How my pixels got into ROM

This time I’m writing about a C64 game and how I got involved with it, rewinding to early 2015.

For my part things got in motion when my Out Run Memories picture got some positive attention at the time of its release. Thanks to that I got in contact with Antonio Savona, who kindly asked me if I could make a loading picture for his game P0 Snake. Antonio had already created the game for the RGCD C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition 2014, and the game ended up winning the competition by a fair margin!

And it’s no surprise. It’s a clever snake game with a twist, with varied levels and gameplay, and an ingenious one-button game mechanics! On top of the solid game design there are some surprising features for a 16k game like a password system and digitized speech samples! I mean, the game fits into 16 kilobytes. And when that game greets you with a speech sample saying “Welcome to P zero Snake” and introduces more samples during the gameplay, it does raise an eyebrow! There’s an interesting article at the game’s development blog about the challenges with the audio and how it was pulled off.

Just take a look. Note the clever references to various classic games:

Thanks to the 16k game’s success and popularity, it was going to have an extended RGCD C64 cartridge release. And for this extended version I got to make the intro screen!

Soulless

Not too long ago, the C64 community saw a release of a new game, Soulless. New games for the C64 gets released every once in a while, but what made Soulless stand out from the usual new C64 game releases was the passion put into it’s proper commercial release. I was impressed enough to order myself two copies of it!

Release

The game was released under Psytronik Software label and is being sold by two UK based retro game stores; Binary Zone Interactive and RGCD. The game was released simultaneously in all imaginable C64 formats: Cartridge, floppy disk and tape, plus digital downloads to complete the lineup. RGCD distributes the top of the line cartridge version and Binary Zone sells the floppy and tape versions of the game, and the digital downloads. I ordered the cartridge version from RGCD and the premium disk version from Binary Zone. As a nice touch the fellows from both stores sent the game as digital download by email after confirmed order.

The game is identical between all the versions, one can just choose the option that fits one’s retro tripping the best! Cartridge, floppy and tape versions are only for a real C64 of course, but the digital downloads can be used with emulators and devices like Chameleon, 1541 Ultimate, sd2iec drives and so on.

Both stores additionally offers a choice between a budget and a premium version – the game can be bought as a cartridge/disk/tape only or with extras. I’d recommend getting the game with all the extras, as all that stuff makes it feel a genuine old school game!

And besides – just look at all this stuff! This is the cartridge version from RGCD: