For A Onefiler Fix | | Posted by Luca on 2019-10-30 |
 The avalanche of DAAD adventures goes and goes, and it's now time for ISS Emergency, written by John Whatson and adapted for several 8-bit machines plus PC by Gareth Pitchford.
This is a brand new Absence release, pushing on the conversion of the DAAD engine by siz in a brand new fixed version, which can now manage colorful text flawlessly. It's Chronos, who added a spacey bitmap picture and an intro to the finished pack, but this time they opted for a better manageable onefile version, quite comfortable at last!
Try it! it's a short but intriguing adventure, which sees you attempting to to reach the International Space Station main computer to fix it and...oh well no spoliers at all ;)
Another one type the past! On with further ones! |
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| | Advanced Adventures & Fixes | | Posted by Luca on 2019-10-28 |
 The sun goes down, few hours pass, the sun is back, and...surprise: new DAAD driven adventures have blossomed in the Plus/4 garden of John Wilson.
The avalanche of adventures to be easily converted on Plus/4 thank to siz's importing code is barely at its very beginning. And stuff come in from various sources too, but Pension Productions has just declared a potential index including up to 72 (!) games overall, from classics signed Zenobi Software till the '80s, to new stories involving old characters running a new quest.
So, what's for today? Ok, today is time to be released for: Escape To Murky Woods, The Secret Of Little Hodcome and the two parts adventure Return Of The Roach. Again, it's enough for any adventureer out there.
 Due to the high rate of releasing, something bad easily happens, especially because this cascade of conversions has just begun, and, as usual regarding fresh born mechanism, has to be initially lubricated. Hence, here come some fixes of previously released stuff:
- released with the title:"From Out of a Dark Night Sky", due to a wrongly edited title picture, it has been renamed with its real title, which is After The Dark, and the bitmap has been fixed too; so, delete the previous one, and download this;
- Bulbo and the Blue Dragon has been particularly hard to port on Plus/4, and when the author succeeded, a little graphic bug entered the title picture, so download it again to have it as clean right now;
- oops, Absence has released The Search For The Nether Regions too fast and didn't test the loader to part 2...which simply didn't work; but now, anything bad has gone, download the fixed and only working version.
Rumors about brand new conversions are for real, expect new entries into the archive very soon, for a crackling last part of the scene's year! |
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| | DIY DAAD! That Promised Avalanche | | Posted by Luca on 2019-10-26 |
 We have foreseen the arrival of dozens of new adventure games, after that siz has ported the DAAD engine's code to work on Plus/4, and now the gates are completely wide open. Literally dozens and dozens of adventure games, published in the '80s on ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC have now been freed to cross the threshold between Zilog and MOS.
We've just seen that third party aficionados has just started to take in the C64 counterparts, this time a heavy and well appreciated contribution to the completion of the long list of games written in DAAD comes straight from his author. Well, from his famous author we should write, because he's Mr. John Wilson, a distinguished Scottish born in 1947, also known as "the Rochdale Balrog" or "the Balrog" or recently "The Pensioner" of "Pension Productions". And, before all this, Mr. Wilson started Zenobi Software in late 1982 and it still operates to this day, even though for non commercial purposes. In the heydays, Zenobi Software counted up to 50 adventure writers, have you ever had a quick reading to the long relative list of releases?
Today, nine lucky ones have been picked up and chosen from that huge list, in order to see the light on Commodore Plus/4, and offer to all the adventurers wielding a black box more and more and more hours of adventuring that any known parser fighter would actually sustain. Those nine games are:  An Everyday Tale of a Seeker of Gold, Behind Closed Doors 7, Bulbo and the Lizard-King, From Out of a Dark Night Sky, Ramsbottom Smith and the Quest for the Yellow Spheroid, Fuddo and Slam, Retarded Creatures and Caverns, The Balrog and The Cat, and the brand new Alien Research Centre 2, sophomore of a game dated 1989 in which we find again the blessing presence of Stefan Vogt as author of a fantastic hires intro bitmap picture.
Just in order to stay in line with previous productions of the same kind, John Wilson opted for the dual system releases too, so any of these adventures supports both Commodore 64 and Commodore Plus/4 version of the game.
We hope you've saved enough vacation days in order to challenge'em all, 'cause you really need undoubtedly! Moreover, the general feeling is that this line of fire that advances is only the vanguard of the army of adventures holed up there, in the darkness, behind the portal that we have just opened wide. Stay tuned, there seems to be a lot more coming. And we are happy to be overwhelmed by it.
*** UPDATE! ***
Few hours passed, and we have two new games from John Wilson: the 4 disksides Bulbo's Intrepid Adventure, and From Out Of The Snow, both dated 2019! |
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| | The Search For The Nether Regions: A DAAD Avalanche's First | | Posted by Luca on 2019-10-22 |
 We were awaiting for this moment, the moment when the great avalanche of adventure games running on the DAAD engine would hit the scene with all its hidden potential.
The recover, improvement and distribution to the public domain of the now famous multiplatfrom DAAD adventure writer engine, straight by its father Tim Gilberts and its savior Andres Samudio, has opened the massive gate that has kept separate all the adventure games written with it, from all the other systems which were missing'em. Stefan Vogt has put a lot of effort to instill new life into it, and finally siz is the Plus/4 hero who included the Plus/4 into this large project, involving so many clever and passionate retro users. Doors are open, let the DAAD adventures swarm in, we're ready to play them all!
After the modern approach of Hibernated 1 and Eight Feet Under, The Search For The Nether Regions is the first one to land from its original ZX Spectrum-esque place, taking in with it the usual combination of fantasy environment and easygoing irony we appreciate from the legendary author Gareth Pitchford, and the game comes to Plus/4 under the Absence label: it's Chronos who materially converted the adventure, and made it run on the black box too.
Adventurers, collect this gauntlet launched at you all, and think about setting free a lot of your time, because...do you really know how many adventures might potentially it your spare time? World of Spectrum site counts 410 of them. Yes, you read it really well: 410! And there's no valid excuse to not having'em all on Plus/4! |
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| | RandTown Emailer! | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-10-19 |
 RoePipi is back again with another game in the RandTown series called RandTown Emailer. This time, you take on the exciting role of a secretary. As the town expands, you must quickly "email" the new residents by typing their initials. You win if you email 50 houses, but you must be quick, because if you miss 10, the game is over.
If you enjoyed the fast-paced quirky gameplay of the other games in this series, then you'll love RandTown Emailer as well.
