Tag Archives: early

Key Quest, VIC-20

Key Quest is considered to be one of the best games ever made for the Commodore VIC-20. It was programmed by Randy Ubillos and David Dixon of Computer Applications, Inc. and released on cartridge in limited numbers* by Micro-Ware in 1983.

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Eric and the Floaters, ZX Spectrum

I find it pretty amazing that Hudson Soft‘s famous maze-based, bomb-blasting game, Bomberman, was released for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, but it was. It was developed by Hudson Soft themselves and published by Sinclair Research in the UK (much like Hudson Soft‘s other famous Spectrum game, Stop the Express). Even more bizarre is the name of the game, but there was a good reason for the change…

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Zzoom, ZX Spectrum

Written by John Gibson and published by Imagine Software in 1983, Zzoom is a simple first-person shoot ’em up where the aim is to protect refugees from attacking enemy forces.

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Montezuma’s Revenge, ColecoVision

Originating on Atari 8-bit home computers in 1983, this ColecoVision port of the pioneering platform game, Montezuma’s Revenge, was developed and published by Parker Brothers in 1984.

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Sword of Fargoal, Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 conversion of the VIC-20 classic, Sword of Fargoal, was published in 1983 by Epyx. It features the same Roguelike gameplay of the original, with a few small enhancements.

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Sword of Fargoal, VIC-20

Written by Jeff McCord of Automated Simulations, Inc. and first published for the expanded VIC-20 by Epyx in 1982, Sword of Fargoal is a simple dungeon-crawling, Roguelike action game where you play an explorer who is searching a series of randomly generated levels for a legendary sword.

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Maziacs, Commodore 64

This conversion of Don Priestley‘s brilliant Spectrum game first appeared on the Commodore 64, courtesy of Andy French and DK’Tronics, in 1984. C64 fans tend to frown on conversions of Spectrum games to their system, but in this case they should be thanking their lucky stars, because Maziacs is a great little game.

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High School Graffiti Mikie, Arcade

High School Graffiti Mikie is a revised version of Konami‘s classroom chase game, Mikie, with gameplay that’s been toned down to make it less violent.

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Shinnyū Shain Tōru-kun, Arcade

Here’s a set of screenshots from the altered Japanese version of Konami‘s classic 1984 arcade game, Mikie. Known as “Shinnyū Shain Tōru-kun” (“Freshman Employee Toru“) in Japan.

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Mikie, Arcade

Konami‘s classic 1984 arcade game, Mikie, is a strange one. You play a schoolkid who must collect hearts across a series of five different stages and to ultimately deliver them to his girlfriend, Mandy, who is waiting for him outside school.

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