Games galore #10: BlitzWays, Ftype, AstroBlox Revisited, Hansel and Gretel, Tiny Bobble, Green Thang

By: Amiga Alive
Posted on: 25 September 2020

Indeed it's games galore, they just keep'em coming.

BlitzWays

Around July 2020 "BlitzWays" was announced by author Sebastian Hartmann, a new puzzler for Amiga 500 with 1MB ChipRAM and Kickstart 2.0, or better. "BlitzWays" is similar to games like Mah-Jongg, written in BlitzBasic, and has an impressive development time of 28 years! Well, according to the game's website it was put on ice several times. In the game, your goal is to find "paths" ("Ways") between tiles, and thus remove them from the board. Some decent in-game music, and a time limit to get the job done should make for a fun time playing this. Check out the game's backstory, it's a nice one. We're happy to see the game coming to life - finally!

Watch "BlitzWays" on YouTube (2020-07-01):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfNsZ2EO1tM

Find out more about "BlitzWays"' history and features, and download the game from Sebastians website: https://www.wertstahl.de/ways/

Additional sources:
http://www.indieretronews.com/2020/06/blitzways-brand-new-amiga-500-game...

Ftype, early demo

Also around July "Ftype" popped up - another new shoot-em-up game. Currently there's only an early work-in-progress demo available, the finished product will certainly look more or less different, but so far we get what seems to be a decent top-down view, vertical scrolling shooter, with nice color palette and detailed graphics. Certainly one to keep an eye on.

Watch a demo video of "Ftype" (work-in-progress) on YouTube (2020-07-06):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdf7tb6k8Ck

Go to Indie Retro News' website to download early WIP demo of "FType":
http://www.indieretronews.com/2020/07/ftype-upcoming-amiga-shoot-em-up.html

Additional sources:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1410796

AstroBlox Revisited

In early August somewhat abstract puzzler "Astro Blox Revisited" from the Decrunch 2020 scene event was published. You push "blox" into their designated spots, which may require some serious planning due to obstacles and special blocks which behave in special ways. "Astro Blox Revisited" won the top spot in the GAMEDEV competition at Decrunch 2020, and, yeah, it's really fun to play!

Watch a video of "AstroBlox Revisited" (2020-08-01):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMcc27pbD0o

You can download "AstroBlox Revisited" from scene.org:
https://files.scene.org/view/parties/2020/decrunch20/gamedev/abr.zip

Additional sources:
https://demozoo.org/productions/282295/
https://www.pouet.net/party_results.php?which=1719&when=2020

Hansel and Gretel

Also from the Decrunch 2020 event comes "Hansel and Gretel", written in AMOS Pro, by stoopi, jojo073, and Magnetic-Fox. It's a simple but beautiful platformer with a little bit of puzzling that made it to position three in the event's GAMEDEV competition.

Watch a video of "Hansel and Gretel" on YouTube (2020-08-01):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=867yMAAajSQ

You can download "Hansel and Gretel" from the YouTube video page, see description there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=867yMAAajSQ

Additional sources:
https://demozoo.org/productions/282297/

Tiny Bobble

From "Abyss" who brought us "Tiny Invaders" and "Tiny Galaga" also comes "Tiny Bobble", which was released in August 2020.

In contrast to the two previous "tiny" releases, this one is specifically aimed at being a near-perfect arcade port, and there is a reason: there is of course a well-known commercial port of "Bubble Bobble" for the Amiga made by Firebird in 1989, but to fans of the arcade machine it was always a bit of a disappointment. This version lacked a lot of details that even a C64 would have no technical problems pulling off - it seems it's just a lazy port that's not utilizing many of the Amiga's hardware features.

"Tiny Bobble" steps in to fix this. And it does! It has a lot of improvements over the 1989 Firebird version, like original arcade screen size, original set of items (150 as opposed to ~40), double frame rate, animated screens, additional screens from the arcade original, and more.

Now this really looks much better than the previous port! Of course it still plays smooth and fast, sounds great, and supports one or two players.

Here you can watch a video of "Tiny Bobble" (v0.9beta, 2020-08-13):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlsivG4Z_WQ

You can download "Tiny Bobble" from Abyss' website:
http://www.abyss-online.de/static/download/aYs_TinyBobble.adf

Additional sources:
https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=86851
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2020-08-00017-EN.html
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1419137

Green Thang

"The Green Thang" is a funny looking character reminiscent of Kermit the frog in a space suit. It's also the name of the game this character stars in, another unfinished, previously unreleased production that was released in mid September 2020. It contains only two early test levels of the game, but these look amazing, like a blend of Zool and Superfrog. So you get the basic idea, it's a platformer, and a very nice one, with flawless fast scrolling, bubbly sounds, and this loveable character in a suit. Very good to see this thang out in the public - make sure you read it's backstory, quite interesting.

Here you can watch "Green Thang" on YouTube (2020-09-18):