Get to emailing! |
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| | DAAD's Home! Hibernated 1 & Eight Feet Under | | Posted by Luca on 2019-10-18 |
 It comes from an ancient Spanish code environment to write adventure games, and it has slept for 30 years. Just the pure desire not to make it fall by the wayside has given new life to DAAD, this time in English language, this time for multiple systems.
Stefan Vogt is the man who recovered, extended and translated the adventure game engine originally coded byTim Gilberts, by teaming up with him. That has been the push for him to write and release his adventures sci-fi saga: Hibernated 1 - This Place is Death, and its direct spinoff Eight Feet Under - A Hibernated 1 Addon, produced under the label of Pond Software Ltd., and already released on physical media by poly.play. Both the adventures hit the 8bit game, instantly becoming a must-have among the retro-enthusiasts, gaining high scores in several reviews.
And that's the part of the whole story we love the most: DAAD interpreter was still missing a Plus/4 branch, so our great friend siz came to save the day: his work about extending the DAAD to the 264 series too has allowed the original author to touch the Plus/4 shores with both the games, presented in a classy C64/Plus4 double system single D64 release. Needless to say, there's a clear smell of physical release for this.
 Have you ever dreamed about a journey far beyond the known regions of the universe? Close to Vega, Olivia Lund is on the trail of one of mankind's greatest secrets and a thousand-year-old mystery. After over 200 years in hypersleep, she wakes up alone on her stranded ship, the Polaris-7. The artificial intelligence Io seems to be her only remaining friend now.
The author reminds to all of you that of course is advisable to play them in a logical sequence. The game is a donateware, so you can download only from the author's homepage, and name your own price.
siz, Stefan: thanks guys for your effort! Hibernated 1, and Eight Feet Under: this place...is more alive than ever! |
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| | Felcsút Tycoon! | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-10-06 |
 RoePipi is back with another fresh game! Have you ever wanted to get into the exciting world of managing trains, tracks and routes? Why, this game will let you do just that, and in the most exotic locations of all: the neighborhood of Felcsút. With a population of nearly 2000 folks, this village is... surely... on the map of Hungary.
The game has been in development for 2 years, and it has the expected polish and off-kilter humor. Could all of this be some kind of social commentary? Nah :-)
Be sure to check it out! |
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| | Odd Animals From The Zoo: Igaku! | | Posted by Luca on 2019-10-05 |
 What's the paradigmatic symptom for a truly healthy scene? Easy answer: releases – coming – from – nowhere!
That's exactly what has just happened at the Zoo 2019 party in Findand, precisely in the Wild compo: unexpectedly, Igaku veni to compete; vidi the code by Visy, the graphics by ZanaGB and branch, and the music by spiikki, at last, it didn't vinci for just one point, yeah right: one point! Igaku has been ranked 2nd in the Wild compo.
Igaku is weird, an anime stylish oddity telling us a simple story of...wound care. It's an absolute first from Quadtrip, and now we wanna know more, see more, listen more, have more from them! |
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| | Ever wanted to save your casually created PETSCII graphics on-screen to BASIC lines, appending them to an existing program in memory? If so, this program might be for you! | [ comment ] |
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| | Adventure Park! | | Posted by Chronos on 2019-09-04 |
 Skoro maestro's latest game took nearly one year to create, with graphics by Kichy and an excellent intro screen by Grass. The great music is Csabo's work. Skoro asked us to mention: thanks to Hifi's sister for the power supply :-)
Noah, the game's hero must fight his way through an adventure park, and collect 99 diamonds scattered over 34 screens. He will trade these for his girlfriend, Emma, who was captured in a spider's web. The trip won't be easy, traps and hordes of enemies await him at every turn. You can control him with the cursor keys, jump with cursor up or shift. The jump's height is variable, short presses will result in a small jump, longer presses will cause Noah to jump higher.
Have fun! |
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| | New Art From Carrion | | Posted by Luca on 2019-09-01 |
 Carrion has drawn another masterpiece to challenge into the Mixed Graphics Competition at Xenium 2019 party, and say what? Yes, he ranked 1st, as the entry no doubt deserved! Congratulation Tomasz!
As usual, he's found time and passion to put up a Plus/4 version of the winning bitmap Comet Jockeys, developing it into a MFLI in order to take advantage of the larger palette: see how aurally evocative and technically perfect is this new opera by Carrion Maestro! |
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| | Alpharay Blasts Away! | | Posted by Luca on 2019-08-18 |
 The age of slavery for the people of Archeron is close to reach its end: against the evil planet-sized companies that still built up robots in order to dominate whole areas of the galaxy, a new deadly weapon has raised up becoming reality thanks to the cultural step up of Archeron's technical knowledge. Alpharay is the name of this prototype of revolutionary interstellar ships, but science always needs a brave fighter to accept the terrible mission and challenge those greedy criminals!
This year's Evoke party is over, and our family again has something special to celebrate and cheer for. Bauknecht, factory of premium C+4 home appliances, strikes again with a shoot'em up masterpiece! Another record-breaking game is out running on Commodore Plus/4 (or C16+64kB), the H-shmup adventure that our black machines were badly missing! Alpharay is a classic horizontal shoot'em up clearly celebrating some famous arcades of that golden era (R-Type, Salamander, Gradius...), and features 6 extremely various levels where to prove your instinct thru the ongoing gameplay and several surprises here and there, with their 6 big bosses at the end of them. There are three different weapons to improve by collecting pickups, in order to vaunt around your own heavy weaponry, plus a shielding aura to save you for a while. Some interlude scenes make the whole loot even richer, and the usual (usual?) fine touches along the whole experience don't miss, if you're used to all the production by Mad.
 Alpharay is an evidence of love for the Plus/4. See how much stunning graphics KiCHY has developed to move elaborate and big software sprites into memorably described worlds, not to mention the mastodonic final bosses! The whole musical score has been in the trained wise hands of 5tarbuck, who has composed 17 (!) original tracks all by himself alone, to improve the global sensation of being part of a sci-fi movie. Additional bits comes again from Nero and from Luisa & Oni, and the precious help in coding the most advanced slices of code comes from a great veteran like bubis!
Under the neutral label of "Puls4r", this heroic brigade of passionates has just joined the Interactive Compo at Evoke 2019, the annual demoparty held in Cologne, Germany, causing a stir, already preceded by a remarkable advertising video. In the end, they finished at first place! Once passed through all of this, a commercial version will see the light distributed by Psytronik in the next months. Till then, you have enough time to let us see how far you're gone into the game by entering your highscores in the Hall Of Fame.
