Vic20 Minority Report

[Mayhem]

There is an article category for Retro Gamer magazine called "Minority Report". This is a section for highlighting great games from a non-mainstream platform. Now, I'm sure we could argue the Vic20 was mainstream, but compared to the C64, NES, Playstation... maybe not quite. But this is an excuse for getting a bit more Vic into the magazine!

Anyhow, I've been commissioned to write a four page piece on some excellent but slightly obscure titles. Now I'm putting my own shortlist together, but now is your chance to nominate something I may have overlooked, or argue its case

These should be original commercial games released between 1980-86. I may be able to sneak some type-ins and/or homebrew in there, but the featured titles should be mostly commercial.

[English Invader]

I've given this a bit of thought and the first game I would nominate is Return to Fort Knox. It's almost always the first game I play when I set up the VIC. Raid on Fort Knox is the original release, but Return is just that bit more polished.

VIC Rally X - arcade perfect port of Namco's Rally X that most people know better as Radar Rat Race
Garden Wars
Keyquest
Traxx (Gridrunner gets mentioned in RG enough as it is and this article would be a good opportunity to talk about some of the games that don't get mentioned)
Blitz/City Bomber (it's the signature game on the VIC and should get a mention somewhere)

I would like to recommend Dragonfire and Demon Attack, but most RG readers are probably already familiar with the Atari 2600 versions of those games so they would be a bit old hat.

[Misfit]

Great news! RetroGamer is my all time favourite magazine and it needs more VIC-20 stuff.

I may be able to sneak some type-ins and/or homebrew in there

hmm.. maybe I have to release my newest 16k homebrew project soon.

[Mayhem]

Blitz, apparently, is getting a small article to itself in issue #130 anyhow, so I shall probably not include it heh.

Key Quest is already in the shortlist. Rally-X I believe is there too. "Shortlist" as in I've been through most of the entries in GB20 and decided what might go in. I've got 19 entries of varying length to fill here. If I can get away with it, I'll make the uber short ones (30 words each) as the homebrew exposure points.

[malcontent]

Seems like it would be a shame not to mention Scott Adams, as the VIC was the platform he really exploded on. Although I'm sure the readers of RG are familiar with him.

I think Mutant Herd is an interesting game. Also Wunda Walter, which is a weird one. And Tomb of Drewan for something to replace the better known Sword of Fargoal.

[Mayhem]

Although in all honesty, the majority of the readership is in the UK, and I'll willing to bet a lot of folks here don't know Sword of Fargoal. It's far more well known in the US. I umm'ed and ahhh'ed about Mutant Herd, it may go in the short (long) list.

[andyryan]

How about Pollywog, a simple frogger type clone but very playable.

I also quite like Ludwigs lemon lazers but I think that is for its sheer bizarreness rather than it being a particularly good game.

[RJBowman]

A lot of the effort in VIC-20 game production was geared at cloning popular arcade games.

Commodore themselves released the affore mentioned "Radar Rat Race", and also "Vic Invaders" and the very briefly available Pac-Man clone "Jelly Monsters", which were all high quality games programmed by one of Nintendo's contractors.

I had a Pac Man knockoff by Microdigital called "Snakman"; it was very fast, and had an odd feature where the blue ghosts would re-emerge in their box still blue to be eaten again, and if you entered the box at that time you could rack up a huge score.

A genuine, licensed Donkey Kong game did finally arrive from Atarisoft; it was fairly faithful to the arcade game, and I think that it was superior to versions that ran on the 2600 and on supposedly more powerful computers.

[Mayhem]

Rally-X, Galaxian and Pac-Man were all legit in Japan as far as we have always been able to tell. The problems came when Commodore tried to sell them in the West as Radar Rat Race, Star Battle and Jelly Monster, when other companies (Midway and Atari) had the home rights. RRR went under the radar, the other two weren't so lucky.

I also quite like Ludwigs lemon lazers but I think that is for its sheer bizarreness rather than it being a particularly good game.

Quite

[Vic20-Ian]

Star Defence by Anirog and the mystery the Firebomber Showdown wave (Wave 10? and I think they run away

Myriad - probable the best Vic 20 sound experience of any game. I love the hang back of one alien left on screen when the new wave starts and the "multi-threaded" signature alien sounds.

[Peter]

Moon of Jupiter by Romic. Fast, smooth and plenty of action. Released in 1982 this was a big step in terms of quality from what was available at the time.

Submarine Commander by Thorn Emi. A simulation that actually is playable on the VIC. See this link from a very well known website:

http://www.retrogamer.net/retro_games80 ... commander/

Skyhawk by Quicksilva. Plenty of action and so many things to do! One of my favorite VIC games ever.

Hope you have these on your shortlist.

[fgasking]

Mat, i'd highly recommend "3D Silicon Fish", which is a pretty neat maze game with hints of Bomberman in it with the exploding mines. All on an unexpanded Vic 20, with a wonderful colour cycle effect when you die at the end.
Fairly obscure too and not a title that many have had the chance to play.

Other obscure suggestions would be:

Forbidden Tower (Atlantis - Late to the party, rock hard though)
Meteor Blaster (Terminal)
Wunda Walter (Interceptor)
Plumb Crazy (Terminal - not many copies sold as late in the Vic 20's life, pretty solid conversion).

[Mayhem]

I think Moons of Jupiter and 3D Silicon Fish are already in the shortlist, maybe Skyhawk too. Whether they make the final 15 is a different matter...

[Mayhem]

Still trying to narrow the list down here heh... I'll probably post the final 15 (plus 4 homebrew) when sorted... hopefully this weekend :p

[Mayhem]

Okay, I've picked ten games from my shortlist that are definitely going in... but I'm a little stuck narrowing down the other ten to a final five. Which is where you lot can come in! I've added a poll to the first post, please vote for up to five choices from the list, and I may go with popular opinion