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Commodore 64 Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Deleted member 17210
- Start date
I was a C64 kid and pretty much missed the NES era.
Two of the most memorable games for me are RPGs that bookend the evolution of gameplay, art, and music.
Temple of Apshai
released on C64 in 1983 and much earlier for other systems
I remember loading this from the cassette deck every time.
Times of Lore
released in 1988
This game is an amazing achievement. Almost no load times, high-quality art and animation. It's rather Zelda-like.
Two of the most memorable games for me are RPGs that bookend the evolution of gameplay, art, and music.
Temple of Apshai
released on C64 in 1983 and much earlier for other systems
I remember loading this from the cassette deck every time.
Times of Lore
released in 1988
This game is an amazing achievement. Almost no load times, high-quality art and animation. It's rather Zelda-like.
It will definitely not be based on actual C64 hardware.
I'm not sure, if they ever went on record. My educated guess would be: it's likely to be a ARM based SoC running emulation similar to the NES/SNES Mini. The price point alone suggests that.
I recently bought this...
still need a datasette
The cassette version was extremely limited compared to the disk version.
"Each copy of the game generates its own unique character, so no two copies play exactly the same.[1] The character's name is randomly selected from a list of 256 names. [2]
The documentation that accompanied the game fully kept up the pretense of the "little people" being real, and living inside one's computer (the software merely "bringing them out"), with the player as their caretaker.
Two versions of the game existed for the Commodore 64: the disk version, which played as described above, and the cassette version, which omitted several features.[3] On tape versions, the Little Computer Person was generated from scratch every time the game was started up (not only on the first boot, as with other versions), and thus did not go through the "moving in" sequence seen on other versions. Also, on cassette versions the Computer Person had no memory, and did not communicate meaningfully with the user; and the card games, such as poker, could not be played."
The 8-Bit Guy reviewed the C64 Mini. The review is a bit weird, a lot of his "issues" are self inflicted. But there are many useful technical details too: he shows how to side load not included games, hardware tear down (yes, it's a SoC), input latency test, etc
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Thanks for the video. The input delay is really apparent and probably a deal breaker for me. I'm also disappointed with the colour which isn't even close to the one on the box. Judging from the kid shown at the assembly line it was clearly thrown together on the cheap!
I'll wait for more reviews, even in game mode many TVs are still adding 30-60ms of lag. It also sounds like the firmware still is work in progress. Regardless shooting the analog signal straight in the cathode ray tube will always be the best. The hardware production isn't surprising, that's what small CN/TW OEM workshops look like.
I guess I expected better for a niche, limited run product. The ZX Vega (which I own) is a comparable product and assembled entirely in the U.K. by SMS electronics.
I may be interested in getting a C64 Mini for my sister when it's a little more developed, when the latency issue has more or less been resolved or at least reduced and you'll better be able to load more games onto it - she adores Flimbo's Quest and Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun and is always begging me to play them. I have no interest in the Mini myself, my C64 is already hooked up to my monitor. I will almost certainly be getting an Ultimate-64 at some point down the line, but for now my C64C and 1541 Ultimate II do the job quite nicely.
I may also pick up an XRGB Framemeister Mini, if only to resolve the interlace issue with FLI art, such as in Taboo's Intrigue demo. I started a channel on YouTube showing off C64 demos and that was one of the first I uploaded, and I was extremely disappointed that the scanlines weren't "bouncing" in the FLI art section as they do on a real C64 and CRT television or monitor.
That Sam's Journey game BubbaMc showed us looks amazing, but Mayhem still looks incredible to this day -
Also, people should really check out Bad Apple -
I may also pick up an XRGB Framemeister Mini, if only to resolve the interlace issue with FLI art, such as in Taboo's Intrigue demo. I started a channel on YouTube showing off C64 demos and that was one of the first I uploaded, and I was extremely disappointed that the scanlines weren't "bouncing" in the FLI art section as they do on a real C64 and CRT television or monitor.
That Sam's Journey game BubbaMc showed us looks amazing, but Mayhem still looks incredible to this day -
Also, people should really check out Bad Apple -
NeoZeedeater I can't believe I'm the first one (or I did not find a post via searching this thread) to point out that the picture for Maniac Mansion in the OP is wrong.
Great thread, nevertheless, bookmarked for reading when I get home.
Great thread, nevertheless, bookmarked for reading when I get home.
Nope, can't agree with that! There was absolutely no point to it. Many games on cartridge (even some released for the GS itself) required keyboard input, and they had done nothing to improve the hardware. Even if they had, that was no guarantee of success - even Amstrad had made some good improvements for the GX4000, and that was about as successful as the GS. Around the time of release the Mega Drive had been out for several months in Europe, and without that there was plenty of competition with the Master System which had much better looking games.
Also the price of the real C64 at the time was either exactly or almost exactly the same. Why buy a limited console version of the system where many of the cartridges couldn't even work because they needed a keyboard, when you could buy the full computer system with access to thousands of cheap games on tape and more on disk, get more use out of it as a real computer system at the exact same price?