It's not time to talk about 8bit releases now: it's time to save your people, it's time to shoot up all of them and make clean thru the stars! Play Alpharay via emulators, or copy the .D64 on a 40 tracks formatted disk and play it at its best, on a real machine.
Take off, Alpharay! XeO3 watch out, you have company at 6 o'clock 
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| | "Phantom" Of The Opera...tional | | Posted by Luca on 2019-08-16 |
![Phantom +6D [PAL/NTSC]](/dl/screenshots/p/phantom_+6d_pal_ntsc_title.gif "Phantom +6D [PAL/NTSC]") Although the 264 people is used to tattle about it realising its reputation of "cult classic", the Julian Jameson's C16 masterpiece Phantom released by Tynesoft has got less recognizability than Storm, as its direct opponent in the battle arena of those games inspired by Atari's Gauntlet arcade game.
Today, it's up to Luca of FIRE crew to release the fully operational cracked version that Phantom really deserves! Phantom +6D [PAL/NTSC] includes six trainers and full documentation to easily enjoy the complete game, easy menus, NTSC fixing, turbo loading...all into a single D64, which remains fully C16 compliant. Fear no more: skeletons and ghosts won't deplete your energy anymore! |
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| | More Covers From Lacus | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-08-16 |
 Lacus sent us another pack of goodies. First up is a full-size scan of Crazy Golf (bundle release). Next, we have a cartridge dump of Deltex, and a photo of the cartridge as well, an absolute rarity! Logi-Toli now has a TAP file and nice cover scan and a cassette photo; most people don't know this little Hungarian commercial game, it's a simple puzzle. Good thing a certain mouse company never seen the game and the cover artwork :-) It's a very rare release nevertheless, any collector should be happy to own a copy of it. Finally we have the cover and cassette photo of Turbo Tape 16, which - according to the cover - offers 20 times faster loading speed. I wonder if anyone is up to doing an in-depth analysis of various tape turbos, this release should definitely be looked at.
Enjoy! |
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| | Árok 2019 Wrap-up | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-08-04 |
This year's Árok Party (a large 8-bit retro party held in Hungary) is over. Our scene was well represented in the compos, as nearly every category had a Plus/4 entry. Here they all are:
Check the forum for more info! |
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| | DirMaster has been upgraded to 3.1.3. If you use this Windows based D64 handler tool, be sure to update to the latest version! | [ comments ] |
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| | Club Info 154 hits the streets! Check out the latest mag from Erich/ULTD (and don't forget to use the handy Google Translate link if you don't speak German). | [ comment ] |
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| | Scans from IQ666 | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-07-01 |
 It's once again scan collection increase time! IQ666 sent us another large collection of scans, which has now been added to the site. (Remember his scan collection from last year?) Some of them are high-quality replacements of existing scans, and there are some German language rarities as well.
The covers scans: Petals Of Doom, Plus-Paket 16, POD (Proof Of Destruction), Robo Knight, Runner, Soccer Boss, Space Pilot, Space Sweep & Invaders, Spiky Harold, Spore, Street Olympics, Triple Decker 4, Xadium. Look for the "[ Large cover ]" links under the images to see them in even higher-resolution.
The second part of this update are all cassette photos: Panik!, Petals Of Doom, POD (Proof Of Destruction), Power Ball, Prospector Pete, Quick Draw, Return Of Rockman, Rockman, Suicide Run, Skramble, Skyhawk, The Boss, Spectipede, Spiky Harold, Splitz, Squirm, Star Commander, Starburst, Starforce Nova, Starlite 1, Steve Davis Snooker, Storm, Street Olympics, Survivors, The Commodore 16 Showcase, Triple Decker 4.
That's more then 70 image files! Big thanks to Chronos for considerable help with image processing, and to IQ666 for taking the time to scan and photograph all of these. Cheers! |
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| | Magician's Curse +2 NTSC/PAL | | Posted by Luca on 2019-06-30 |
 Absence is decisely getting a fine rush into the cracking side of the scene. This time, it's the turn of a classic one from Gremlin Graphics, to be double trained and NTSC fixed by Chronos. Now you can complete the game by activating unlimited strength and featuring a super jump to stay above any obstacle.
Play Magician's Curse +2 NTSC/PAL it online, or download it as .prg file. |
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| | 3D Engine | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-06-20 |
 If you have been following the forum, you've seen George detailing the progress of his 3D Engine. Today is the day, the first version of this project is finally released! Check out this YouTube video to see it in action, or download it and give it a shot. The release also includes a converter (PC executable) which converts OBJ files (e.g from Blender) into the necessary Plus/4 SEQ equivalents. The set of SEQ included will draw a space shuttle. Enjoy! |
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| | It's A Mexican Standoff! Sigma Vs. Aurrerá Vs. Commodore | | Posted by Luca on 2019-06-12 |
 Even nowadays, in 2019, some dark corners exist, fields in the shadows of that vast territory — both in space and time — which we use to refer as: Commodore 16 history. The immense expansion of the Commodore home computers' phenomenon in the Eighties has someways contributed to build up some unexplored zones regarding the 264 series too, from where picking up infos software and hardware is basically quite a hard task to achieve.
The history about how the Commodore 16 did conquer a slice of the home computers' market in Mexico — and several Mexican teens too! — represents one of those fascinating obscure stuff we described just before. The whole tale orbits around Grupo Sigma S.A. and its collaboration with the supermarket chain Aurrerá to take the Commodore licence in Mexico, distributing a series of NTSC based Commodore machines, under the two logos "Sigma-Commodore". Sigma had then feeded the software request too, both importing/translating/upgrading true official CBM signed games (education games, mostly), and producing some new software for the internal market too.
Nowadays, the Commodore hardware produced by Sigma is a rarity, and in any case it's an item difficult to have even for the most skilled collectors here around, being strictly located in Mexico. On the software side, few sporadic signs of life have succesfully been unearthed: most of what we know, comes from the online markets, showing some bids around weird cartridges (see as example: Jack Attack, C16 Tutor, Domino (Sigma)...), and some quite rare publications (Introducción Al Basic Sigma Commodore 16 Parte I, Como Programar Su Sigma Commodore 16...). And that was all we knew about. Till now.
