Screenshot of Chuckie Egg 4
Jean-Marie Barone has released another modified version of Chuckie Egg, which is unsurprisingly entitled Chuckie Egg 4. This latest modification features eight more new screens taken from the 2009 BBC Micro and Acorn Electron release Chuckie Egg 2009 by Dave Edwards, and it also includes a new title screen courtesy of Kukulcan from CPC-POWER. You can download Chuckie Egg 4 from NVG.
Blinky’s Scary School
Thanks to XeNoMoRPH on the CPCWiki forum for posting details of a preview version of a game called Blinky’s Scary School that is being developed for the GX4000 and Plus machines. This arcade adventure platformer was originally released by Zeppelin Games in 1990 for several 8-bit machines, as well as the Amiga and Atari ST, but unfortunately the Amstrad CPC missed out. I used to own it for the ZX Spectrum and I remember playing it a lot – until the Spectrum developed a terminal fault a few months later and I was left with only my CPC.
Amstariga has been working for several months developing Blinky’s Scary School, and he has suggested it will be coming very soon. It’s looking quite impressive, although the palette resembles that of the Commodore 64 in places. You can watch his latest preview video below, and he has posted a few more videos of the game on his YouTube channel.
Preview of Blinky's Scary School on YouTube
Last Friday, Xyphoe presented the second Amstream Amstrad Video Game Awards Show, known colloquially as the Sugars. There are no real life prizes, but it’s a fun way to recognise the hard work that has been put in by individuals and teams to develop new games for the Amstrad CPC over the last twelve months. Fifteen games were nominated, and the results are as follows:
Screenshot of Chuckie Egg 3
Jean-Marie Barone has released a modified version of the A’n’F Software classic Chuckie Egg called Chuckie Egg 3. Back in 1984, Bit Twiddlers released their own modified version of Chuckie Egg for the BBC Micro with the title Chukee, apparently with the approval of A’n’F Software. It contained eight new screens, and Jean-Marie has inserted those screens into the CPC version of Chuckie Egg. You can download Chuckie Egg 3 from NVG.
Screenshot of RetroblocKrappygamez has released Retrobloc for the Amstrad CPC. It’s a puzzle game based on an old MS-DOS and arcade game called Blockout, which is like a 3D version of Tetris. Retrobloc was originally released for the ZX Spectrum in late 2020 and it has now been converted to the CPC. If you’ve played Welltris on the CPC or another machine, the presentation will probably look very familiar to you, and the gameplay is also quite similar, although not identical. You can download Retrobloc from itch.io.
I have rewritten my review of Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers and given it a higher rating. When I first reviewed it, I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be doing, but I revisited it recently, and after watching a couple of YouTube videos, I now understand what to do.
Toki
GGP continue to tease the Amstrad CPC community with the release on YouTube of another trailer of their forthcoming conversion of Toki. The group has stated that this is the final trailer, and it looks like it is scheduled for release in October. They didn’t state which year, though... The video premiere was on the 1st of April, so I hope it isn’t a poisson d’avril.
We’ve been waiting for nearly four years now, and I’m sure we can wait for another six months (hopefully). It’s looking amazing, and if you haven’t tried the beta preview version yet (which admittedly is from Christmas 2019), download it now and get a taste of what to expect!
Screenshot of Dokoban
Back in the 1990s, I was obsessed with the type-in listings that were published in Amstrad Action and Amstrad Computer User magazines. Amstrad Computer User ran a regular feature each month where they published listings that were written in just ten lines of BASIC, known as ‘10-Liners’. I was amazed by the ways in which some programmers managed to cram so much into ten lines – but one such 10-Liner that I came across recently is on another level.
Dokoban is a clone of the puzzle game Sokoban, in which you move blocks around the screen so they are positioned over some markers, while trying to avoid getting them, or yourself, stuck. Normally I wouldn’t write an article about tiny games like this, but Dokoban has to be seen to be believed. This game includes 13 highly challenging levels and multi-coloured graphics, all in ten lines of BASIC, and with no machine code routines at all! Now, it does cheat a bit, since it’s impossible to type it in manually (it contains lots of characters that aren’t available on the keyboard, so you have to run a separate program that sets it up for use), but even so, it’s just utterly astounding.
