Costa Panayi‘s Revolution was published by U.S. Gold in 1986. It is an isometric puzzle/action game with well-designed, monochrome graphics and a bouncing ball that you control around a series of rooms, levels, and puzzles.
Tag Archives: Obscure
Rotox, Atari ST
Rotox was published by U.S. Gold in 1990. It is an obscure-but-interesting overhead robot shooter, with flat, polygonal platforms suspended over an infinite drop. Which you must of course avoid falling into.
Eye of the Storm, PC
Eye of the Storm was the first game released by Rebellion Developments in 1993, and also the first video game designed by Jason Kingsley, co-founder of Rebellion and current owner of 2000AD comic.
Syd Mead’s Terraforming, PC Engine
Released on CD-ROM only for the PC Engine Duo (in Japan), and the TurboDuo (in North America), Syd Mead’s Terraforming is a side-scrolling, bullet hell shooter with graphics designed by the great futurist/industrial artist, Syd Mead.
Desert Falcon, Atari 7800
Desert Falcon is an obscure isometric shooter with an Egyptian theme, released exclusively for the Atari 7800 in 1987.
You play as a falcon, flying diagonally over the landscape, shooting stuff as you go, in a way similar to that seen in Sega‘s classic coin-op, Zaxxon.
Manos: The Hands of Fate, PC
Now this is a game I never thought I’d ever get to play… A game based on arguably the worst film of all time. A film called Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), and a film that is so bad that it has been known to reduce grown men to tears… And – believe it or not – I’ve sat though it twice. Yes: twice. Anyone who’s seen Manos: The Hands of Fate might want to congratulate me on that feat since sitting through the film twice requires a special kind of skill… Thankfully – as a lover and connoisseur of bad films – I have developed an immunity to [most of] them over the years, and it was with some excitement that I purchased this game on Steam and installed it…
For The Frog The Bell Tolls, Game Boy
Known in Japan as Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, this intriguing monochrome adventure game was developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and released on the original Game Boy in 1992.
While it never got a release outside of Japan, a fan translation into English was released in 2011, finally making the game playable for non-Japanese-speaking gamers.
Z, Commodore 64
Chris Butler‘s Z is a slick, eight-way-scrolling, overhead shoot ’em up published by Rino Software in 1985. Not to be confused with the 1996 game of the same name, by The Bitmap Brothers.
Abu Simbel Profanation, ZX Spectrum
This 1985 release from Spanish company Dinamic Software is an obscure ZX Spectrum platform game about Egyptian tomb-raiding.
Domino Man, Arcade
This strange 1983 arcade game from Bally Midway is based on the bizarre-but-satisfying craze of ‘domino toppling’.
The King of Grabs 