Finally, May 2019: Juan José Vélez, maintainer of SigmaCommodore.com, after very few posts since its opening in 2015, has freed 4 disk sides in .D64 format to all the nostalgic once-were-kids out there, coupled with the Facebook page featuring rare pictures about finds of that era. This little but remarkably precious collection is the very first actual contact with the Mexican's C16 experience, so let's see what's been found into it:
 – old Commodore's educational games, mostly about English grammar, defined in the comments as "upgraded" by Sigma D. M. (arguably, the in-house programming department at Sigma), some are labelled, some not, nothing can be understood about how they'd been released (single or compilation, cassette or cartridge...); moreover, there are several tags here and there, like "Compuclub", which hinder to know if that's a crack or an original one;
– commercial Commodore's third party games, originally NTSC compatible or switched to NTSC, some translated some not, some look like real commercial releases (UXB (Sigma)), some...meh who knows (Carreras BMX));
– type-ins from who knows which listmagazines;
– educationals and utilities unrecognizable as commercial;
– terrible NTSC hacks of some PAL driven European games (Starforce Nova NTSC));
– native stuff coming from out of the blue, the most lovable slice!
 Let's spot out some notable ones! Exorcista looks like the first genuine release we've detected as a real commercial Sigma release, due to that known picture (now you can see it into the game's entry) showing its big box, a straight message to all the collectors here. Memoria (Sigma) does not show any direct Sigma's label, but reading the gameplay's description right from the back of the one seen on the Sigma Commodore Facebook page, it seems it's a perfect match! FisiCalc, pretty nice scientific tool, it's a pity that the simulation does not work, is there a working version out there? Hey you, Cesar Joel Garcia G., what did you put down here with your Túnel Galáctico, a shooter written in ML with a cinematographic ending, absolute cuteness! Pasadizo: the classic 3D maze looks quite better from behind the shoulders.
Do you know which's the best part in all of this? The best part is that Juan José Vélez has just promised further stuff to be out in the near future! Nothing can make us happier! Meanwhile, here follows the complete list of contents: Halcon Galactico, Agenda Telefonica C-16 V1.1, CB, Decaimiento Radioactivo, Diagrama De Tres Ejes, FisiCalc, Formula Cuadratica, Graficador, Gráfico De Barras, Integrales, Integrales Numéricas, Triángulos, Trinomios, Melodysss, La Gran Maquina Musical, A Or An, Ajedrez, Anti-aéreo, Blackjack (Sigma), Campo De Fresones, Carreras BMX, Conecta Cuatro, Cuadro Magico, El Panel, Exorcista, Golf (Mexican), Guerra Estelar, Hangman (Sigma), Invasores, Jump Of Lady, Justa, Laberinto, POD (NTSC), GWNN (NTSC), Medial Vowels, Memoria (Sigma), Memoria De Letras, Misiles, Nave, Paracaidista, Pasadizo, Ratón, Rotación, Scramble (Sigma), Sentences, Spelling Errors, Snowy Day Nouns, Simon (Mexican), Spell-mean, Starforce Nova (NTSC), Stargo, Túnel Galáctico, UXB (Sigma), Xzap (Sigma), Veintiuno. |
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| | Berks Four +5 | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-06-08 |
 Berks Four is back in the news - as it should be, it's a fantastic game by any measure. The occasion is Absence releasing their crack of the game, called Berks Four +5. If you found the game too hard, now is your chance to cheat bend the rules a little. Want the Berks to get out of the way faster? Need to break those walls quicker? Did you end up at a gate and forgot to pick up all the keys? This crack has you covered!
Thanks to Chronos for this release! |
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| | RS232 File Sender and Receiver | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-06-03 |
Hardware enthusiasts, take notice: GMOLN just released RS232 File Receiver. He writes:
I would like to publish my File Sender and Receiver toolset for Commodore Plus/4. You can find a lot of details about these programs in the user manual PDF. I worked a lot on them, and I hope you will find them useful for the community.
Currently, I am working on a really usable VT100 compatible serial terminal program. It is nearly ready and it can handle most of the VT100 commands, colors, UTF8 characters (with limitations), etc. Unfortunately, it is not feasible to implement all VT100 features, because of the inherent limitations of the Commodore Plus/4...
In case of any questions about the File Sender / Receiver or VT100 terminal, you can reach me on gabormolnar@live.com. |
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| | Rumble With A Shamble: Robots Rumble! | | Posted by Luca on 2019-05-31 |
 In space, no one can hear you scream "Damn magneeeeeet!". There's too much metallic crap in the universe, we need a hero to melt it down once and forever. And the man in charge is: you!
Open up your ears... yes, it's a loud Robots Rumble! Digital Monastery, the game developing department of Hokuto Force hits the Commodore Plus/4 (or Commodore 16 +64K) once again with this puzzle & action game that will make you punches your computer desk in frustration! Originally written as a C64 game for the RGCD C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition 2019, this game "speaks in French" again: it's Majikeyric behind the code, and this time Uctumi is with him for the musical score, and Miguetelo as well who did the graphics and the game concept:
Old broken robots must be pushed down into the lava on all the planets you visit. It appears to be quite a delicate duty to accomplish without troubles, if you wanna avoid severe pollution or dangerous interactions with other moving element. And no, the inner caves of a planet are not that simple vertical void where to kick stuff safely. The solution? Guiding magnets! The broken robots still have their wheels, hence a couple of well charged magnets are able to carefully move them in order to go thru the obstacles into the caves. Beware to finish out of charge! Be warned about the many situations the player can meet: breaking glass floors, climbing through light lifts, using teleportation, etc. Luckily, some mobile platforms help to fill gaps between two distant floors, in the case.
Robots Rumble is the ecologic space duty game the spring 2019 was waiting for on Commodore Plus/4, but it also is a challenge for your nerves! It's a game of memory, great view and fine problem solving capabilities. So keep calm, move those magnets in the right way, aaaaand the robot takes the riiiight waaaaAAAAMN YA TELEPORT RAY! |
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| | They're Back! Berks Four! | | Posted by Luca on 2019-05-21 |
 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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| | The Götz-Tobias Heger Collection 4/4 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-05-19 |
 So here we are, this long ride to include in the database a selection of missing and unseen programs coming from the Götz-Tobias "GeTE" Heger colllection, has just reached the fourth and last chapter: more than 200 demos, utilities, games, magazines and cracks have been added, with their load of infos about the very first steps of the Plus/4 scene.
