Chiller 2 Demo Xmas 2019

I've been working on a game for the last few months and have produced a demo level for the Freeze64 fanzine.  The demo was emailed to Freeze64 subscribers on Christmas Eve, so I guess it's fine to post this here now, doubly so since it has appeared in 'cracked' form on CSDb!

The game is called 'Chiller 2' and is an unofficial sequel to the Mastertronic original by David and Richard Darling.

The demo was produced especially for Freeze64 for Christmas, thus it features some vaguely Xmas music and snow and holly on the title and game screens.  So as to not give too much of the game away, the demo features only the ghost enemy following simple horizontal paths and various other features of the full game disabled!

To find out more about this game-in-progress and more of it's features, you can visit my Chiller 2 development blog here...

In the meantime, if you would like to play the demo, you can download it here...

If you want to play a 'cracked' version by TRIAD, with some built-in cheats, you can grab that from CSDb here...

Arkrismas 2019

Happy Christmas!

I've spent the last three days coding, pixelling and composing a little C64 Christmas demo that was today released by Arkanix Labs.  It's cunningly called 'Arkrismas 2019'.

It's quite simple in nature with the main screen display being a PETSCII (albeit with a modified charset for the lettering).  However, there are some 'twinkles' with two chars being modified on the fly and snow sprites floating down the screen into the bottom border.

Pressing 'f' on the keyboard will switch screens to a 'roaring' fireplace, achieved simply be modifying the colour RAM.  I cannot tell a lie: the fireplace screen is Arkanix Labs having a direct dig at Stirring Dragon Games who have released their own Christmas demo with fireplace for the princely sum of $24.99!  The Arkanix Labs demo/fireplace is free!  We don't charge no $$$$$$$$!  ;)

This simple Christmas demo can be downloaded from CSDb here.  You can also download it from this blog here, complete with all the data files and ACME source code!

If you fancy warming yourself using a PETSCII fire, Moloch has created an animated gif of the roaring fire!  See below and click to enlarge!

ICC Anon

The 'Intro Creation Competition' over at CSDb is now in full swing and hot on the heels of my last entry, 'Funky Stars', comes another 16k entry from me that I've rather unimaginatively titled 'ICC Anon' which is designed with old 'Compunet' demos in mind.

This intro is thus called because of the simple PETSCII rendition of the 'Guy Fawkes' mask as used by the 'hactivist' group Anonymous.  The PETSCII was pixelled about 6 months ago when testing my screen editor 'ChillED' and ended up being repurposed for this intro.

The music is called 'tiny BONER' because it is a reworked and slightly remixed excerpt of a larger mod called 'Boner' composed by  Marx Marvelous/TPPI.  This SID is 'rare' in that is was composed with a 6581 in mind, rather than my usual 8580 choice, but should sound fine on either chip.

This intro includes my first use of sprites in the top/bottom borders and while there is absolutely nothing amazing going on code wise, it was an interesting exercise in finding out about the limitations of border use.

If you would like to see the intro in action on an emulator or real hardware, it can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here.  The download also contains the ACME source code and all work files, including the SID tune in it's Goattracker .sng format.

T.M.R has also written short pieces on his own blog here and on the main C64CD blog here, as well as recording a video of the intro in action.  The video should appear below, but if not can be found on YouTube here.

Eagles Dare

Cosine has released "Eagles Dare" which features a new SID tune by me!  T.M.R coded this intro as an entry for the 'Intro Creation Competition' over at CSDb.

According to T.M.R on the Cosine website:

"The eagle picture was found on the internet in 2018 when the idea of creating a cover of the Eagle Soft intro was first being considered, but the final modifications to add a floppy disk were added when some already existing scrolling message code was merged into the project... the scrolling message uses Extended Background Colour Mode which is usually limited to the first 64 characters of a font, but in this particular case the text writer can select any character from the 512 available in the C64's character ROM."

T.M.R also has a personal blog entry sharing further thoughts about the intro.  Read that here.

The title of the music is 'Smaciwch fy Ffolennau' which I'll leave you to go and Google translate from Welsh into your chosen language... :D

And now the downloads:  grab the intro from CSDb here or from the Cosine website here.  If you fancy grabbing the intro as well as the music in SID format, along with the original Goattracker music work file for you to poke and prod, download from this blog here.

T.M.R has recorded a video of the intro in action.  It should appear below, but if not can be viewed on YouTube here.