Main feature - AGE OF AQUARIUS
Cronosoft title - https://cronosoft.fwscart.com/MATTEL_AQUARIUS/cat5357733_4720275.aspx
Roy Templeman has created WARP FACTOR (requires 16K RAM), DOOMSDAY DEFENDER (requires 16K RAM), AQUAWORM and BOMB CATCHER 2.
Heidi Taylor's BUSTOUT will also be available from Cronosoft on tape.
Heidi's website is at https://aqrevival.wordpress.com/
Sean Harrington - https://aquarius.1stage.com/
Modifications for Aquarius, Mini Expander schematics and parts list, loading screens.
Aquarius Draw by Matt Pilz - https://aquarius.mattpilz.com/
For drawing Aquarius graphics and bitmaps.
Aqualite emulator by Richard Chandler:
I used this extensively in creating the content and screenshots, latest version is 1.33.
Other options are -
AqEmu by Kenny Miller
Virtual Aquarius by James
LOADING HINT:
Some games come with TWO files, a loader file and the main file.
Type CLOAD, press a key and then "start" the virtual tape by selecting file 1.
When it has finished, press a key and select file 2.
ROY TEMPLEMAN INTERVIEW Q. When did you first get interested in the Aquarius? A long time ago! When I was 10. I had asked my mum and dad for ZX Spectrum, and I would have settled for a ZX81. However, at that point in time, the Aquarius had just been reduced in cost, so the salesman of our local electronics shop convinced dad that THIS was THE computer to buy. Q. When did you start programming homebrew? Not really until 2019. I had always thought about creating some new games for the Aquarius, but life and work got in the way. But then when the lockdown happened, and we were stuck mostly indoors I really started to get into the swing of it at weekends and evenings. By early 2020 I had finished my first game, Aquariworm. The first commercial cassette release for the Aquarius in over 30 years! Q. Do you program for any other formats? At the moment no. I used to do some stuff in my teens on the C64, PLUS/4 and later on the Amiga, but at the moment I am purely focused on the Aquarius. Q. What is your development environment/tools for creating Aquarius games? Oh, I am quite old school. I develop on Linux, using Sublime, TASM and an emulator for the Aquarius running under Wine. Once I am happy with my code, I will transfer it to my micro expander USB and load it onto the real hardware to test. If the tests are successful then I will create a CAQ file for fast loading, and a WAV file so that I can use a traditional loading method. Initially from the laptop playing the WAV, but eventually playing the audio from tape. Q. What inspires your game ideas? That’s a tricky one. My inspiration seems to be a mix of 'what’s missing in the Aquarius game library' + 'what is achievable on the Aquarius' and has been driven by the small, yet dedicated Aquarius fans, that have been crying out for new games since the 80s. Q. Have you come up with any tricks/techniques for the Aquarius? Indeed. A couple worth mentioning are... the Aquarius uses a 2-part loading system for cassette loads. The initial load is a small BASIC program, which in turn sets up the environment for the machine code element’s second load. I tend to have all my machine code elements as DATA statements with the BASIC program, and thus only need a single load for my games. Also, it is worth pointing out the magic screen poke. There is a particular 'hidden' screen memory location on the Aquarius (13312). When you POKE this area with a colour, it not only changes that particular character’s colour (the Aquarius can only plot character graphics) but it also changes the border colour! Very handy for fast colour swaps. Q. How did Warp Factor come about? Well, that really came about after I had been playing a remake of the original 70s HP game 'Star Trek'. In the 80s, pretty much every 8bit micro got a version of 'Star Trek'. I didn’t recall it ever having been made for the Aquarius, although I did find 2 excellent resources for a breakdown of the original 70s source code by Mike Mayfield, as well as M. Sternberg's fantastic line-for-line conversion of that original. I wanted to try and utilise the somewhat limited graphical and sound capabilities of the Aquarius and move away from the text-only elements. Introduce simple but recognisable graphics (inc. a full-screen Klingon Bird of Prey), sound, colour, and a more descriptive narrative. I also had a great deal of help from Heidi Taylor, who has done a fantastic job of designing the cassette covers and inlays. Q. How difficult is it to create an Aquarius game in 10 lines of BASIC? LOL. VERY difficult. The main 'issue' is that the Aquarius only supports 72 characters per line, with no abbreviations (except ? for print). This makes entering most 10liners very difficult, as 80 characters is the norm. So straight away, you are an entire line worth of characters worse off! The Aquarius has no bitmap mode, everything is character-based with no ability to change any of the pre-defined extended characters available. This tends to make most games on the Aquarius look a bit 'samey'. It can actually take me longer to write a 10line game, than it does to write a 16K game! But I love the