Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: GN Team - Published: 7 August 2021, 2:28 pm
Phantasie is a role-playing game designed by Winston Douglas Wood and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. It was released initially in 1985 for Apple II and other 8-bit platforms.
Andromeda Software curated the conversions to Amiga and Atari ST and published them in 1987. An MS-DOS version was also released in 1988. The game was the first chapter of a popular series that ended with Phantasie III: The Wrath of Nikademus (if we exclude the fourth title that was released in Japan only).
Phantasie resembles the first chapters of Ultima, at least in graphics. Its main features include managing a party of up to 6 characters, with several classes to choose from ranger, monk, thief, fighter, priest, and wizard. Races include the classic human, halfling, dwarf, elf, gnome, ogre, pixie, lizard man, minotaur, and more. Explorations of dungeons and wilderness use a top-down view. In towns, you can find shops and also banks, where you can store money. The view switches to a separate screen during encounters with enemies, where you can control each character in a turn-based combat mode.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 31 July 2021, 12:47 pm
War Planets: Age of Chaos is a sci-fi real-time strategy game set in the War Planets universe created by the toy company Trendmasters.
The game, created by Trendmasters itself, was published in 1997 exclusively for PC, both in Windows and MS-DOS versions.
Faithful to the RTS tradition, you can choose between four different factions: the Krag, born on planet Rock, Biowolf, from planet Bone, Kryos, from Ice, and Darkones, from Beast. Each race has different and unique units. For example, Biowolf has disk throwers and war dogs, while Krag has stealth tanks and drones, Kryos has jet launchers and death spinners, and so on.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 28 July 2021, 6:02 pm
Chip's Challenge is an arcade puzzler created by Epyx, with a team lead by Chuck Sommerville, originally for the Atari Lynx console. The game released in 1989 was one of the launch titles.
The game was much more successful than the console itself, and it was ported to several other platforms, including Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MS-DOS. Most of the conversions were handled by Images Software. Microsoft also released Chip's Challenge in a Windows 3.1 version in 1992.
At first sight, it looks like an 8-bit title converted to 16-bit without improving the graphics, but, despite the simple visuals, the game design is fantastic. Gameplay involves collecting enough chips in the rooms to unlock the level. To do that, you will have to open the doors, using the right keys, avoid traps and enemies. There are 148 levels and most of them are really brilliant. Difficulty increases gradually, with a perfect balance. A useful password system will allow you to continue from the last level you solved, like Lemmings.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 20 July 2021, 7:27 pm
Spherical is a puzzler arcade game created by Rainbow Arts in 1989. It was initially released for the Atari ST and later ported to the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum.
The German studio, famous for the Turrican series, took inspiration from a popular Tecmo arcade called Solomon's Key. Spherical has many elements in common with this title, but despite the lack of innovation, the game designed by Stefan Preuss and Thorsten Mutschall is a small gem. Thanks to excellent graphics, perfect music, and an incredibly well-balanced difficulty level, it's a title that creates addiction. If this is not enough, consider that Spherical supports two simultaneous players. So cool.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 14 July 2021, 7:30 pm
Prison is a post-apocalyptic action-adventure developed and released by Krisalis Software in 1989 for the Atari ST and Amiga.
In this game created by Peter Harrap (author of Monty Mole) and Michael Hart, you are a prisoner on a desert planet, devastated by a nuclear war. Your goal is to find some ship pieces useful for repairing a vessel that crashed on the planet and finally escaping your prison.
For the most part, the game is a point-and-click adventure, with fixed screens and a bi-dimensional side view. But there are also some arcade sequences, where you will have to fight some aliens that will try to kill you. This mix of genres is not totally convincing. Still, the atmosphere is really great, with a sense of darkness and loneliness communicated with the graphics (better on the Amiga than the Atari ST version) and the excellent music.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 7 July 2021, 7:40 pm
Dimo's Quest is an arcade puzzler created by Infernal Bytes originally for the Amiga in 1993, then ported to MS-DOS and CD-i.
The game, designed by Tobias Prinz and Thomas B. Schulz, shares some elements with popular titles such as Boulder Dash, where collecting items is the primary goal. Still, the most similar game is clearly Chip's Challenge, a puzzler created by Epyx for the launch of the Atari Lynx. In Dimo's Quest, you don't collect "chips": the hero, a frog called Dimo, needs to collect sweets for the King. He can advance to the next level only when he has collected enough of them. Of course, enemies, traps, and dangers will try to make his life complicated. Not to mention the locked doors, which will require collecting several keys, all in the correct order. Not so easy.
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