Warms my heart that people are still keeping the VIC-20 alive. I still remember when my mom bought a used one from her coworker and the coworker was showing my brother and I how it worked. This was almost 40 years ago. It breaks my heart that some 40 years from now, most of us that grew up with it will be gone and no one will be left to carry on the memory.
"Appreciating the game on it's own terms" is very important. Those of us who's first games were The Colossal Cave Adventure and ASCII rogue-likes have the experience of having what fun you can with what you have. Sure sometimes it was frustrating and there were limitations, but there was a lot of imagination involved; there was a whole universe waiting for you to explore if you had the creativity and patience.
Oh wow, Monument Valley looks awesome. Not seen that game before, I must live under a rock! Cheesy Trials is based on my original windows game called cheesy capers from 20 (or so) years ago.
A video about New Vic-20 Games, then I checkout the rest of the internet. Thanks for the post- Very impressive. I didnt know the vic could do that, and I still have mine :)
I don't know whats better. The homebrew scene for the vic20. Or a channel showcasing the games that look like alot of effort was put in. Great to see regardless, On both accounts.
One of my favorite things about older system that is not often talked about are the classic games sounds they had. Thanks for sharing these 3 games, the both looked and sounded great for VIC20 games!
TFW8B sent me a complimentary copy of Cheezy Trials when I ordered some other stuff from them a couple of months ago. Now I know what it looks like, I’m enthusiastic about playing it. All I need is a Datasette and I’m ready 😂😂
Interesting: Hewco. And the guy who runs it is called Andy H. I guess that's *the* Andrew Hewson of Hewson Consultants who released a ton of awesome games back in the day. Paradroid springs immediately to mind. Also used to write for Sinclair User, which I was an avid reader of for three or four years in the mid to late 80s.
I wish I'd made those games back in the day, but Mr Hewson is someone else. I understand they are still publishing games today, I think under the name of Huey?
This may seem like a daft comment, but this warms my heart seeing these games :) Even just looking at the tape inlay and putting the cassette in, it's happy memories!
The rapid iteration of retries on Cheesy Trials reminds me of modern indie PC platformers like Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, and especially Super Meat Boy. By that I mean the intentional removal of barriers or wait states before trying a level again. It mitigates the feeling of frustration at a game that can be pretty hard, and makes you want to try one more time, one more time, and so forth.
Lol, button the Moon! That was a kids program back in the early 80s if not earlier ... Button Moon! I forgot about it but just hearing the name brought the theme tune right back to me! Yup, just double checked 80s Kids program in the UK - It's quite 'trippy' ... if you know what I mean ;-)
When I think C64 tape games my heart goes right to Telengard. One of the few tape games I owned here in the USA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telengard I played the heck out of it, changed the game code to even cheat at one point. Lots of fond memories of playing that game.
@@8_Bit and trse has an early tracker in it now, I have been writing a simple player for it with the bubble bobble tune to test with. It's remarkably good considering the simple sound octaves.
Is it just me or there's a high-pitched sound throughout the video. I actually looked around my room too see which transformer or something emits it until I realised it's from your video. Other than that, great video. I finished it despite the annoying sound.
While the cassette drive is loading it makes a sound, but if it's throughout the entire video it's probably something my old ears can't hear anymore, sorry :(
It's an unreleased song (unofficially titled "VIC-20 in the Projects" but it'll probably get a new name if I ever put it on an album) from my band. Here's another song we did, if you like it there's more on that channel: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-djQ1Qk-9xbo.html
For some reason I do enjoy loading things from tape. Or Vinyl... 3:09 I have several joysticks for the Commodore(s) and the Hyperkin is my favorite. At least it looks like a Hyperkin that you have here. 16:40 Waaaayyy better than Radar Rat Race Turbo Rascal SE looks cool, but I’m sticking to native development tools where I can ;-)
Yeah, this is the Hyperkin. I like it a lot too. I might still like my vintage TAC-II better, but it comes through very loudly on my mic. I even got some complaints from viewers about it! So this joystick seems to be better-suited for using in videos.
RUN/STOP - that is true, although it was common to see it as the RUN STOP key in instructions for tape games. Guess it's more complicated to try to explain it. Have you ever seen someone look for the ANY key back in the day ? ;) Great game Craig! VBM is just that a character bitmap. It provides lots of handy commands to make it easy to put things onto this character bitmap quickly :)
The whole RUN/STOP situation is VERY controversial I think :) I'm sure I've overheard someone tell another to type an asterisk, and when the other person says "huh?", it's clarified with "you know, shift+eight". re: Penultimate cartridge, I think it might be a bit of a joke aimed at the MegaCart for the VIC-20, which I believe was billed as the "ultimate" cartridge but is now unfortunately (mostly?) out of production. Artillery II looks great!
@@8_Bit RE: Penultimate Cart. Ha possibly, but I think it got that name, coz we knew if it was popular it would get a few updates. Hence the PU+ (which is in fact the PU++)
@csbruce regarding the Run/Stop controversy, if we want to be really anal: You are mixing physical keys with their provided functions. There is no physical "Run" key on the keyboard, only "Run/Stop", which provides two functions, depending if it is combined with another keypress or not. One would press down two physical keys, "Shift" and "Run/Stop" together, to invoke the function "Run". One simply cannot press Shift and Run, as the latter doesn't exist. :) (Thank you, I'll gather my SmartAss trophy on my way out)
Great video mate, The Vic20 was my first computer and i still have it, out of the 3 games you showed even though it was using the least memory I like the look of 2020. im just wondering why he stopped at 24k and never went to 32k ?
😂 help I am stilll trapped in 2020.. Seriously though.. I love seeing new games for old systems... I have recently begun my own quest to become a c64 hobby game dev
@@random_precision_software click through to my website, videos are coming later as it's easier for me to type than produce videos that RU-vid comment folks don't absolutely hate on :)
2:20 Always a bit of temporal cognitive dissonance whenever I see something comparatively modern, like ".com", being displayed in a format that I strongly associate with the early 80s. These are the kinds of games I dreamed about making, but since I never had the resources to learn anything more advanced than self-taught Basic, all my efforts ran at anywhere from 2 to 3 fps.
I still remember thinking it was bizarre putting URLs on the title screens of the 8-bit games I was making in the early 2000s. Especially on a Commodore PET game, potentially running on hardware from the 1970s.
@@NuntiusLegis Doesn't share an equivalency. Books are timeless because their function and familiarity span literally every day of everyone's life. 8-bit computers are limited to the 70s and early-to-mid-80s-after that, the only further association one makes is strictly nostalgia. So, with a nice span of several decades separating two technological characteristics, we can experience the weird phenomenon of the two converging unexpectedly. Honestly, I tend to consider even gobsmackingly comprehensive homebrew efforts like Cheesy Trials to be of the same nature: Effectively, there is no way a game like that could have existed contemporaneously with the Vic-20's actual lifespan, regardless of the fact that it's running on Vic-20 hardware fair and square. The ideas presented are too modern and nobody in the 80s ever made anything like it. Things like this are something I happen to adore.
@@Asterra2 If there have ever been timeless computer platforms, they are C64 and DOS. Original hardware is still available, C64-replicas are becoming legion, and emulators are available for all current platforms. I am sure a C64-program written now or 30 years ago will still run in an emulator on a then current platform 30 years in the future - and I can't imagine the same for a program that is written today for current Windows or Linux. I also see a value of early platforms beyond nostalgia. Games written for them have a specific aesthetic, as has music written for a specific (no matter how old) instrument. The limitations of older computers required certain ways of creativity that are hard to recreate on modern platforms. Also programming on early platforms has it's specific appeal because going low level is easier to experience - and yields bigger rewards because the performance is significantly better than with high level languages. I also find it easier to comprehend the timeless fundamentals of computing by learning to program the C64 than by just reading the theory in books - and I also find it more entertaining.
