Classic PD/Freeware/Shareware Games

[CodyJarrett]

Ah, the days of getting together with friends and playing some Amiga games!

There were some classic PD/shareware/freeware games - many of them multiplayer ones:

Bip/Biplanes - multiplayer aeroplane shoot-'em-up
Cybernetix - Defender meets Asteroids
Defender - pixel perfect
Extreme Violence - simple maze shoot-'em-up
Gravity Force 2/Gravity Power - multi-player Thrust
Knights - dungeon exploring romp for two players
Knockout - Ever decreasing arena bash-'em-up
Llamatron - Jeff Minter conversion
Master Blaster - nice Bomberman clone
Magnetic Fields Tanks - Battlezone
Ork Attack - Ork bashing with a sword and rocks
Parachute Joust - fun for a few minutes. One parachute, two jumpers
Scorched Tanks - better than Worms!
Seven Tiles - PD Speedball
Shepherd, The - PD strategy
Smidge - nice little platformer
Super Foul Egg - excellent Columns
Super Obliteration - Turrican meets Asteroids
Super Twintris - multiplayer Tetris
Tankkk - tanks and rebounding shots for 5 players
Tetris Pro - decent Tetris
Trick Or Treat - texture mapped wizard duel
Wizzy's Quest - Solomon's Key

[Khephren]

Ah you missed two other classics...

Deluxe Galaga and Megaball were two of the finest done.

[Akira]

I liked Classic Pucman qute a lot, then again, that was a Licenseware game, but I think it counts, eh?

Another PD game of fun: X-Atoms. Simple game, it's been done years ago, yes... but I played for hours the Amiag version, with my sister. Excelent 2 player puzzler.

What other game? Oh yeah, Charlie J Cool!.... What do you mean it was commercial? (HAHAHA that's one I forgot to add to the crap games list!)

[LaundroMat]

There was this freeware game where you raced a spaceship through tunnels (scrolling from left to right), but I forgot its name. The game was excellent and very hard. I got to level three only once... The music was superb as well, a stomping techno-track, guaranteed to keep you awake in the small hours.

But. I don't remember its name. Anyone recognizes this game?

[Akira]

Jupiter Masterdrive (or something like that)? I'd like to know the name as well, sounds interesting.

[Twistin'Ghost]

I thought "Jupiter's Masterdrive" was released by Ubi Soft?

Oh, well...I really liked the PD game "Drip" (FINALLY, a brill game from the US!) and always thought it was commercial quality. And I loved the Bignonia 8-bit conversions like Popeye, Bagitman, Frantic Freddy, Pharaoh's Curse, etc.

Other PD favs, which I will alphabetize (because I have no life?):
- Amigoids (nice colorful Asteroids with user definables objects!)
- Asteriods II (brilliant Asteroids clone)
- Asteroids Deluxe (yes, another one!)
- Bounce 'N' Blast (NES-style platformer)
- Crazy Sue (platform staple)
- Cybernetix (a must!)
- Dithell's Wonderland (one of the better AMOS games)
- E-Type (super AMOS shoot-em-up)
- Laboratory Of Life (obscure Accursed Toys sim)
- Lemmingoids (nuff said!)
- Llamatron 2001 (the Minter classic)
- Morton Strikes Back (killer platformer)
- Paranoid (great Breakout/Arkanoid clone)
- Revenge of the Mutant Camels (more Minter fun)
- Robouldix (expensive shareware, but damn good)
- The Shepherd (very nice God sim!)
- Smash TV - The Rip-Off (well, *I* liked it!)
- Snakes (one of the best; found on The One coverdisk)
- Tetrix - The Next Generation (lovely)
- Tetrix Metallica (sure wish I had the full version!)


There are many other goodies out there, but those got the most of my time.

[CodyJarrett]

I think it is a game called Hyperdrive, which is on the Aminet under Games/Misc. No screenshot at the moment, unfortunately.

It may also have been called 'Spatial Hyperdrive', or else that was a similar game.

Jupiter's Masterdrive was a commercial racing game from Ubi Soft.

[LaundroMat]

DING! DING! DING!

Yup, it's Hyperdrive. Download it peeps, and don't sleep for some weeks to come!