This last update includes several games we missed from the best German type-ins authors, kings of the magazines from the 80ies: we have a wonderful Solitaire (Compute Mit) by Michael Meissner, Super Oktogon signed by Roby YU, Space Night created by Peter Wirbelauer, and Terminator (Colossus-Soft) naturally by Colossus-Soft; we discovered a U C Demo II subsequent to the first (and only, we thought so at least...) one, and it's fascinating to see how many obscure groups' attempts took place in that precise era (The First H.R.C. Demo, Ruelps Construction Kit (HCS)); on the utilities side, Grafix MC 3.2 looks like a professional (and probably commercial) program , and Graphprint Plus/4 seems to be one of the most advanced math functions analyzer we've seen ever. In the very end, let's mark all the great releases from Götz-Tobias Heger himself, call him both TSG or GeTE or GETE-Soft: cracks, utilities and intros, he really loved the Plus/4 since day zero!
So, 4th and last spitting out, it's done! Here's the complete list of the added programs, thank you again TSG: Geschaeftbriefe Deutsch English, Grafix MC 3.2, Graphprint Plus/4, Konjugi, Loadermaker V1.3, Modem RS232 V1.2, Proglan, Speak, Special-Timer, Speckled Gnome Cruncher, Speckled Gnome Cruncher II, Tonkopf-Justier-Programm 1.2, Window Manager, Textword 2, Adressen 116 (alternative), Adressen-Brief, Turbo-Plus (3 versions), Uni-Loader, Zed, Solitaire (Compute Mit), Shark Attack (crack), Space 1999 (crack), Spirale, Super Cobra (crack), Super Oktogon, Super-Muehle 32K, Space Night, Strip Poker (crack), Terminator (Colossus-Soft), Trizons (crack), Thai Boxing (crack), The Way Of The Tiger (crack), Tom Thumb (crack), Turbocar, Xadium (crack), Xargon Wars (crack), Ruelps Construction Kit (HCS), Special Effects, Soundtrack, Synthesizer (Demo), The First H.R.C. Demo, The Prisoner HAS, TEK Porno Show 01, TEK Porno Show 03, U C Demo II. |
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| | The Götz-Tobias Heger Collection 3/4 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-05-16 |
 We're keeping a perfect step with this multiple parts' big release, so why breaking the flow? Let's go ahead, reaching the 3rd quarter's giveaway of the Götz-Tobias "GeTE" Heger colllection's update, with brand new programs absolutely unseen before.
You know what we mean: it's a demos, utilities and games/cracks affair. So let's underline some of the new entries. The TTL crack of the seminal Mercenary - Flucht Aus Targ is certainly a historical one to point out: he's one of the VIPs in the ancient German scene, and anything from him has to be considered as pure mythology; Intro (Roby YU) is the first and apparently only demo by Roby YU, it's a cracktro used to be spreaded as first loading of his collections; we've got several original versions of entries we only had as modified or cracked programs: Rocket Man, Shaolin, WSYS, Schatztaucher; Textverarbeitung, the most common type-in about 80 columns text typing, has now been covered in all the known versions which have been around in the heydays of the listing magazines; other bits include the Andreas Bachler's softography addons, an ancient Turbo Tape Copy V1.5 by KMS that looks quite old, a Notemaker Preview which has never reached the alpha release, and more.
No more lazy talking, let's spit out the solid complete list for this 3rd wave, waiting the last forthcoming one in the next days: Kundenrechnungen, WSYS (complete D64), Textverarbeitung (alternative), Textprogramm, The Final Deleter (V3.3), Trace (Compute Mit), Text 80, Type, Turbo-Cursor, Superdat (original), Schraffieren, Soundhelfer, Soundmachine, Speichersplit, Multi-disk (Sprenger Software) (1541/1551), Turbo Tape Copy V1.5, Psychedelia (crack), RAM-Deleter (2 versions), Vokabeltrainer, Vokabelstar, The Disc Wizard (TSG), Maniax (crack), Monty On The Run (crack), Mr. Puniverse (crack), Mercenary - Flucht Aus Targ (crack), NASA, Osterei-Sucherei, Paperboy (crack), Pferderennen, Phantom (German) (crack), Pilot 1, Pilot In Space, Platform Diving (alternative), Poker (Tronic), Quiwi (crack), Rocket Man (original), Return Of Rockman (crack), Shaolin (original), Schatztaucher (original), Skat (Tronic), Safeguard (crack), Greet Demo '90, Hier Kommt Alex, Intro 1989, Intro (Roby YU), Kung Fu Fighting (Micro Maniac), Notemaker Preview, Playmate Show 1, Raster-Demo. |
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| | The Götz-Tobias Heger Collection 2/4 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-05-14 |
 Oh well, still so much meat on the bbq, so why waiting further time to face the new big wave of programs for this series. It's a one-two attack in the vey center of the ring, and you don't have to tighten your high guard, the 2nd quarter of the Götz-Tobias "GeTE" Heger collection's gran riserva is already here!
Again, more utilities, more demos, more games from nowhere. Picked up from this massive update, spotlights on to some selecteded ones: Demo '89 is a little onefilre from Men Of Science we've missed somewhat, look at that juicy DYPP; Dual Drive Utility Program is the oldest known release from Mr. L, and it looks like the grandpa of the succeeding Double Drive Filecopy; finally, a clean and original release of the colorful type-in Marble Madness, and this allowed to add the ending too; a 16K version of Japan Sea has surfaced, and it has its own TED tune instead of the questionable digitized voice of the bigger version; Pigmy didn't remember this, but there was a Basic demo released with his Digital Drums, and now we have it on the same D64; let's continue to add several cracks from quite obscure German labels, plus TSG himself has preserved his cracktros alone (a cracktro is a demo put as standalone in a cracks' collection), but we've also found the single release of a rare crack intro from The Bitsoft LTD. (a crack intro is a demo packed with a cracked program).
