Roguecraft DX on Amiga Mega65 and Gameboy Color
This is something I have never seen before - a new game in 2026 released simultaneously for Mega65, Gameboy Color and Amiga! Here is Roguecraft DX from Badger Punch Games!
If you are interested, you can see more about the Evercade system and it's games on my blog post here.
The Gameboy Color release of Roguecraft DX is very impressive.
The music, sound and monsters are all reproduced on a 2D mapping, and it plays just as well as it did in isometric 3D. The graphics are excellent.
You can bring up the map and potions to select with by holding down one of the gameboy buttons, which makes them appear briefly to avoid using up valuable space on the Gameboy screen.
A special mention to the faithfully reproduced music. I LOVE the music on the Gameboy Color version. I actually like it better than the Amiga version!
For whatever reason, I find the difficulty curve on the Gamebioy Color release of Roguecraft DX far more forgiving than the Evercade. The original Evercade release (which is in reality the Amiga version) is much harder difficulty in my view.
The map layouts work so well in 2D. To be honest I kind of prefer it like this. Perhaps that is why I still play Rogue64.
As you complete each level, you get a screen showing the title of the next level to tackle:
Did I mention I love this game?
I have never actually managed to finish the game, but I enjoy replaying it a lot. I got to Level 7 on my first go on the Gameboy Color - on the Evercade I have never got that far...
As mentioned, Roguecraft DX includes a new Achievements feature that adds achievements as you reach certain milestones in the game, collect a number of potions, kill a number of monsters, etc.
This is a problem that happens from time to time on the Mega65 and it is annoying. The MicroSD card get fragmented as files are deleted, renamed or overwritten. Eventually the Mega65 won't work with it.
I decided to use a 16GB MicroSD card, and it detected it correctly and started to format it when I confirmed to do so.
This process transfers the system files needed to operate the Mega65 from the Slot 0 core, so the system can then use the new MicroSD card core to work from. This means when you update the FPGA core on the Mega 65, it updates on the external MicroSD card.
Ok, job done. Power cycle to then boot from the newly formatted MicroSD.
It works. excellent.
Next I copied the Roguecraft DX .d81 floppy image to the new MicroSD card on my Mac Studio. I then inserted the MicroSD back into the external slot on the Mega 65.
With that done, I labelled a blank low density Amiga floppy disk to copy the d81 image to.
Now I can run Roguecraft DX from physical floppy disk. I did a directory of the newly imaged floppy disk and all the files from the original virtual floppy are there, as expected.
I was SHOCKED when the title screen game up. It looks so similar to the Amiga version!
The graphical capabilities of the Mega 65 are very impressive - pushing 8 bit technology to the limits and beyond what the Commodore 65 was supposed to be :-)
The music is amazing. Even better than the Gameboy color music. I like it much more than the Amiga version.
The graphics and gameplay are all intact from the evercade version. There is some loss of colour depth compared to the Amiga, but graphically it is so impressive to see an 8-bit computer doing this in 2026.
The gameplay is identical to the Evercade version. The speed is great, with no noticeable slowdown navigating the isometric 3d world.
I soon got into the groove, enjoying playing this game. You can use a joystick or the keyboard cursor keys with the space bar to navigate the potion selection when needed.
As I mentioned, graphically I was blown away by the Mega 65 version of Roguecraft DX. This is lightyears ahead of the Rogue64 original game on the C64.
I didn't get as far as I did on the Gameboy Color version, but I will definitely come back to play this version again and again.
The Amiga version naturally looks better than the other versions on Mega65 and Gameboy Color.
The music is reused from the previous Roguecraft release, but there is new music here and there, with much tougher levels, secret rooms, achievements to unlock, and more monsters.
The game runs flawlessly, and is still lot of fun.
Found the exit, but still need the key...
Graphically there are small improvements, with more animated bonuses and spot effects.
It is much harder than the original Roguecraft though, as I mentioned previously.
There are also secret rooms you can find in some levels. With the Amiga version I find the fights are a bit fairer when using the keyboard rather than the joystick. Perhaps it is just me, but the joystick seems more imprecise.
Smaller passageway style rooms like the one below remind me of Head over Heels and Cadaver for some reason...
As I progress through the levels, the difficulty gets much harder.
Graphically, Roguecraft DX is certainly an improvement over the original Roguecraft on the Amiga. The game engine is essentially unchanged though, apart from the achievements feature.
Moving onto Level 5, I finally found the key to the exit, but have yet to find the exit...fortunately I can use the reveal map potion to find it. It is a small blue dot in the left top of the map in this level. It means I don't need to explore every room with difficult monsters anymore - just make directly for the exit.
Which I duly got to.
On level 6 I unlocked one of the many achievements in the game. You get a brief message on the game screen to let you know. I was a bit slow to get the iPhone out so it was already disappearing!
Level 6 is getting really hard. Spikes everywhere in the room, which you can't always avoid hitting. Managing your health here is difficult as monsters inflict a lot more damage when they attack you, and health potions are hard to find.
Too difficult it turned out - he killed me.
Almost got the top score - I'll have to try it again!
Lastly, I tried a different difficulty level as Wizard, which is the hardest mode:
With only two hearts of health, this is really hard.
You have to straight up avoid confrontations and try to skip around rooms without fighting. you can shoot your magic missile from a distance, but they advance on your position each time, so it is still hard.
I imagine once you can get some upgrades to health and strength you can fight monsters a bit more, but as it is I lasted only a few minutes. Dead on level 1.
