Published in Japan by Hudson Soft in 1996, Do-Re-Mi Fantasy is a cute and colourful platform game that is actually the sequel to the Famicom game Milon’s Secret Castle.
Do-Re-Mi Fantasy doesn’t really look like Milon’s Secret Castle – or play like it for that matter – but it does share the same bubble-blowing DNA as its predecessor.
The sequel to the classic Booty was published by Bubble Bus Software in 1986. It was again designed and programmed by John F. Cain.
Unlike Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man was developed by Namco themselves in 1982, so could be considered the first ‘official’ sequel to Pac-Man.
The fact is: it is arguably inferior to both the aforementioned Midway Pac-Man games, which is a little embarrassing. That said: it is still a decent game in its own right; maybe not quite as ‘pure’ or ‘hardcore’ as Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, but good nonetheless.
Serious Sam’s Bogus Detour is exactly what the title of this game implies… a curveball in the Serious Sam series.
Developed by Swedish team Crackshell – in association with original Serious Sam developer, Croteam – and published in 2017 by Devolver Digital, this is an overhead shooter with pixel-based, retro-style graphics. And it is bloody brilliant! Better even than the Serious Sam games it is based upon.
Heimdall is an isometric adventure game developed by The 8th Day and published by Core Design in 1991.
The 1984 sequel to Blagger, Son of Blagger is different to its parent in that this time the platforming is done within a large, scrolling landscape, rather than the Manic Miner-style, single screen stages of the first game. It is basically the same game engine as another Tony Crowther game: Wanted! Monty Mole.
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.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day was a surprising 2001 release – on the Nintendo 64 – for British developer Rare, in collaboration with Nintendo.
What is surprising about it is that it is an “adult” game – meaning: it contains cartoon characters behaving in ways that you don’t normally see in a Nintendo game, like vomiting on people’s shoes, making sexual innuendo, and using mild swear words.
Theron’s Quest is a modified version of the incredible Dungeon Master, released for the PC Engine in Japan in 1992 and the TurboGrafx-16 in North America in 1993.
Stonekeep is a strange first-person Role-Playing Game, developed and published by Interplay Productions in 1995.