Btw, wasn't it created in AMOS?

[LaundroMat]

Anyone got any idea on how to rip the music out of the game (Hyperdrive)? It seems to be an AMOS sound bank (the .dat file), but I'm not sure.

[Khephren]

I'm sure ProWizard or Exotic Ripper will take it out.

[LaundroMat]

Ah, thanks, that helped already.

I gopt the title screen music, which is a .mod, but the in-game music is an AMOS bank, as I suspected. Anyone knows how to convert this to a mod?

[Akira]

My mistake mates... I confused the names. I thought about Hyperdrive at first, but I have no clue why I changed it later ;) Thanks for the correction.

I loved the Bignonia conversions as well... and there was another C64 port, not done by Bignonia, but pretty good nonetheless, of High Noon.

Tetren was another good game, because it tried to replicate the original Atari Tetris arcade, and this is great in my book ;) And how could I forget Llamatron? I always had problems booting it up, but when it booted, I couldn't stop playing it. MAnic gameplay at its best.

[Khephren]

LaundroMat,

You used ProWizard? That converts loads of formats back to PT/NT.

[Akira]

You guys made me waste all day playing PD jewels ;) Since I never seen many of the games mentioned, I ventured onto Aminet and dloaded all the ones I could find. Sheesh, great picks! That Hyperdrive thing sure is good for an Amos program, I loved it!

My Amiga scared teh shit out of me when I was going to transfer all teh stuff to the HD. Suddenly the HD stopped working. It didn't want to start spinning. When I Was about to cry, it spinned again. Phew! But it might go screwy someday, for good, so I better backup ASAP.

[Tim Janssen]

I haven't played many PD games on my Amiga but here is my list:

Popeye: Bignonia's remake of the classic Popeye game. It features even an extra level. The intro of the game has an animated walking Popeye. The accompanying music is among the best I have ever heard;
Frantic Freddie: Another Bignonia remake of an ancient C64 game. This time it is a platform affair with great renditions of seventies pop-music;
P.O.D.: This shmup was featured on the CU Amiga Cover disc of September 1992. P.O.D. was originally a frenetic C64 shmup. Its programmer (one of the dudes of Magnetic Fields) converted it to Amiga. Excellent game!
Boulderdash Deluxe: Remake of the Boulderdash/Rockford type of games. Not a good conversion because of the high difficulty level;
Pacman '92: Nice nineties update of Pacman. The mazes are 4-screens wide in this game;
Drip: I cannot remember the game correctly but it was great fun to play. The game had a tendency to crash all the time so I erased it after some months;
LED Dreams: A simulation of the 'game & watch' type of games. Extreme simple graphics and dito playability but it is a curious piece of software;
Loderunner: Classic Broderbund game that runs perfectly under Workbench on my Amiga. Multitasking can be a great thing.

[Akira]

I am having problems running Bignonia games now. I remember I had installed Donkey Kong on my HD, but all the others refuse to work this way. Do I need to put them in disks for them to work?

I am interested in many of the games mentioned here, which I couldn't find on teh Aminet. Is there a place dedicated to PD games, where I can find those masterpieces? No? Why not? (hint hint :)

The list of games I'd like to try is this:

- Drip
- LED Dreams
- the Dithell games
- E-Type and its sequels.
- Tetrix
- Super Foul Egg
- And the full version of Classic Pucman

[Mangar]

I know I have those titles..

Try http://www.commodore-ale.com/

or

Try Mark's world of classics.. dont know the address.. or if its still online.. if it is could someone post the link please? you guys should know him.. he used to hang around the forums..

[Akira]

Yep yep, I thought about Mark's place. But I also don't know if it is online. URL would be appreciated!

[BWT]

You guys have managed to post all the PD games I used to play:

Bignonia stuff: Donkey Kong
Cybernetix: Great - especially when you get to later levels
Crazy Sue: At platform that should be so simple..
Knockout: multiplayer motor car fights on a shrinking base
Alienbash: the nicest Chaos engine clone I ever saw
Sneech: Multiplayer 'snake' nonsense: feat: Salvador Dali
Battle Cars: two player car fights. Fun
Bally 2: crazy german nonsense - bouncing balls & capturing screen!!