challenge! The Aquarius will never win against the likes of the VIC-20/C64 or Atari's of the world, but that’s ok, the underdogs have a special place in my heart. Q. Do you enjoy seeing your games as a physical release through Cronosoft? Oh, it’s fantastic!! Simon does such an amazing job!! I still can’t quite believe that my games are published and are available to buy on an actual cassette! For a long time, it was a childhood dream to have a game published, especially on the humble Aquarius. Simon and Cronosoft have made that dream come true, and even though at 50 years old, every time I look at the Cronosoft site, there is a 10/11-year-old Roy staring in absolute amazement. I can’t recommend Cronosoft enough. Simon is keeping the homebrew market alive for all those cherished 8bit micros, and I am glad that I am doing my bit to keep the Aquarius up there with the best of them. I have 3 games available at the moment. Aquariworm, Bomb Catcher 2 and Doomsday Defender. Warp Factor will be coming out next month. Q. Are you planning any more Aquarius titles? Yes, I am. I have been asked quite a few times if I am planning on doing an Aquariworm 2, and I have a few ideas of what I could do to improve the original 2020 game, so it is likely that I will indeed begin work on that shortly.
HEIDI TAYLOR INTERVIEW:
Q. What got you interested in the Aquarius?
My sister and I inherited one in 1989 from family friends so we didn’t exactly ask for it, it just showed up one day. I’m fairly sure they gave it to us for the games that came with the Family Pack than they did for the computer part because we were so young. My parents had bought an NES earlier that year and the Shalosky’s upgraded to a TRS-80, so I guess their mom didn’t want it taking up room if they weren’t playing with it.
I can remember the first time that I was able to get the first program in the intro level book to work at maybe seven or eight years old – it’s the one where Ralph* the Graphic Man stands in the center of the screen – and I can remember being as equally disappointed as I was excited that I couldn’t save it. There’s a reason why the Aquarius flopped the way it did because there’s only enough internal memory to hold the BIOS and no one gets a Data Recorder until they’re an adult.
(* credit to Roy Templeman for naming him “Ralph”)
Q. How long have you been programming?
On and off since age six, I guess?
I say on/off because I grew up in rural Western Kentucky, so aside from my mom & the Shalosky’s being technologically ahead of the curve, there weren’t any outlets involving computers where/when I grew up. We had the internet in Western Kentucky very early because Mama wanted it and a side effect was Jessica and I programmed HTML/websites in the late 90s and early 2000s until we went off to college. Programming and computers has always been a hobby.
The only reason why I put the Aquarius down is my mom decided it was taking up too much space and it was time to get rid of it. She was threatening to throw it out, so I sold it on the user group rec.games.video.classic for $35 somewhere around 1998/1999. I very lovingly remind her on occasion “Hey, Mama, remember how the Aquarius was taking up space and you made me sell it?” We laugh about this now because she’s very proud of my accomplishments & abilities, no matter how long it took to reach fruition.
I picked the Aquarius back up sometime in 2015 when I was expecting and bought a keyboard unit on eBay before the price of everything retro went thru the roof. My logic was that I was going to have to teach someone how to program and how use a computer that didn’t do everything for you & thought that the Aquarius was a great place to start. There was a great moment when I was very heavily expecting Jacob, sitting in the floor playing with the Aquarius but unable to get back up out of the floor by myself. Jacob is now six and it was a great decision, he’s fascinated with what I’m up to and I think he loves video games as much as I do.
I got very very lucky & picked up the Family Pack a few years later. Christie Whitby knew I was looking for that particular set and when she saw her local used video game store (Classic Game Junkie in Glenside, Pennsylvania) posted they had one come into the shop, she immediately tagged me on Facebook and I called CGJ so fast, they didn’t even have time to pay out whoever sold it to them before I was telling them (not asking LOL) to name their price. That was the point that I went back full force to what I’ll call playing with the Aquarius.
Q. What do you use for development?
Step one is literally pencil, pen, graph paper, a ruler, a color code chart that I made for myself, the two programming guides that came with the system, and a printed copy of The Aquarius Program Book by Peter Goode. I joke that there are five copies of that book in the wild, ten of us fighting over them, and a hundred copies in the back of Azraphale’s book shop from Good Omens. I’m used to doing initial programming in an analog way because that’s how I’ve always done it and if the process I use works for me, I’m going to keep going with what works.