Evelyn Hughes International Soccer was incredible, but overlooked by many due to those blocky sprites. Even by C64 standards they were crude!
I used to LOVE this game, although I had it on cartridge, and I'm sure it was just called just: International Soccer.
Fond memories.. Once I was playing on level 9 and lost in the dying seconds of the game, I was so upset I punched my c64. That resulted in breaking the cartridge port, a good telling off from mum and it being sent away for 3 weeks to be fixed.
Seemed like an age but it was a good lesson in controlling my game rage!
International Soccer was a different game, developed by Andrew Spencer for and published by Commodore in 1983. It's a simple, slow but fun little game that was released on the four-pack cartridge with Flimbo's Quest, Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun and Klax. Emlyn Hughes International Soccer looked similar for some reason but was a different game, released in 1988 and published by Audiogenic, and on release was claimed by some to be the most realistic depiction of soccer on a computer.
Edit - I've been silly - see below.
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OP
OP
Thanks, I'll fix it. It was correct originally but I had to switch the picture hosting site since it stopped working, and I messed up when replacing it.
International Soccer was written by Andrew Spencer NOT Andrew Braybrook. He also did International Basketball later on too.
This was THE first game I got with my C64. I thought the 'thin box' cartridge art was incredible.
I think it did get a cartridge release of it's own early in the C64's life, but it certainly was part of the four-game cartridge pack Commodore put together for the C64GS and then later with C64C's when they had a lot of leftover stock -
For all that it's a simple, slow game, it's still fun to play.
Damn it, you're right. It's been a while since I loaded up International Soccer. Braybrook of course did Uridium, Gribbly's Day Out, Paradroid etc.
International Basketball was one of my first games too, but I owned it on cassette. It came in one of those lovely padded cases you used to see all too rarely.
Much like EHIS, I still get tremendous enjoyment playing today. I love the ripple of applause you got for each basket, and the extra long one for the 3-pointers!
I remember Basketball - which I never saw available on cartridge. The padded cases were championed by ATVI UK IIRC - I still have "River Raid" "Pitfall 2" and "Ghostbusters" in those cases. I also had International Tennis, which was a side-on perspective tennis game. Don't recall it was by A.Spencer though. I remember seeing it on ITV featured in the drama "Widdows 2" where one the policeman had a C64 and disk drive on his disk.
I recommend watching "Halt And Catch Fire" on Prime Video if you like seeing Commodore hardware a lot too.
I recommend watching "Halt And Catch Fire" on Prime Video if you like seeing Commodore hardware a lot too.
I remember hearing of some voice add-on that sat in between the C64 and cartridge allowing very few early titles to have speech. Of course by 1985 games started having speech without any black magic witchcraft add-ons.
It seems that the recent release of Sam's Journey has done rather well, seeing brisk sales of around 1,250 copies. Quoting Knights of Bytes Facebook page -
"From its release on Christmas Eve 2017 until the end of March 2018, our #C64 platformer Sam's Journey has sold an incredible 1250 units! Yes, it's the physical boxes and the downloads added up. But there's a strong bias towards the boxes; we shipped a very high three-digit number of units"
That's pretty damn good for a game selling on a thirty six year old computer, whose commercial releases (from established developers and publishers) ended twenty five years ago. They also note that -
"Given those figures, we might consider creating another C64 title in the future..."
Good stuff! It's always great to see new software.
"From its release on Christmas Eve 2017 until the end of March 2018, our #C64 platformer Sam's Journey has sold an incredible 1250 units! Yes, it's the physical boxes and the downloads added up. But there's a strong bias towards the boxes; we shipped a very high three-digit number of units"
That's pretty damn good for a game selling on a thirty six year old computer, whose commercial releases (from established developers and publishers) ended twenty five years ago. They also note that -
"Given those figures, we might consider creating another C64 title in the future..."
Good stuff! It's always great to see new software.
I picked up a mini yesterday, it's promising but hopefully the fw updates come sooner than later. The lag is a little bit frustrating at times depending on the game, as is moving diagonally. It makes playing Hunter's Moon quite awkward.
Really, just fix the lag, diagonals and make loading ROMs from USB easier and I'd be stoked. Also, support for cart images would be amazing as many games that are originally multi-disk releases are getting modified to single cart files - much faster loading, no swapping. Makes them much more playable!
Really, just fix the lag, diagonals and make loading ROMs from USB easier and I'd be stoked. Also, support for cart images would be amazing as many games that are originally multi-disk releases are getting modified to single cart files - much faster loading, no swapping. Makes them much more playable!
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the worst part of the C64 mini for me is that the controller is completely rubbish. the looks are inspired to the Competition Pro 9000 but it's incredibly wobbly and completely lacks any precision. I wonder if I can use any USB controller with this, even a crap third party x360 controller will be better than this piece of shit. also, the fact that in all these months they didn't bother to add a proper interface to add your games is silly, having to use an USB key as a single floppy is cumbersome at best. this took aeons to reach the market, what did they spend their time on?
You can use some USB controllers. PS4 controller is known to work but tbh I don't like using analogue sticks for c64 games at all. USB snes controllers also work apparently. I'll keep looking for a microswitched joystick that is compatible.
"Advanced" file loader is supposedly in the next update after the one that is coming this week.
I know, just the one provided is utter crap, it's the same of having an SD reader. Imagine running a multi disk game! I really hope in some kind of flash replacement for the entire firmware made by someone else.
Yeah not being able to even swap the disk easily sucks. I was wondering if I had a second file with a 9 instead of an 8 in the name I could access it like a second drive haha. Probably not - but my wireless keyboard doesn't work with it anyway so I guess it's a moot point for the time being.
I honestly don't even have the willpower to try this. In any case, most games don't even support the second drive (Maniac Mansion doesn't, for example). Shipping with this system really comes off as incredibly lazy in my opinion.
Loved my C64 as a kid! I had most of the games listed also. My favorite was Ghostbusters though :)
My brother and I also had Monday Night Football and did entire seasons with stats we wrote down ourselves lol. Had notebooks filled with stats... Wish we still had em. Memories.....
My brother and I also had Monday Night Football and did entire seasons with stats we wrote down ourselves lol. Had notebooks filled with stats... Wish we still had em. Memories.....
Cool! I actually got my name on the hall of fame scroller on the C64 mini! =)
Got my long awaited preorder a few days ago, only waited 2 years or so :P Still pretty satisfied, it's a marvelous product for sure, love the CRT filters, the savestate function and the looks, it's so cool that you can actually write Basic on it too! :D
Disaappointed in the none-functional keys though. And they should've gone with a TAC2 joystick instead, this feels too mushy for me. No Last Ninja is a real shame too.
But all in all: 8/10 nostalgia points
Got my long awaited preorder a few days ago, only waited 2 years or so :P Still pretty satisfied, it's a marvelous product for sure, love the CRT filters, the savestate function and the looks, it's so cool that you can actually write Basic on it too! :D
Disaappointed in the none-functional keys though. And they should've gone with a TAC2 joystick instead, this feels too mushy for me. No Last Ninja is a real shame too.
But all in all: 8/10 nostalgia points
Honestly you're so much better served these days by some competent emulator software unless you really wanna struggle with disk drives and missing power supplies like you said and failing diskettes and and and.
The 128s are 99% compatible with c64 games (you can boot them in ''c64 mode"). Some games are apparently not compatible but I don't know which ones exactly.
Guess it depends where you are and what's on the market. I see plenty of C64s for sale but they were very very popular here back in the day.
You could also wait for that full size FPGA recreation to launch.
I've easily spent more time writing things in basic than playing any of the games haha.
You can get SD card interfaces these days to replace the drive.
There's a kickstarter for a one-off issue of Zzap! 64 if anyone is interested. I'm not sure if i'll bite or not. I grew up with the magazine, and pretty much taught myself english from reading it, but at the same time it feels a bit like nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/zzap-64-annual-2019-the-next-chapter/rewards
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/47744432/zzap-64-annual-2019-the-next-chapter/rewards
This machine is what kicked off my career!
I'll always remember trying so hard to make bitmaps on graph paper so I could map a sprite (never realized how low level that was - HA) and 'load $' to load up my Infocom games from the 5.25" floppy drive + slow-ass tape drive. :)
I'll always remember trying so hard to make bitmaps on graph paper so I could map a sprite (never realized how low level that was - HA) and 'load $' to load up my Infocom games from the 5.25" floppy drive + slow-ass tape drive. :)
Prior to Nintendo I guess I primarily gamed on the c64. I had a 2600, but very few of those games held my attention. I'll still maintain the best game GI Joe ever got was on the c64. I also loved Knig Th ht Games, Bruce Lee, California Game, Bop'n Wrestling, Skate or Die, Maniac Mansion, Last Ninja. There was also a game sort fo like Rushn' Attack where you were a Rambo looking guy blastin fools. It had some stinkers on it too. I never could figure out how to land the drop shuttle in Aliens. I didn't like the Batman game very much though stylistically it looked great. The port of Double Dragon,...oh lord it was bad.
Wow, I completely forgot about Montezuma's Revenge! Amazing game.
The VIC20 is probably where I was first introduced to gaming, but the C64 is where I fell in love with it.
The VIC20 is probably where I was first introduced to gaming, but the C64 is where I fell in love with it.
8-Bit Guy re-upped "Commodore History Part 3 - The Commodore 64 (complete)" with additional 15 minutes of content.
I loved the C64 when I was a kid, it was my first gaming experience after the 2600, and lasted for years until the NES came out.
My favorite thing was buying EA games for their packaging. Their 'record sleeves' were ace.
Edit: also, anyone remember a drawing program called 'LOGO'? I loved that as well, and I think it pointed me in the direction of doing CGI as an adult.
My favorite thing was buying EA games for their packaging. Their 'record sleeves' were ace.
Edit: also, anyone remember a drawing program called 'LOGO'? I loved that as well, and I think it pointed me in the direction of doing CGI as an adult.
I never used it on C64, but I did use it on the Apple II and it was pretty cool. Moving the turtle around to draw and such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics