Jetpak Solar Crisis is a homebrew remake of Ultimate Play the Game‘s classic Jet Pac, made by Retrospec and released for free in 2004. While not all Retrospec remakes are good games, this one is actually pretty decent.
Tag Archives: Homebrew
Pentagram, Commodore 64
Ultimate Play the Game‘s isometric platform adventure, Pentagram, was never officially released for the Commodore 64, so fans took it upon themselves to convert it themselves, some thirty years after its original release. This port was released in 2017 by Rod & Emu.
Gunfright, Commodore 64
This C64 homebrew conversion of Ultimate‘s 1986 ZX Spectrum hit Gunfright was developed by Rod & Emu and released in 2017, and it’s another decent modern port of a thirty year-old game.
Alien 8 MSX2 Remake, MSX
This 2009 homebrew remake of Ultimate Play the Game‘s classic Alien 8 was created for the MSX2 by Manuel Pazos and Daniel Celemin. The graphics have obviously had a serious make-over and look beautiful, but the gameplay seems to be the same as the original, with noticeable (some might say “game-crippling”) slowdown.
Alien 8, Atari 8-bit
This Atari 8-bit homebrew conversion of Ultimate Play the Game‘s Alien 8 was created by Fandal, Miker, and Emkay in 2013. It wasn’t written from scratch, though; it was ported from the BBC Micro version (according to various sources online), but unfortunately it doesn’t play as well as the Beeb version. It has a fundamental flaw that completely ruins the game…
Alien 8, Commodore 64
This homebrew conversion of Ultimate‘s classic Alien 8 was released for the Commodore 64 in 2020. The original game was only ever officially released for the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, MSX, and Amstrad CPC, but never for the C64. And the ironic thing is that this conversion is arguably the best version of Alien 8 out there.
Knight Lore, Commodore 64
This 2019 Commodore 64 homebrew conversion of the classic Knight Lore is arguably even better than the brilliant ZX Spectrum original. Spectrum owners will not want to hear that, but – being objective – this port does make the game more enjoyable to play. I also managed to get further into the game than I ever managed on the Spectrum, although I did use quick saves (but no cheats).
Santron, Commodore 64
Santron is a Christmas-themed vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up created by Sarah Jane Avory and first released for the Commodore 64 in 2019.
Sarah programmed the game and created all the graphics and sound herself, and it is very good. Santron is actually a variation of Sarah‘s previous game, Neutron.
Neutron, Commodore 64
Neutron is a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up created by Sarah Jane Avory and first released for the Commodore 64 in 2019.
It was created for the 2019 RGCD C64 16KB cartridge game development competition, and is actually a re-coding of a game Sarah created in the 1980s but that went unreleased (because the publisher she was tied to at the time went out of business, before the game’s release), and was eventually lost (she regrettably threw away the disks with the source code after moving house years later).
Ghosts ‘N Goblins Arcade, Commodore 64
Ghosts ‘N Goblins Arcade is another 2015 release from Nostalgia that re-makes the original (flawed) Elite port of Ghosts ‘N Goblins, and it features completely new graphics, sound, and gameplay features that bring it more into line with the original Ghosts ‘N Goblins arcade game.
The King of Grabs 