Thank you again Tobias, it's just because of you that the follow new programs are now saved from the dust of time: Data-Maker, DD Backup C16, Debugger V1.1, Der C64 Als Magier, Disk-Butler V3.0, Disksorter, Disksorter 5-Spalti, Disksorter (Compiled), Disksorter V3.5, Krussoft-Disksorter, Ligatabelle, Diskstart, Disk-Start, Druck '89 V1.0, Dual Drive Utility Program, Data-Base, Digital Drums (with demo), Double Screen, Demo Writer V1.3, Getsetreg, Haushalt-Konten, Laufschrift, Mastercopy V2.1, Menue-Generator, Tex Willer, Feindfahrt U 107 (crack), Fighting Warrior (crack), Fingers Malone (crack), Fussballmanager, Ghosts 'n Goblins (crack), Gridtrap (crack), Goldrush (crack), Hang Man, Indoor Sports (crack), Invincible (crack), Japan Sea (C16 version), Jetbrix (hack), Jumper (alternative), Kaiser (LWM), Leaper (disk), Legionnaire (crack), Marble Madness (original D64), Bytesoft Intro, C64 Picture Show, Compacted Intros, Camera, CD Intro Preview, Cheap Trial, Demo-Ruckeln, Demo '89, Dallas (Demo), Disco In Moskau. |
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| | The Götz-Tobias Heger Collection 1/4 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-05-12 |
 We at Plus/4 World are very happy when someone send to us his personal collection, saved from the corruptibility of the matter by converting'em into immaterial digital images, and then passed to us, in order to be preserved and shared all over the world. Checking dozens, sometimes hundreds, of programs could turn out to be a time wasting work, but the diligence applied to this job reveals to be a sweet duty, until it becomes a real treasure hunt with pleasant discoveries and unknown pieces of history resurfacing.
It happened again, this time we've put our hands in the collection of Götz-Tobias "GeTE" Heger, a big bunch of stuff in D64 and PRG formats, mostly based on the German scene between the 80s and the early 90s, including the programs coming from the vast German publishing of type-ins (for example, the collection has contributed to find and save several programs from Compute Mit Sonderheft SA), some early (and precious!) game cracks, and utilities and cracks released by TSG himself under different nicknames.
Moreover, the GeTE collection has brought a decisive contribution to compose the whole jigsaw of the obscure balkanic side of the C16/Plus4 history: we picked up several missing originals of what now can be recognized as the Roby YU production.
Lastly, we've found some very obscure German diskmagazines, and we've tried to interpret their unfortunate stories.
 Up to 200 single programs circa have been sorted out in order to be included into our general database, and several fixes and updates have just been done too. Hence, the whole bunch willl be announced in four separate dates, starting from this first one. Thank you Tobias, your present have been much appreciated!
The complete list of newly added entries follows: SYS-X, Commodisk 1, Commodisk 2, Commodisk 3, Name Changer, 3,5''-Label Printsystem, Textverarbeitung (alternative), All-Dat, Apfelberge 3D, Auto-Starter, Adress 16, Artikelmanager, Buchhaltung 16, Auto-Old, AVP, Basic-Compressor, Basicmon, Basic-Start, Bio-Horoskop, Biorhythmus 32K, Biorhythmus 32K, Biorhythmus (Austrospeed), Briefmarkenverwaltung, Capri II, Chr-Former, Computer-Kommunikation, 7501 Einzelschritt-Emulator (complete version), A-07 (crack), Atlantik Krieg, Attack!, Auf Wiedersehen Monty (crack), Astro Plumber (crack), Bazooka Bill, BMX Racer (Basic), Speed King (crack), Bobby (Italian), Bombs Away (alternative), Break Out, Canoe Slalom (crack), Car-Race, Mayhem (crack), Classic Adventure (crack), Cokin Super, Corman (alternative), Dallas, Das Haus Des Magiers (alternative), Droid (version), Duell, Emerald Mine (crack), Audio-Cassetten-Index, 8 Bit Classics 03, 8 Bit Classics 04, Anleitung The Jet, Terror Sampling III, Terror Sampling I, To Be On Top (MB) (alternative), Intermusik. |
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| | HVTC Update May 2019 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-05-06 |
High Voltage TED Collection, (HVTC for closer friends of it) rises up again with a new update, taking the overall number of single files to 657.
This time, the largest slice of the new stuff comes from the Very Rare Formats battle arena, ignited by Battle of the Bits. Almost all the entries have been used as experimentation fields for generic non-Commodore composers using Knaecketraecker and TEDzakker, and this marks a very notable goal: apart of the pure results of those noble efforts, having the chance to use one tracker or editor you can play with — or more to pick up and use as better option — is a real step ahead! Again, fixes, rarities (like the Rabló-Rulett IRQ tape loader tune) and new scene tunes don't miss to be included there.
Don't forget to completely delete the whole previous collection (that's the way to do at any new update!), then download/unzip the new one!
This is the straight link to the ZIP file. |
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| | Although there are some minor issues to trigger yet, Rüdiger has completed the Compute Mit Sonderheft SA series, providing all the disk compilations. We're still searching for the original TAP files and cassette cover scans. | [ comments ] |
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| | Today is the 25th anniversary of the sad event of Commodore going bankrupt. :( Rest in peace, Commodore (1954-1994). Your memory will never be forgotten. | [ comments ] |
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| | The Archives Of István Göőz | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-04-26 |
 In 2017, we received a large disk archive from an elementary school. While looking through those programs, I found some interesting ones, such as these. Several of those were developed by Zsuzsa Nagy, and out of curiosity I tried to see if the author could be found. Unfortunately that is an extremely common name in Hungarian, so this proved futile. One of those programs however were co-written by someone with a much more unique looking name: István Göőz. On a whim, I did a search... And found him :-)
As a former principal, Mr. Göőz had some unique insights into how the Commodore Plus/4 was used in education. A lot of this info has been added to the site. Mr. Göőz also worked with the above mentioned Zsuzsa Nagy, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago. During our discussions, it turned out that he still has a large working disk archive, but no way of converting them to a modern platform. Enter our friend Lacus, who traveled there, picked up the 18 disks and transferred them. And a mere 7 months later (hyperspeed!), everything is now on Plus/4 World!
More than 120 programs have been added, a lot of them educational. The flagship one being Kémiai Egyenlet. This was developed and submitted as a final thesis, and also entered into a national competition for educational software. If one were to look up the 1989/6 issue of Mikroszámítógép Magazin, turn to page 30, and look down the middle column, one would see Mr. Göőz and his software, along with the fact that it placed second. We have a scan of the diploma of this as well!
Big thanks to Mr. Göőz and Lacus! |
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| | Twitch-a-Witch Into Plus/4: Lala Prologue | | Posted by Luca on 2019-04-03 |
 Just like an experienced boxeur, Digital Monastery, Hokuto Force's games developing department, produces a great feint by spreading a preview video of Robots Rumble, and just after few hours...BANG! The third chapter from the horror themed series signed by The Mojon Twins lands on Plus/4 World!
A winning team never changes! Majikeyric has really found his own golden eggs chicken on the black box scene, hitting again in order to take advantage of the sprite engine previously used in Tenebra Macabre and Zombie Calavera Prologue. na_th_an has drawn some tiny sad rooms again, composing the game areas in the classic stretched screen in order to match the original game's ratio just like on ZX Spectrum. Again, just like the previous release, SIDcard or TLC's frequency converter serve Mibri's fantastic tune, to complete the required atmosphere.
 Help Lala to become a real witch! Straight from the docs:"Take control of Lala accross the decrepit surroundings of Morgana's academy, looking for all her filters and chemicals". Open new areas by collecting keys, hearts will refill your life once you progress in the game. In Lala Prologue there are 26 filters to collect, lost in the nastiest corners ever, in a platformed world of spikes, bats and spiders! |
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| | UUUU #4: Future Wars | | Posted by Luca on 2019-03-26 |
 Deeper, deeper, close to the darkest corners of the games that weren't and the demos that didn't, here's again UUUU: Unearthed/Unseen/Unfinished/Unreleased, back for the fourth time, to show you what nobody did wanted to show you before!
Silence has been a fantastic trackmo, the offspring of a lucky cooperation between one of the most memorable coders on Plus/4 (Steve from the Scorpions team) and the beloved graphician which used to often occupy the higher ranks in all the mags' top lists (Unreal of the Methabolix crew). Actually, somebody did notice this fantastic duo at work, and decided to invest in the next production of this brand new coop team: Nukeman did ask about a graphic adventure game in order to exploit at max the skills of both, in order to distribute the resulting game in Germany eventually as shareware software.
They did accept the deal, and Future Wars was fully designed on paper, consisting in five big bitmap environments where to move and do precise tasks, as seen in the Amiga's homonym game. This demo allows the player to move into the very first of those pictures, and we can have a taste of Steve's code watching how the main character moves in respect of the sprite's priorities in the surroundings.
Another slice of history has been saved and spreaded, download Future Wars and see how cool is the vapourware that didn't become a real great game! |
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| | Howl To A Fullmoon Of Conversions: Knight Lore Plus/4! | | Posted by Luca on 2019-03-07 |
 First rule: respect the ancient lores. Respect'em along the years, and do anything in your powers to never let the scene forgetting about.
And which is the firmest tradition for any Plus/4 owner? Yes, the first one you've imagined: converting a game from another system! Did you think the old trend would expire by time? Absolutely not, just the opposite: the game porting has increased in quality. It's the year 2019, and Knight Lore candidates itself as the maximum expression into ye olde art of converting games to Plus/4!
Knight Lore directly comes to us from the ZX Spectrum tradition of Ultimate-styled isometric arcade adventure games, and is a fundamental chapter in the "Sabreman" series, the one which also includes Sabre Wulf and Pentagram. You are Sabreman, now cursed to constantly turn into a werewolf when the moon appears in the black sky, and you have forty days to collect objects throughout the Melkhior castle in order to brew a definitive cure. But any castle room has blocks to climb, obstacles to avoid, and puzzles to solve. Sabreman jumps higher when in werewolf form, but several enemies will attack you during his damned state.
 Behind the precious work of porting, there's Emu again, showing his coding skills at his best: Knight Lore is supported by full documentation and instructions, supports both PAL and NTSC machines, offers the music composed by Saul Cross both via SIDcard and TED sound (additional code by TLC of course!), shows a fantastic title picture drawn by a real supporting pillar of the Commodore, STE'86. Most of all, Emu fullfilled the game with all the possible customizations a player can wish for, and those settings can also be saved on disk in order to keep'em even during further explorations of the castle.
Play Knight Lore, as it is a milestone in the home computers' videoludic history, coveted by 6502 based machines' users since the heydays, and now playable reality on Commodore Plus/4! It's 35 years only after its release, and Sabreman is still searching for a cure, we hope that its 264 reincarnation would be the lucky one to save Sabreman's human nature. |
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| | Tenebra Macabre! Winter's Not Yet Over | | Posted by Luca on 2019-03-01 |
 Yes, we're far from Halloween, but the light of the rising sun is yet to come, high and bright to save the day. Hence, what Mega Meghan still needs, is: candles to be lighted on.
Hokuto Force boldly push its entry for the RGCD C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition 2019 with this arcade adventure platformer originally part of the huge ZX Spectrum catalogue of The Mojon Twins to hit on Commodore machines. C64 is the target, but why don't show much more love for the Plus/4 (and the VIC20) too? For this, we hail to the French pride from Montpellier, Majikeyric, one of the fresh entries and the best surprises in the most recent times, the guy who's just rocketed the game development division of Hokuto Force "Digital Monastery" to the multiformat bigger scene.
It's once again na_th_an the hand behind the scary little hires graphics along all the game, and he's the brain behind the game concept. This time, there's a new entry for the musical score (SIDcard or TLC's frequency converter by autodetection): he's Mibri, and he did a great job here.
 Find the path to sneak out of the dark crypt by lighting on the candles in the room, the outer storm is by your side, enlightening even the darkest rooms for an instant to have a glance of where to trample safely. Go Meghan, find the exit to the full sunlight, away from the Tenebra Macabre! |
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| | New Release Of Diag264: V0.94beta | | Posted by crock on 2019-02-24 |
After a lot of prevaricating, I'm finally pushing a new semi-official release of Diag264 - v0.94 beta: http://www.inchocks.co.uk/commodore/Diag264
If you haven't come across it before, it's the C16/Plus/4 equivalent of the various Commodore produced diagnostic cartridges for the C64. There is both a kernal based version that you can directly replace your kernal ROM with, which give the lowest level of diagnosis a bit like the 64 dead test cartridges ,or you can use the low-ROM version which you can put on a cartridge or use in place of the Function-Low ROM in a Plus/4.
Since I released the first version in 2012, I've been regularly tweaking it and it's finally got enough extra functionality to be worth announcing. Since then it's got much better address bus testing, better RAM testing using a decent pseudo random number generator, TED latch testings, fixed numerous small bugs, and added the ability to better diagnose I/O port issues.
To get the most value, you would also need the loop-back plugs. I don't make these for sale, but various ebay sellers have sold them and there's full instructions on building your own in the documentation.
There is a download link at the top of the page where you can find the binaries for kernal/low-ROM and PAL/NTSC combinations. It doesn't matter so much whether you use the PAL or NTSC version as it will try and auto-detect from the installed kernal if you use the low-ROM version, and if you use the kernal version, you can force the video mode by holding down 'P' or 'N' as you power on. Otherwise full instructions are in the link.
