Just because a system becomes obsolete for most of us doesn’t mean that everyone stops working with them. Take a look at this brand new game for the Amiga 500 called Worthy, which is sure to make most of us regret ever upgrading our home computers, despite the improvements made since 1987.
The group who developed the game is known as Pixelglass and they have done a lot of work on this platform, releasing several games over the past few years. Their latest is Worthy, an action-adventure game that looks similar to the top-down perspective Zelda games from the SNES. It’s an impressive piece of work for a system that few of us own anymore, but if you have one (or even if you have a good emulator) you might want to give it a whirl.
If developing games for retro systems is your style, this isn’t limited to personal computers like the Amiga. We’ve seen development platforms for the Super Nintendo that will let you run your own code, and even other methods for working with the Sega Saturn if you’re feeling really adventurous.
Thanks to [Chappy1978] for the tip!
While I am not overly impressed with the visuals or the sound (and I am NOT comparing either to nowadays “standards” since I am not impressed by those either) – I DO miss the times when games were about the GAME aspect. When graphics weren’t “good enough” to be a means to themselves. When you had to actually think about how to make the game FUN enough.
With that said, I better shut up. Before “gamers” hack me.
Well, the game isnt’t much better either. It seems to be a combination of old ideas that have been done about two kazillion times before. It mostly looks like a mash-up of DynaBlaster, Gauntlet, Boulder Dash, Minebombers etc.
What game on earth ISN’T a “combination of old ideas” these days, and also, why is that so bad if it’s fun? I guess it’s cool to be unimpressed at this because it’s not the next Minecraft or something.
No need to be cool by being unimpressed. If something doesn’t speak to you, even the internet should not make you apologize for speaking your mind.
And nowdays it’s really important that you always speak your mind, even if it’s just to say how little you really have to say.
@ Slartibart
Ah, but how else are we going to have enough data for our A.I. backed filters?
Riddle me this: If you’re making a new game for an old system, what’s the point of making it an old game? If you’re making a new retro game for a 486 and coming up with a clone of Doom; yes, it was a good game, but anyone with the system has already played it.
You’d expect it to do something interesting, like pushing the limits of the system or breaking conventions of what a retro game is. A mashup is kinda lazy and begs for a point.
Pushing the limits of the system isn’t any reason to make a game.
Looks pretty good to me, well done!
Tools for game creation have become affordable.
“Tools for game creation”? Like an assembler, for instance? I wrote my own Z80 assembly with editor in 1989 so I could make games on a Spectravideo 328 8-bit computer. Wish I could find the cassette somewhere.
I had to write my own hex editor in machine code (hexadecimal) in 1979. After writing that much machine code I never bothered to write an assembler as I knew the machine code well enough that I didn’t need one.
Affordable in both currency and time, as I would suppose that wasn’t an easy task to code an assembler. Can’t speak for the Amiga, but the blossoming of indie games and development is fueled on the backs of affordable (if not FOSS) and well documented libraries and tool sets.
Just look at Unity, where pretty much anyone with C# knowledge can get cracking on a game.
Well, looking at those images got me wondering, so I decided to web search.
Apparently, a type of Minecraft has been built for Amiga…
https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a15727/play-minecraft-on-amiga-os-amicraft/
I’d have a hard time calling something that runs on AmigaOS on PowerPC an Amiga … since Commodore folded before they released any hardware that used anything but a 6502 or 68k.
Yes, there is modern hardware that uses the name. That’s like claiming the modern Atari or Commodore have anything in common with the historical one.
In an alternate universe, where Commodore or Amiga survived, it is entirely possible that there would have been a processor switch somewhere along the line. Disagree?
Mac OS.
Most likely. There’s also a functionality and design connection, much like with retro hardware there’s a connection even if the underlying hardware is an FPGA.
One more thing to add here, after thinking about it more. The PowerPC processors were born from a coalition of companies (Motorola, IBM, Apple) to combat Intel’s dominance of the processor market. The PowerPC was a direct descendant of the 68060, which WAS used in Amigas.
Thus, PowerPC would have likely been the natural progression of “real” Amigas.
I read an interesting article (or maybe it was a video), wish I could find the link now, a bit ago that discussed the fact that if you have a Computer (desktops, laptops, and servers) they are all Intel Architectures. and that it didn’t used to be that way, and detailed all teh different variants of processors that were available “back in the day”. To some extent, we now suffer from that because there’s one company driving the narrative.
A packman with nice graphics and annoying chiptune. The wheel as not been reinvented yet.
Time to revive that old A500 from the basement again!
Oh man… wish I’d kept mine!
I worked with an Amiga when I took video in college, since back in the 90s that was the only graphics capable computer my university could afford (usually if you wanted to do graphics you needed a Mac). It was a fairly nice little computer, although the operating system was a little wonky. I’m definitely in favor of bringing back old tech. You never know when the apocalypse is going to start, you know, and so you have to be prepared. ;)
For the past few years Ive been mucking around with z80 assembler for the little old Dick Smith VZ300 / Laser 210.
My efforts so far : https://youtu.be/imJzEGSbToQ
Sure it is totally utterly useless, but there isn’t much to work with with four colours in 128×64 resolution. And to push the little thing to further limits, it requires more knowledgeable people than myself. I kinda wish that there were more people interested in the Z80 based machines.
“despite the improvements made since 1987.”
What improvements? :P
I don’t think the ya’ll gave this game a fair shake when you wrote this stuff…it’s nothing like pacman…it’s pretty original and fun! I think the Amiga has learned a TON of new tricks recently, with new hardware coming out monthly! We should encourage new games and programming on this classic platform!