Auto Amy


Screenshot of Auto Amy
Screenshot of Auto Amy
EgoTrip released a new puzzle game called Auto Amy about three weeks ago, but I completely failed to notice it at the time, so apologies to EgoTrip. Better late than never, as they say... I’ve lost count of the number of games that feature Amy, but in this one, you have to place tiles on each screen to create a path so that Amy can move along it and collect all three jewels. The gameplay is similar to Pipe Mania, and you can download Auto Amy from CPC-POWER. (Note that on CPC-POWER, after you have clicked on the floppy disc icon, you now need to click on the orange bouncing icon to the left of the disc image filename in order to download it.)

The Elves of Maroland


Screenshot of The Elves of Maroland
Screenshot of The Elves of Maroland
Dwalin has released The Elves of Maroland – an English translation of his text adventure Los Elfos de Maroland. It uses the DAAD engine and features digitised pictures that have been generated using the Imagine AI Art Generator. The wizard Ogion summoned an evil Shadow, which wounded him fatally. You are Ogion’s apprentice Ged, and you have travelled to Goil, the capital of the island of Beil, in search of the Elven Wizards of Maroland, in order to obtain the knowledge to defeat the Shadow. The Elves of Maroland can be downloaded from Dwalin’s site.

Édouard Bergé’s YouTube channel added


I’ve added links to videos on Édouard Bergé’s YouTube channel on my site. It mainly showcases assembly language programming tutorials and the more spectacular demos for the Amstrad CPC, but it also features longplay videos of some French text adventures.

Oh Chute!


Screenshot of Oh Chute!
Screenshot of Oh Chute!
A new cartridge game has just been released by Chris Lord, called Oh Chute! You are the daredevil stuntman and extreme sports enthusiast Ron Danger, and you have to score as many points as you can by jumping out of a plane, opening your parachute, and aiming for one of several landing spots on the ground. The problem is that there are several helicopters flying around the screen, and you must avoid contact with them – otherwise, the consequences will be quite nasty, although it is really amusing to watch as Ron is launched into the air again and again! There are four scenarios of varying difficulty to be played.

Oh Chute! is Chris’ first game for the GX4000, and it’s graphically impressive. It makes great use of the enhanced palette on the GX4000 and Plus machines, and the music is catchy as well. The game can be downloaded from itch.io, and you can even purchase a physical cartridge that comes in a beautifully decorated box. If you’re interested in a physical copy, visit Chris’ site for more information.

Xyphoe previewed the game exclusively on one of his livestreams, which you can watch below or on YouTube (the gameplay starts at 34:51).

Foggy’s Quest


Screenshot of Foggy's Quest
Screenshot of Foggy's Quest
Ayor61 has released yet another game! Will he ever stop? Foggy’s Quest is a platform game that was originally released for the ZX Spectrum in 2017 by Rucksack Games, and seven years later, it has been ported to the Amstrad CPC thanks to the work of Ayor61, with a nice overscan title screen by S_A and music by SuTeKH. Foggy has travelled to the previously unexplored Dimension 52b to go on holiday, but its inhabitants, the NARGs, have stolen a part from the engine of his spaceship, as well as the crystals that power it! Foggy must look for the crystals and the missing engine part, and also find his spaceship.

Foggy’s Quest can be downloaded from GameJolt.

Tetris 40th


Screenshot of Tetris 40th
Screenshot of Tetris 40th
Ayor61 has been busy hacking again, and this time he has produced a new version of the official Mirrorsoft release of Tetris for the 40th anniversary of the creation of the most famous video games of all time. Mirrorsoft’s version was released in 1987, and it’s certainly not the best version of Tetris for the Amstrad CPC, but Ayor61 has made several improvements. The latest version (V3.0) features a new overscan title screen with accompanying music, a new background image, the tetrominoes have been given a new look, and the highly distracting grey vertical stripes have been removed from the background of the playing area.

