Today’s game for Atari ST is a public domain title that was put together with a game-making package — specifically, Palace Software’s Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit.
It’s not the most original or amazing shoot ’em up you’ll ever see, but it’s a good example of what Shoot ‘Em UP Construction Kit (also known as S.E.U.C.K.) is capable of. Some say the Amiga and Commodore 64 versions of the package are better than the ST version, but Zog here is a perfectly competent shoot ’em up that fits in well in the public domain space — and could have probably gotten away with a commercial release with a touch of spit and polish.
Yep, yep, we’re definitely scraping the barrel a bit for “Y” games on Atari ST now. There are a lot of public domain adaptations of Yahtzee left to go… and not a lot else. So I hope you like dice.
As adaptations of the classic “poker dice” game go, the one we’re looking at today is perfectly competent, particularly when considering it was freely distributed. It would have been nice to see a multiplayer option and perhaps some more fancy bells and whistles, but as a means of enjoying Yahtzee solo on your computer, it does the job perfectly well!
The unusually named XOR from Atari promises a game with no random elements, and a focus on logical thinking rather than twitch reflexes.
One could also describe it, as someone did to me the other day, as a curious blend of Boulder Dash and heraldry, in which the main obstacles to your success will be fish and chickens. Yes, it’s a rather odd game — but if you enjoy some tricky puzzles it’s worth a look!
The public domain and shareware sector of the 8- and 16-bit era was often a great place to find unofficial adaptations of popular board, card and TV game show formulae.
Today’s Atari ST game is a great example of this, providing a solid (if graphically unremarkable) adaptation of the classic game show Wheel of Fortune for two or three players — and including all the tools you need to build your own custom puzzles, too.
Gremlin Graphics were known for putting out great games, right from the 8-bit era up until their disappearance in 2003.
Venus the Flytrap was a great title from the 16-bit era, featuring an inventive take on arcade-style shoot ’em up gameplay combined with platforming. It looked great, too, even on the Atari ST — in fact, some people even prefer the ST version to the Amiga incarnation of this game, which is a rare occurrence!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Today we take a look at one of the most influential, important games of all time: without Ultima III: Exodus, we might not have ever gotten the RPG genre in quite the form we know it today.
Of course, I’m sure there are plenty of other games out there that would have taken its place — and the Wizardry series was just as important in the grand scheme of things — but Ultima III: Exodus’ importance to the RPG genre in general cannot be understated. So it seems like a fine time to take on the Atari ST version, non?
Heroes in a half-shell! Turtle power! But only in a form friendly to the delicate eyes of the Great British Public, thank you very much, none of that “ninja” nonsense here.
Image Works’ Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles for Atari ST was a port of Konami’s NES game — and a title that made a fair few people mad when it first came out and wasn’t a port of Konami’s classic arcade game. Still, it’s an interesting title in its own right — even if the ST version perhaps isn’t the best way to experience it!
Thou art dead! Again. Yes, it’s time for Shadowgate, a fairly notorious point-and-click adventure from the “Macventures” series — rebranded, of course, to “Atariventures” for its ST release.
Like its stablemates Deja Vu and Uninvited, Shadowgate is a challenging adventure that is rather fond of killing off the player in a variety of cruel and unusual ways. The game is always fair, though; you just need to learn the rules it’s playing by in order to make a little more progress with each save you reload!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
It’s time for a biggie! A truly genre-defining game, at that — although its real influence perhaps wouldn’t become truly known on the mainstream side of gaming until quite some time after its original release.
I’m talking about the legendary Rogue, of course, which has an interesting story behind its original creation — and whose Atari ST version is one of the best ways to play out there. This edition, published by Epyx and put together by one of the game’s original creators, is an accessible and friendly way to enjoy some dungeon crawling — and a great way to kick off a roguelike addiction if you don’t already have one!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.
Several years after the original Questron, Strategic Simulations Inc. put out a sequel. This time around, it made it to Atari ST rather than the Atari 8-bit — but fundamentally, there was a lot that was quite similar about it.
Trouble is, the computer role-playing game genre had been developing at a rapid pace in the years between the two Questron titles; most notably, the Ultima series on which it was very obviously based had become much more complex and elaborate — particularly with regard to storytelling, and in incorporating more diverse, interesting objectives for the player to accomplish.
Questron II is still worth a look, though — particularly as its ST port is a very early title from the well-loved Westwood. Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.
The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.