Step two is a very cheap Windows laptop, Word, & a recent upgrade from Virtual Aquarius to AquaLite for emulation – Richard Chandler is a fantastic fellow for developing AquaLite, btw, because the previous emulator was developed for Windows 98.
Step three is after I have something that I consider “finished”, I put it on a good ol’ fashioned cassette tape to check sound and lag on an actual Aquarius, complete with a CRT. If what I’m doing passes that test, I send it to Jacob my beta tester.
Q. What inspired you to write Bustout?
Bustout was inspired by Simon at Cronosoft rejecting my first submission Paper, Rock, Scissors! because he thought that game didn’t have enough replay value. Rather than giving up, I picked something simple that exists on essentially every system and has a replay value. My mom, sister, and I played the crap out of Arkanoid and Thunder & Lightening on NES, so the value in a Breakout clone was a good one.
Paper, Rock, Scissors! came about due to three things: Coronarama lockdown, Aquariworm by Roy Templeman, and a post-graduate semester on technical writing at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing in Louisville, Ky. A friend who knew I was tinkering with the Aquarius to keep myself from going bonkers alerted me to Aquariworm in late June/early July 2020. My first thought was OH BOY, A NEW GAME and immediately bought a copy and then Oh, wow, I could get a game published, too?
Q. What were the easiest or hardest things about creating the game?
The easiest part of creating Bustout or anything for the Aquarius is the motivation to make something new for an old toy. There was a gap where nothing was published for the Aquarius between 1986 until Roy’s Aquariworm in June 2020 and there’s so much magic bringing a dead system back from the grave Mattel tossed it in in 1983. The feeling is when a new game arrives in the mailbox and I want to return the same joy when Bustout arrives in someone else’s mailbox.
The hardest part about developing a game for the Aquarius is the Aquarius itself. There are so many limitations that the only people who really want to develop for this system are the people who owned one as a kid and collectors who want to add their name to a list of developers. It’s a cyan dumpster fire of a computer but that’s not important anymore because as long as someone is still playing with one, it’s a success.
Specifically, the hardest part creating Bustout was getting the ball to potentially hit every block and making it visually appealing at the same time – too much and it lags the system down but too little visual appeal makes a game less than appealing, too.
I would’ve tried to have Bustout published much sooner if I didn’t try my heart out to make the ball go “boink” better and literally could not manage to do it. I’m terrible at math (all of my degrees and other publications are in poetry/writing) and whatever math it takes to make the ball move in a more fluid pattern is beyond my ability because I promise, I tried.
Q. How did Cronosoft become the publisher for Bustout?
Cronosoft is literally the only publisher for the Aquarius that I’m aware of and I’ve learned from the world of writing that having a publisher gives creators a sense of legitimacy that self-publishing doesn’t have – self-publishing should be used as a last resort but if the Green Tentacle from Maniac Mansion has taught me anything, if whatever you’re creating is good enough, there’s a publisher out there for it somewhere.
I love that Cronosoft is a non-profit publisher because everything released thru them is created in the spirit of art for art’s sake instead of selling something for money. Not all forms of joy need to be turned into a commodity to make a profit from.
I asked Roy how Aquariworm came to the light of day and apparently, Simon at Cronosoft reached out to him because there was an interest in branching out to lesser-known systems beyond the ZX81 and Spectrum. I’ll forever have a cosmic debt owed to them because if Simon didn’t reach out to Roy, I would still be playing with my Aquarius in a vacuum. I’m very lucky to ride this rollercoaster on their coattails and I’m honored to have the opportunity to come along for the ride.
Q. What have been the best homebrew titles for Aquarius in recent years?
Anything Roy Templeman is up to, honestly. Developers for the Aquarius are few and far between - He’s the master of the Aquarius, I’m just an apprentice, and I’ve played enough Astrosmash & Snafu to have my fill for a lifetime. He has a new game coming out named Warp Factor and I’m not sure when it’ll be released but that I’m excited is an understatement. Every system and console deserves a Star Trek game and to have the Aquarius join the ranks of having a Star Trek title is epic – I’ll be the first in line to pick up a copy as soon as it drops.
Q. Have you got any more Aquarius games in development?
Not just one but two! One is Indiana Invaders that’s based off Space Invaders, a rivalry between the states of Indiana and Kentucky, and a t-shirt owned by one of the radio personalities at WFPL in Louisville. That one should be finished before September because I think they’re going to do an on-air feature during their fall fundraising drive and take donations for a copy of Indiana Invaders to support the station. I’m an NPR/public radio junky and flattered they’re letting me help keep the ship afloat.
The second game I’m working on will be a puzzle game because the Aquarius can handle it, in theory – puzzles don’t have a lot of action or movement the same way that other types of video games have but it’ll be complex enough to be fun. I have no idea when this game will reach the light of day, it depends on time constraints and finishing Indiana Invaders first.
PLAY ME - Five titles Aquarius titles you should play
Bustout (Heidi Taylor) - to be released soon by Cronosoft
Doomsday Defender (Roy Templeman) - available through Cronosoft and Roy's itch.io page
Cross Horde (Fabrizio Caruso) - one of five games developed through Fabrizio's Cross-Lib development system at https://bit.ly/crosslib
Ruptus (Inufuto) - one of eleven games ported to Aquarius through the Japanese coder's cross-development system at https://bit.ly/inufuto
Turmoil (Eight Bit Milli Games) - cartridge conversion of the Atari 2600 game by Mark Turmell at https://bit.ly/turmoil-aquarius
NEWS BYTES
AMIGA: Sci-fi RPG Black Dawn Technomage is available to pre-order - https://bit.ly/bdtechno
GAME BOY: Incube8 Games are publishing Dragonborne DX, an updated version of Spacebot Interactive’s RPG with enhanced graphics for Game Boy Color (and compatible with original Game Boy) plus a remastered soundtrack. Pre-order at https://bit.ly/dragonbornedx
AMSTRAD CPC: Mojon Twins released Lala Prologue with their updated Mk1 engine. https://bit.ly/lala-cpc
C64: Vector5Games released their new “puzzle-adventure” game Jungle Joe, where you build ladders and bridges to explore the jungle and retrieve golden idols.
MASTER SYSTEM: SMS Power marked the 25th anniversary of the console’s European release with a coding competition. Results at: https://www.smspower.org/Competitions/Coding-2022
PICO-8: Recent releases include Tutankham from Paul Hammond (https://bit.ly/tutankham-pico) and the topical Helitack Challenge (https://bit.ly/helitack-pico) from Morning Toast where you put out forest fires and rescue lost hikers.
VARIOUS: https://www,polyplay.xyz has three new physical releases, each with an SD card containing emulator images - Showdown for MEGA65, Beethoven’s Revenge for ZX Spectrum (48/128) and the new point & click version of The Curse of Rabenstein for C64.
VIC-20: AJ Layden released the racing game Super Monaco Grand Prix (requires 16K) and shoot ‘em up Rigel Attack (8K expansion) via https://aj-layden.itch.io/. And RESET released Derek’s brilliant new platformer H3LP B0DG3 - https://bit.ly/h3lpb0dg3 (requires 35K expansion).
ZX SPECTRUM: Tiny Crate is the latest puzzle platformer from PCNONOGames. https://bit.ly/tinycrate
CHAMPION CODER:
[Name]
Richard Lowenstein
[Info]
From: Germany
Websites: https://www.richard-loewenstein.de/
Format: Amiga
Previous game: Twinky Goes Hiking (C64), RESHOOT R (Amiga)
Working on: Reshoot Proxima 3 (Amiga)
Q. When did you start programming?
I started writing my first lines of code in 1983 on a TI-99/4A with Extended Basic. Two years later, on a Commodore 64, I taught myself machine code as this is how to get the most out of the hardware. Based on this knowledge, I had my two first commercial games Twinky Goes Hiking and Persian Gulf Inferno released in 1986 and 1989.
Q. What is your Amiga development setup?
I am using my unique Cross-Assembler-toolchain based on iMac. The development framework XCode is used as a powerful text editor, and for version management. By the press of a key, a script file is launched. The script asks the cross-assembler-tool VASM to load the source code, compile an Amiga-executable, switch to the Amiga-emulator FS-UAE and start the executable. This way it takes about one second to test code and jump directly at the position within the game that I need to have a closer look at.
Q. What made you create the Reshoot shoot ‘em ups?
The reason why I am developing shoot ‘em-ups? Simply because I love the genre ever since I played Space Invaders and Centipede in the arcades. The roots of Reshoot can be traced back to an old horizontal shooter of mine that I developed in the early 1990s, but never completed. In 2015 I resurrected the original code and felt the urge to push this project over the finish line. Almost 25 years later.
