Thanatos is an unusual side-scrolling action game designed by Mike Richardson and programmed by Rod Barrington for Durell Software in 1986.
The game is unusual because you play as a dragon… Yes, that’s right: a dragon! And not any old dragon, but as “Thanatos the Destroyer” – a fire-breathing behemoth with a heart.
POD: Proof Of Destruction is another decent bullet hell shooter on the C16, and another game designed and programmed by the prolific Shaun Southern.
Continue reading POD: Proof of Destruction, Commodore 16/Plus4
Requiring 64K of RAM to run, and coded by Paul Woakes himself, Mercenary on the Plus4 is an almost perfect conversion of his classic 3D, C64 exploration game.
Written by Tony Kelly and published by Mastertronic in 1986, Mr. Puniverse is a platform maze game with a satisfying jump mechanic, and is also the sequel to Big Mac.
Written by Tony Kelly and published by Mastertronic in 1985, Big Mac is a highly frustrating platform/puzzle game with an interesting jump mechanic and some nice graphical effects, and is the predecessor to the much better Mr. Puniverse.
Shaun Southern‘s Trailblazer – I’m reliably informed – originated on the Commodore 16; not the Commodore 64 (on which it is probably better-known).
Shaun Southern‘s Commodore 16 version of his hit bike game, Kikstart, is somewhat different to the original Commodore 64 version.
This 1986 release from Anirog is seen as something of a ‘killer app’ on the Commodore 16, although personally I think it’s over-rated.
Tom Thumb is a smooth-scrolling platform game with a strange jump mechanic: Tom can only jump when the run button is pressed, and when he does it’s very slowly. Thankfully you can change his direction in mid air. Not that that makes a great deal of difference, because Tom Thumb is an extremely difficult game to make progress in.
Trailblazer is a well-regarded, ball-based racing game written and designed by the prolific Shaun Southern of Mr. Chip Software and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1986.
Trailblazer did apparently originate on the Commodore 16 and was expanded to take advantage of the Commodore 64‘s extra memory, and the result is a suped-up version of the original game.