[Tim Janssen]

Back in the days when I only had my Amiga I was already a nostalgia freak. Once I bought a PD C64 emulator called 'C64A' (I think). It was capable recognising C64 specific software and that was the only thing it was good at. Playing emulated C64 games on a 7 Mhz Amiga proved to be a real masochistic experience. To set up the screen with its diamonds and rocks in Boulderdash already took up 5 minutes.
Thank god Bignonia converted C64 classics like Fiendish Freddy, Popeye and a few others to Amiga. I was finally capable to play these gems at a decent speed.

Now I come to think of it, I remember people laughing at me when I said I wanted to play ancient C64 games on the graphical superior Amiga. People asked why I preferred C64 Nemesis when there was the superior Project X on Amiga? -Somehow the discussion between nostalgia freaks and the 'common' computer-owning community is of all times.

[Khephren]

I agree with you Tom. I preferred Nemesis to Project X. Part from great graphics, Project X was just a run of the mill horiz scroller game...been there, done that.

I dunno why but I just have a problem with Team 17 games, probably cos Martyn Brown is just a pratt and never liked him.

[Akira]

Project X borrows HEAVILY from Gradius (aka Nemesis)... I would have LOVED an Amiga version of Gradius...

n all, Gradius generated Project X, and it's a damn sight better, even if only for its more balanced gameplay feel. Project X si too over-the-top, difficulty wise.

[Tim Janssen]

The discussion back in those days was not about "which game is better" but it was all about "my computer X is better than your machine Y". When I, enthusiastic Amiga owner, suddenly decided to play C64 games on an emulator, this was 'not done'. Luckily this has started to change. I think the community of people using emulators to emulate 'dead' machines will grow the next couple of years. Of course this shift can be explained because gamesplayers are getting older and the videogamesmarket becomes flooded with machines that are not supported anymore. The main reason for the uprisal of emulation is because games are not what they used to be. Nowadays many games are too boring, too complex or have a high Artificial Intelligence. I like my games simple -in terms of playability and graphics. Therefore I will stick with emulated machines.

By the way, anyone remember the Fred Fish discs? A couple of 1000+ of these discs have appeared throughout the years. These were crammed with (un)useful utilities like screensavers, games, patches and other nifty programs. Fred Fish is a good representation of how the Amiga community was back in those days. People wrote exotic programs for themselves and others without charging ridiculous sums for it.

[Akira]

Hell yep, Fred Fish disks were AMAZING. Many useful utils in there. I think you can get them all in one CD compilation.

[Tim Janssen]

If I am correct mister Fred Fish decided back in 1994 to distribute the PD software on CD instead of discs. Every month people got the latest Fred Fish discs including the 1000+ older ones. Now that was great value for money.

There are not many games on the Fred Fish discs but the ones which have appeared are awesome. :gamer(I just had to try this Icon)
Loderunner on one of the Fred Fish discs is an exact replica of the C64 original. I also have a Pengo-clone called "Disc" I think. This game is even better than the original. Hell, I think this will be the first game I will play when I boot up the Amiga the next time.

[ptrchiappe]

Here is the mod i converted with abk2mod (from aminet).

I tried it with Mod player on the PC and it seems ok.

You have to check if it is the music you remembered.

[Paul]

Mangar. Try Mark's world of classics.. dont know the address.. or if its still online.. if it is could someone post the link please? you guys should know him.. he used to hang around the forums..

Akira. Yep yep, I thought about Mark's place. But I also don't know if it is online. URL would be appreciated!

Here is the Address http://www.marksplace.f9.co.uk/ :cool

[Stu-Asi]

Just a thought but I think most of the PD games mentioned are on The Assassins games disk's which can be downloaded from ALE.


There are 1 or 2 disks with incorrect bootblocks on them, just waiting for Malc to Put the correct version on the site.

If there are any that you really want let me know and I will upload them for you.


//do NOT use direct signature, use UserCP instead...

[Paul]

Originally posted by Akira
Yep yep, I thought about Mark's place. But I also don't know if it is online. URL would be appreciated!

I have just noticed The World of Classics (http://www.marksplace.f9.co.uk/) web site has had a small update. So it is not dead.