A 1990 homebrew conversion of the classic Freescape game, Total Eclipse, by the Hungarian coder Soós Ferenc (aka “SF”). It requires 64K of RAM to run.
And Total Eclipse an excellent conversion – pretty much identical to its Commodore 64 parent (from which it was converted).
There are currently two different homebrew conversions of Dark Side available for the Commodore 16/Plus4 – one by Tarzan, and one by Csory. Both are shown here.
A 1990 homebrew conversion by Pygmy that requires 64K of RAM (which technically makes it a Plus 4 release). Driller is an impressive achievement on the 6502, even if it does run slowly.
A direct follow-up to Castle Master, published by Incentive Software in 1990 and again using the Freescape Engine – one of the earliest 3D game engines.
The fourth Freescape game, Castle Master, was developed – not by Major Developments this time – but by Teque Software Development. It was published by Domark in 1990.
The third Freescape game, Total Eclipse, was released on 8-bit home computers first (ZX Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC), and later appeared on 16-bit machines, including this excellent Amiga conversion, published by Domark in 1989.
Dark Side is the second Freescape game from Major Developments and was published by Incentive Software (Microprose in the US).
Freescape was one of the earliest (if not THE earliest) 3D game engine and was used to make a series of significant games in the mid Eighties.
The Commodore 64 version of Incentive‘s classic Driller is surprisingly good, considering that the machine isn’t particularly suited to this kind of game.
American publisher Epyx released UK hit game Driller onto US PC markets under the title of Space Station Oblivion in 1988.
There was no need for a title change really. Driller says it all.
Driller and Freescape started life on the ZX Spectrum in 1987 – performing miracles on Sir Clive’s humble little machine. Creating 3D worlds where previously there were none…
And, being more than just a graphics engine, Freescape (and Driller) lived on into the 16-bit realm, and beyond.
The King of Grabs 