Q. Were you pleased with the reception to the first two games?
I’d say Reshoot got the reception it deserves, while RESHOOT R was received much better. It was a pleasure to read the reviews and comments on social media channels, YouTube, English Amiga Board, and A1k, and talk to people at events that I visited. The few comments from haters were easily outweighed by highlights, like the amazing review of RESHOOT R in Retro Gamer.
Q. How did the deal to put Reshoot R on Antstream come about?
That was a side product of negotiations with Retro Games when we discussed having RESHOOT R on their A500 Mini. Unfortunately, due to technical reasons, this never came to be as the hardware was not able to deliver a 100% perfect experience. One of the guys at Retro Games is connected to Antstream, so there you go.
Q. When did you start developing the third Reshoot game?
Development in Reshoot Proxima 3 started almost the same day that RESHOOT R was released: May 2019
Q. Who are you working with on this new game?
I am very pleased to have Kevin Saunders on board, who drew the pixels for Reshoot and RESHOOT R. Martin Ahman of RESHOOT R fame takes care of the music again, this time providing much more music. Both are great dudes with great expertise, reliable, and a pleasure to work with.
Q. When are you hoping to release the finished game?
Currently, I am aiming for a release of Reshoot Proxima 3 end of this year. October, if all goes well. Need to hurry a bit. [Note: the release date is due to be announced at AMIGA 37 in Germany this month.]
Q. Will there be a physical release?
Absolutely. The game is developed so that it runs from CD-ROM on a CD32. That was always the goal. There will be a basic version and a Signature Edition that features an audio soundtrack and a booklet.
Q. Have you got any other projects in development?
I would love to port RESHOOT R to Mega Drive someday and develop a modern version of my first commercial C64 game Twinky Goes Hiking. My goal is to open a game development studio and earn a living from developing games.
DATABURST
Name: Lykia – The Lost Island
Format: C64, Plus/4
Credits: Pulsar (developer), Psytronik/Protovision (physical version publishers)
Price: Free digital download / physical TBC
Web: https://psytronik.itch.io/lykia (digital)
[Score]
91% - RETRO GAMER SIZZLER
Name: Magipanels
Format: Game Boy
Credits: Bownly (developer), Incube8 Games (publisher)
Price: $4.99 digital / $44.99 boxed cartridge
Web: https://bit.ly/magipanels - free demo at https://bownly.itch.io/magipanels
[Score]
OVERALL: 75%
Name: Triangle Circle Square aka /\ O [ ]
Format: ZX Spectrum 128K, MSX
Credits: Amaweks (code & graphics), Sergey Nilov (music)
Price: Name your own price download
Web: https://amaweks.itch.io/tcq (digital download) https://teknamic.com/ (physical cassette)
[Score]
OVERALL: 84%
PROCESSING PREVIEW
Dark Keep (Atari 2600):
Michael Thomasson from Good Deal Games http://www.gooddealgames.com/ -
Our primary upcoming release is DARK KEEP. Dark Tower was a very popular early electronic board game in the 80’s, and Good Deal Games will be publishing DARK KEEP, a faithful rendition of the game for the VCS. Here is some information on the game if you are not familiar with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Tower_(game)
Our artist is Kevin Mosley Our programmer is Edward Smith
Kevin wrote, “We intentionally avoided looking up information about other possible video game conversions during development. Ed wanted to have his own take on implementing gameplay from the board game, without being influenced by anything else. When Ed first approached me about doing the graphics, I thought it sounded very interesting and became excited about the possibilities. I was unfamiliar with the board game at the time and as I was brainstorming ideas for the various screens, Ed was probably thinking, "well duh", because much of what I was saying turned out to be very similar to status screens from the board game. For example, I imagined the "Lost" screen being a path ending at a scraggly forest. That turned out to look very much like the original game. The winning screen is another where my initial idea turned out to be very close to the original. It was a lot of fun coming up with ideas for screens and how to draw them on the Atari 2600. I love the challenge of drawing with playfield, two sprites, and sometimes adding the ball or missile(s). Throughout development, I thought of it as an original game, even though we were really adapting a board game to be played as a video game. I think Ed's concept for how to implement moves around the map and then displaying statuses, battles, and the inventory was brilliant. It plays in a very streamlined way, but includes nearly all gameplay features from the board game that inspired it and I find the strategy addicting. I still play the game often, and haven't gotten tired of it.”
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