0.94 is considered beta, so if there's any bugs or other feedback, please PM me or email the address in the document and I will try to help, time allowing. |
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| | Two Days to the Race, A Story Of High (Steam) Pressure | | Posted by Luca on 2019-02-15 |
 After his early glimpe into the Plus/4 scene with Innuh's Pyramid, a classic theme for an adventure game, Davide Bucci returns with a brand new interactive fiction, this time set during the roaring times of steam engines, when the automotive technology at its very first stages still was surrounded by the aura of heroism and bravery. And if you were a young lady in a world of engineers, the bravery was double!
Two Days to the Race has been developed with Adventure Writing System (AWS) coded by Aristide Torrelli; after the game has been completed, Davide has converted into a C source, in order to be exported to several different 8bit platforms, including C64, ZX Spectrum and (soon!) C128. This process opens a brand new way to modern adventure games' development.
Just like the author did for the previous game, Two Days to the Race V1.6 Final has been released in both English and Italian languages (translated by Alessio Colopardi, this latter one being on V1.5 state yet, will be completed in the very next days). Luca/FIRE added some code and music in the intro, and packed up the final release.
 Beware! This interactive fiction game features some password given at the most significant moments of the story, so write'em down somewhere. And if you will obtain the final password once the game has been completed, you can write to the author, to be included in the Winners' List printed on the official site.
No time to waste anymore, ready to go Emilia Vittorini, you're the daughter of Augusto Vittorini, who founded the Industria Torinese Automobili (ITA) with his brother Tullio. Your father is abroad trying to raise funds, but something went wrong and you heard your uncle coming back slamming the door. Your mission is to find what happened and how you can help your family. Good luck! |
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| | Searching For "The Solution", Finding PETSCII Shows | | Posted by Luca on 2019-02-01 |
 PETSCII stuff is the real Round Table of the Commodore Legacy, where several machines swap their experiences, and there are some C64 examples quite worthy to be ported on Plus/4 too.
So here we are with'em: Luca/FIRE takes not one but two PETSCII pictures shows from C64 — a high ranked and famous one, and a brand new one released few days ago — to the Plus/4! The pictures come in the closer color conversion possible, and presented under in the original interface labeled by The Solution, just as coded by Seven, with two different tunes composed by Xiny6581 playing optionally via SIDcard or by Mconv V1.6 on-the-fly frequency conversion.
Originally released on C64 in the early days of the past September, Tales Of Edoras Plus/4 is a non plus ultra collection showing the inspirated skills of Shine: 16 astonishing PETSCII gems, plus a hidden one to be dug out.
 Blockheads Plus/4 is the latter days newcomer, featuring a big bunch of 20 PETSCII portraits handdrawn by a Commodore rookie like Snake Petsken, in the very first approach of him.
Thirsty of new incredible PETSCII art? Don't worry, we found The Solution. |
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| | The Last 220V Demo | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-01-28 |
 Fans of the old-school Plus/4 demo scene, take notice. According to the scrolltext in Digital Delight 4, we have the complete listing of releases from 220 Volt Team. On that list, we were missing a single demo. I think it's fair to say that at this point, any piece of software that has not been found can be considered lost.
Well, I love to be proven wrong, and thanks to MCG, I am. He triumphantly returns with a small list of releases, first and foremost of which is Anonymous Demo. This is the Last 220V Demo for us. (Unless... the 220V guys actually reunite the group and release something new? Prove me wrong again!)
What is even better than finding something we were looking for? Finding stuff we didn't even know we missed. Enter Amiga Music and Archon-Demo :-) Finally, check out MCG's own software database, which has been updated and released with it's source code. Big thanks for this! |
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| | Cassette Photos From Rüdiger | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-01-11 |
 This time Rüdiger contributed to the growth of our massive collection, sending in 8 cassette photos (also from last year, sorry for the delay). Let's see:
* Bongo now has 3 new cassette photos (4 total)
* Pin Point has been added
* Space Pilot as well
* Thai Boxing has two of them; both Anco releases.
Finally there's Supertape, for this utility, Rüdiger also scanned the 4 pages of the mag where this was publised: c't 2/86. Enjoy! |
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| | New Stuff From Lacus | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-01-09 |
 Lacus sent us (last year, sorry for the delay) another big pack of covers, cassette photos and TAP files. Here's what's new:
* Az Ionok Kialakulása cover, cassette and TAP. With this found, now there's only two pieces missing from the Kémia Programsorozat.
* Cassette for Logikai Áramkörök
* Cover replacements and cassette for Sejtautomaták
* 7 new educational programs from Okta: Belső Energia, Energia, Gyakorlás II, Hőmérsékleti Kölcsönhatások, Hővezetés, Témazáró III, Tömeg.
* Finally; a new, never-before-seen game: Malom.
Check it out and enjoy! |
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| | Exomizer, the best cross-platform cruncher has received a minor version update to 3.0.2. It's mostly bugfixes, be sure to download the latest! | [ comment ] |
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| | HVTC Update January 2019 | | Posted by Luca on 2019-01-04 |
First news of the year is about updating the High Voltage TED Collection, (HVTC for closer friends of it). Aaand nope, a standard format for the TED files hasn't been decided yet (though at the point where we are, we actually could use a restricted .sid format and solve the perennial problem), but hey, it's just few days after the eve and we'll see what's coming next ;)
The collection is now a 630 files beast overall. Something has been purged out, something else has been fixed (Icicle Works), weird demo entries have been added (Cocom Demo, Skyremake), game music which was intended to be beyond suspiction (Sabre Wulf, Heebie Jeebies), the 4 new tunes included in the Psytronik version of Pets Rescue, Csabo's brand new tunes and in general anything about the 2018 tagged stuff.
Don't forget to completely delete the whole previous collection (that's the way to do at any new update!), then download/unzip the new one!
This is the straight link to the ZIP file. |
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| | Dreamtime Updated! | | Posted by Csabo on 2019-01-04 |
 Larry just released an updated version of Dreamtime 2k17 and Dreamtime 2k18. After getting feedback from several people about loader troubles, the author decided to revisit this project. These versions use the very latest version of Krill's loader + Exomizer 3, which means loading is now roughly 20% faster. The music bug in 2k17 has been fixed as well. As for 2k18, be sure to check out the B side for an easter egg of sorts, the last extra file on the disk has to be loaded manually as it's not part of the slideshow. |
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