Screenshot of Pitfall II
Iván Ávila, also known as 21bloques, has released another game. Pitfall II is an adaptation of the Sega coin-op game of the same name, which in turn is based on the (perhaps better known) Atari 2600 console game released in 1984. You control Pitfall Harry, and you must dodge enemies, leap and swing across lakes, and explore underground caverns and rivers. You’ll even come across an active volcano spewing rocks which you must avoid! Pitfall II features colourful graphics and a wonderful rendition of the music from the coin-op game, and you can download it from itch.io.
I was away for several days last week, and during that time, four games were released! Therefore, a lot of you may already know about some or all of these releases, especially the first one...
Sonic GX
By far the biggest of these was Sonic GX, which after seven years of development was finally released on the 1st of November. Yes, Sonic the Hedgehog has come to the Amstrad, and I got the opportunity while I was away to play it on a 464 Plus, and it is fantastic! Although the graphics and music are based on the Sega Game Gear and Master System versions, Sonic GX shouldn’t really be considered as a port or conversion, but a tribute to Sonic’s legacy. There are four zones (Green Hill, Bridge, Jungle and Sky City), each with two acts, and while the level designs have been tweaked, they are still instantly recognisable if you’ve played the original Sonic the Hedgehog.
If you haven’t done so already, Sonic GX can be downloaded from NoRecess’ site. It’s without a doubt the best game I’ve seen for the GX4000 and Plus machines (move over, Pang!) and it exploits its graphical capabilities to the maximum. It’s become a cliché now, but how well could the GX4000 have done if games like Sonic GX were available back in 1990 or 1991?
Rebel Wars
Mananuk has released Rebel Wars for the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. You are a soldier from the Orion Kane star alliance, and you have been selected to carry out a series of missions. Each mission (which is chosen randomly for you) involves boarding one of four enemy Scipio spaceships, exploring it, shooting aliens and finding the necessary objects to complete your mission. Rebel Wars is available in English and Spanish and can be downloaded from itch.io.
Dia de los Muertos
Vitop69 has released his first Amstrad CPC game, which is based around, and named after, the Mexican festival of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) that is celebrated at the beginning of November. You are Pedro, and you must reach your family’s tomb – but time is short, and you must collect as many candles as you can to try to gain as much time as possible. Vitop69 wrote Dia de los Muertos in tribute to his father who passed away in 2023, and you can download it from itch.io.
Cover of Bug's Quest 2: Cash for a Cure
Yellow Belly has been working on a sequel to Bug’s Quest for Tapes, which is due to receive its premiere on Novabug’s livestream next Saturday evening on the 1st November 2025. It’s called Bug’s Quest 2: Cash for a Cure, and like the previous game, it’s a platformer in which Bug must collect as many coins as he can to raise funds for cancer research, while avoiding hazards and enemies like pumpkins, clowns, bats, Ewoks (a reference to Xyphoe, another well-known Amstrad CPC livestreamer), and even Bridge-It cassettes!
There are three difficulty levels – beginner, expert and master. The beginner level gives you five lives, but even then, it’s not easy, with nearly pixel-perfect jumps being required to dodge some hazards. The master and expert levels feature a different set of screens. The expert level gives you three lives, while in the master level, you’ve only got one single, solitary life!
A very limited number of physical copies of Bug’s Quest 2 will be produced and auctioned on another Novabug livestream in due course, and in keeping with the game’s theme, all proceeds will go to Macmillan Cancer Support.
Title screen
The beginner difficulty level
The first screen of the expert difficulty level
The master difficulty level
Screenshots of Bug’s Quest 2: Cash for a Cure
Amstrad Eterno X
Screenshot of Amstrad Eterno X
By an astonishing coincidence, another game has just been released which also aims to raise funds for cancer research! The tenth Amstrad Eterno event was held on the 25th October 2025 in Barcelona, and CapaSoft has released a game called Amstrad Eterno X to celebrate this milestone. It’s also a platform game, like Bug’s Quest 2, and the aim is to collect posters of the previous nine editions of Amstrad Eterno and return them to the organisers, who were planning to exhibit them at a prestigious museum before they went missing.
Box artwork of The Heart of Salamanderland
Juan José Martínez’s most recent release, The Heart of Salamanderland, is now available to order from poly.play on cassette, 3″ disc and 3½″ disc. The Heart of Salamanderland is a platform game set in 1877, in which you are the great explorer Patton and you have to explore a hidden dungeon within the Dragon’s Tail mountain to find the ancient relic known as the Heart of Salamanderland.
The game was released in May last year and CPC Game Reviews gave it a rating of 9 out of 10. The cassette and 3½″ disc versions cost €25.00, while the 3″ disc version costs €29.00, and these prices exclude shipping costs. Physical copies of several of Juan’s other games are still available from poly.play, including Brick Rick, The Dawn of Kernel (which comes in a particularly striking silver box), Golden Tail, Kitsune’s Curse and Magica, and if you haven’t played The Heart of Salamanderland yet, you can download it from usebox.net.
The Secret of Anubis
Screenshot of The Secret of Anubis
The reaction to Éric Cubizolle’s recent Choose Your Own Adventure-style game Hexapucchu has inspired him to create another one! The Secret of Anubis is set in Egypt in 1951. You are an Egyptologist based in Paris, when you receive a letter from a mysterious billionaire named Tariq El-Nasir. He wants to send you on a new expedition to Egypt – but the destination is written in code, and you must decipher it before you can travel there.
As in Hexapucchu, you are given a number of choices in each location that will take you to new locations or let you examine or use objects, talk to people, or perform some other action. This time, the graphics are drawn in the CPC’s four-colour Mode 1, although the loading screen (which is simply stunning) is in the more colourful Mode 0. You can download The Secret of Anubis from the Amstrad Museum in either English or French.
Monochrome Productions and NRG Studio have released a demo version of their platform game Tony Montezuma’s Gold. The game has already been released for several other machines such as the Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64, and its hero is inspired by the Polish explorer, news correspondent and documentary maker Tony Halik. The graphics are in monochrome, which may not be to everyone’s taste, but it befits the name of one of the development teams, and I really enjoyed playing it. I’m looking forward to seeing the full version! You can download the demo version of Tony Montezuma’s Gold from itch.io.
Svellas
Japanese developer Inufuto has released yet another multi-format game (the 20th, as far as I can tell). This one is called Svellas (where do the names of all these games come from?!), and like some of Inufuto’s previous games, it involves running around a maze collecting things and avoiding enemies. The difference in Svellas is that you can move sections of the maze around and change its layout. You can download CDT cassette images of Svellas from Inufuto’s site, or if you prefer a disc image, it can be downloaded from NVG.
Speed Racer
Philippe Moulin has released Speed Racer – a Tron clone that can be played by up to four human and four computer players! It features two beautiful title screens (one of which is in overscan), music, eight different arenas, and even a Super Mario-inspired font. You can download Speed Racer from the Amstrad.eu forum.
Hexapucchu now available in English
Éric Cubizolle’s Choose Your Own Adventure-style game Hexapucchu has now been translated to English, and you can download it from the Amstrad Museum.
Screenshot of Tony Montezuma's Gold
Screenshot of Svellas
Screenshot of Speed Racer
I was on holiday and returned several days ago. During my holiday, a lot of new and updated games were released, and it’s taken me a while to catch up with them all.
El Hobbit: Vah-ka’s Cut
The Mojon Twins have released El Hobbit: Vah-ka’s Cut, which is, er, inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien’s works. You are the hobbit Bilbo, and the wizard Gandalf has informed you that there is treasure hidden in a cave that is guarded by a dragon named Charmander – but to enter the cave, you must search for thirteen dwarves. It’s typical Mojon Twins fare – lots of exploring, colourful, cartoony graphics and several catchy (and familiar) tunes – and it’s also interspersed with several simple Pac-Man-like mini-games.
El Hobbit: Vah-ka’s Cut is available in English and Spanish and it can be downloaded from The Mojon Twins’ itch.io site, but unlike their previous games, which were freely available, you will have to pay at least €3.00 to obtain it.
Hexapucchu
Éric Cubizolle, aka Titan, is best known in the Amstrad CPC community for his stunningly beautiful artwork, but now he’s produced his own game called Hexapucchu. It’s in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks, in which you visit locations and select one of multiple choices at each location, which determines what you do or where you go next. The game is currently only available in French, but it is being translated into English, and possibly other languages as well. You can download Hexapucchu and view all the screenshots and other game material from Titan’s Amstrad Museum web site. The graphics are truly breathtaking!
Rick Dangerous II+
SyX and RedAngel recently released an enhanced version of Rick Dangerous 2 on disc for Plus machines. Rick Dangerous 2 is highly regarded on the Amstrad CPC, and has the honour of being given the joint highest rating for any game by Amstrad Action magazine – 97% – as well as a 10 out of 10 rating on this site. The duo have patched the game to use the enhanced palette, introduced a new loading screen, retouched the graphics, and fixed a few bugs. You can download Rick Dangerous II+ from the Cepeceros Podcast web site.
Screenshot of El Hobbit: Vah-ka's Cut
Screenshot of Hexapucchu
Screenshot of Rick Dangerous II+
Survive Hadley’s Hope
Screenshot of Survive Hadley's Hope
A mere week after Devilmarkus released Alien Escape, he has released a sequel entitled Survive Hadley’s Hope. Once again, you play Ellen Ripley, and your shuttle has crashed on the moon LV-426 near the terraforming colony of Hadley’s Hope, which has been overrun by Xenomorphs. You must explore the colony and find a way to send a distress signal, and then repair your shuttle and escape.
From what I’ve played of Survive Hadley’s Hope so far, it has the same limited parser, but it’s more difficult than Alien Escape as you’re in much greater peril from Xenomorphs. If one does appear, you have to type a command quickly (and ensure you have a suitable weapon!) – but if you type it incorrectly (which is easy to do under pressure), the Xenomorph kills you and the game ends. Sometimes you’ll also want to go to another room, and just as you press the RETURN key, a Xenomorph enters and kills you – and again, it’s game over.
Screenshot of the Mode 0 version of Alien Escape
Devilmarkus has released a text adventure called Alien Escape, which is based on the Alien movie franchise. You play Ellen Ripley, the main protagonist, and you must find the escape pod and Jones the cat and evacuate the Nostromo before the fearsome Xenomorph locates you and tears you apart! There are graphics to accompany each location, which can be viewed in Mode 1 or the much nicer and more colourful Mode 0.