@@andreeopthof376 Did the video say anything about tape production? - If so, it escaped me because I skipped over the repetitive gameplay. I knew tape cassettes are still made for music storage, but was also surprised to see new, short data cassettes in what seems to be custom-hued plastic.
@@andreeopthof376 I don't question the sense behind it - I totally get it - I would also just like to know where such custom (blank) data cassettes can be obtained. ;-)
These "new" games do not bring anything new. It is the same that was, there are no new techniques, no new insightes and no new developments. What I think is a new game is that it is produced in a way that was not possible before, like using a bit-maped screen as a part of the background and another screen mode for the actual part of the screen where the game is happening. Maybe, everything is already invented, possibly nothing really new can be made.
Have you ever seen a game with a mouse running around a room collecting cheese to a five second time limit and where the room changes with each piece collected? You are right if course, all new games build on what comes before. This is a platform game, but it would be unfair to say it brings nothing new. I hope it is a fun and enjoyable game in any case even if you don't agree. BTW, simulated bitmaps on the Vic are not new - many games, including early ones used these techniques. Omega Race is a good example.
sucks try to tell the sheep when they wine 2020 sucked and i keep telling them becuase agenda 2021 2030 2021 will be worse and 2030 living hell is comming.
Sorry, but this looks like a commercial. If this is the result of free donations, I hope those won't become a major aspect of this otherwise fine channel. - The games are nicely presented, but the gameplay is unimaginative and repetitive. And concerning that development system: A new programming language to code for classical computers? Why should a retro enthusiast touch that? Even if it is close to Pascal as the name implies, I don't feel enthusiastic about it since Pascal was not a major language on the 8-bit platforms as BASIC or Assembler. The low-level aspects even of Commodore BASIC V2 is what appeals to me compared to more modern, abstract languages that do all they can to hide the machine from the programmer.
I think this is the 3rd or 4th video (out of 90?) where I've shown games that have been donated. I focus on what I genuinely find interesting, which always includes some information about the development process. As for unimaginative and repetitive gameplay, I'm curious what VIC-20 games meet your approval? Cross-development has been around since the beginning of game development, from the arcade games I grew up playing, to the Atari 2600, C64, Amiga and beyond. I enjoy programming directly on the C64 but have no problem with using other tools. Pascal wasn't a major 8-bit language, but the C64 itself ended up with 5 or 6 Pascal compilers that I'm aware of. I learned it in school and it's where I first encountered pointers in a high-level language. It feels plenty retro and target-appropriate to me.
I don't know many VIC-20 games since my first computer was a C64, but I find the VIC-20 version of PETSCII Robots way more interesting than the games in this video. I also don't have objections against cross-development for older systems, as long as it doesn't cut off the chance to understand how a computer works low-level, which is the major appeal of learning (better) retro programming for me.
PETSCII Robots is impressive, and benefits from being conceived as a disk-based (each level individually loaded) game for 32K+ computers, which David managed to squeeze into a VIC-20 with maximum RAM expansion. This is very similar to the expansive Realms of Quest V RPG for VIC-20 I reviewed here a couple years ago (also a donation) which also requires 32K+ RAM and a disk drive. They may be the two biggest VIC-20 games ever made, and can definitely provide a richer experience with all that disk space available to them. HEWCO's games are definitely more modest, being developed in a much shorter time, and with the limitation of being a single load. But they all stand up very well in the VIC-20 game library, and I genuinely enjoyed playing them.
I was not referring to the size of the games - PETSCII Robots looks more interesting with a glimpse at one single level already. Before the C64, I owned the game console Interton VC 4000 which was more limited technically than the VIC-20 or even the Atari 2600, but it had several fabulous games.