Tetris 40th can be downloaded from GameJolt.

Robert Small has reviewed two games from Ubi Soft:

Minesweeper


Screenshot of Minesweeper
Screenshot of Minesweeper
Under4Mhz has released Minesweeper – another new game for a wide variety of 8-bit computers and consoles, which is a speciality of Under4Mhz. Unsurprisingly, it’s a clone of the classic Windows game of the same name, and it even replicates its look and feel. You can download Minesweeper from itch.io.

Web site maintenance


CPC Game Reviews is expected to undergo a database upgrade some time tomorrow (Friday 2nd February 2024) between 1100 and 1500 UTC. The upgrade should only take a few minutes, but it means that the site will be unavailable for a short time.

The Mandarin II: Limoncello’s Revenge


Screenshot of The Mandarin II: Limoncello's Revenge
Screenshot of The Mandarin II: Limoncello's Revenge
Mananuk has released The Mandarin II: Limoncello’s Revenge – the sequel to his 2022 release The Mandarin, which received a rating of 7 out of 10 on this site. General Limoncello has stolen some plans for the construction of a new space station, and our hero Mandarino has accepted a mission to retrieve them. The game begins with you flying in your spaceship to Limoncello’s base, and then it switches to platforming action as you explore the base in search of the pieces of the plans. An interesting feature in the platform section is the ability to hide temporarily to make yourself invincible, which you’ll need to use in order to pass some of the enemies that can’t be killed.

The Mandarin II: Limoncello’s Revenge features two title screens from the very talented CPC pixel artist Titan, and some nice music from EA (which is welcome, because I thought the music in Mananuk’s previous games was poor). You can download it from itch.io.

Physical editions of BEARS! and SOH Tactics GX now available


BEARS! and SOH Tactics GX cartridges and boxes
BEARS! and SOH Tactics GX cartridges and boxes
Steve from SOH Digital Entertainments has announced on the CPCWiki forum that physical editions of his cartridge games BEARS! and SOH Tactics GX are now available. The cartridges are 3D printed with a grey shell, just like other GX4000 cartridges, and they come in a plastic case with a professionally printed sleeve and instruction booklet.

Both games are available for a price of £24.99 each, which incidentally is the price that a GX4000 game normally sold for back in 1991! Postage and packaging in the UK is £4.75, but Steve is still trying to confirm how much it will cost to send them to other countries. They are only available in very limited quantities, so if you want one, you’ll need to be quick! They’re currently only available by contacting Steve through the CPCWiki forum, but if demand is sufficiently high, a second batch of cartridges may be produced and advertised on other channels.

The Ruin of 0ceanus Pr1me


Title screen of The Ruin of 0ceanus Pr1me
Title screen of The Ruin of 0ceanus Pr1me
Marco Innocenti released his latest text adventure, The Ruin of 0ceanus Pr1me, for multiple formats recently, including the Amstrad CPC. It’s a sequel to A1RL0CK (which I found enthralling) and it won the PunyJam #4 contest that was held last month. The adventure casts you as Colonel J. T. Thomas, exploring the abandoned Oceanus Prime base that lies two miles underwater and finding yourself sharing it with some gigantic tentacled creature. Fans of science fiction and horror should enjoy it, although it contains language that some may find offensive, as well as descriptions of things that people may find disturbing. You can download The Ruin of 0ceanus Pr1me from itch.io.

Tristam Island is now public domain


Hugo Labrande released his text adventure Tristam Island under a Creative Commons CC0 licence a couple of months ago, effectively making it public domain. It was originally released in 2020 for a wide variety of platforms, and the full version could only be downloaded from itch.io by paying for it, but now it can be obtained for free – although you can still make a donation if you wish. You are stranded on a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean following a plane crash. The island was evacuated decades ago, and it seems that MI5 – the UK’s domestic intelligence and security service – wants to keep the details of what happened secret...