Lyonsden Blog

Tag - K&A+

K&A Plus #17 Magazine Preview

Received my copy of K&A Plus #17 a few days ago. As always I paid a little extra for the cover disk which I think is well worth it. The disk comprises the 4th instalment of a series of games compilations called ‘Good Old 8-Bit Games’.

 

K&A Plus #17

K&A Plus #17 Front Cover.

 

The 81 page magazine has a lovely piece of artwork featuring Guybrush and Elaine from Monkey Island adorning the front cover. The relevance of this becomes immediately apparent when reading the very interesting ‘LucasArts Legacy’ article.

 

The CoverDisk

 

Good Old 8-Bit Games

Good Old 8-Bit Games #4.

 

The double-sided floppy disk (complete with printed colour jacket) is packed with C64 games to help while away those rainy Sunday afternoons.

 

Good Old 8-Bit Games

The Complete GO8BG Collection so far…

 

Once again the disk represents astounding value for money, packing in 11 great games across both sides. There’s a lovingly crafted custom loader for the disk with some terrific music playing in the background too.

 

Good Old 8-Bit Games

Custom Game Loader.

 

The highlight of the collection for me this time has to be Tiger Claw – a fun little Bruce Lee inspired beat ’em up.

 

Good Old 8-Bit Games

Tiger Claw

 

Here’s a full rundown of the games included on disk #4…

 

K&A Plus #17

Good Old 8-Bit Games #4 – Disk Contents.

Magazine Preview

 

Here’s a quick look at the contents page of K&A Plus #17.

 

K&A Plus #17

K&A Plus #17 Contents.

 

And here’s a little preview of some of the great stuff in this issue:

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This was a great read with loads of reviews and interesting articles to get stuck into. There’s enough here to keep any Commodore fan entertained for an entire afternoon. If you’ve never come across this magazine before you might want to take a look at some of my previews of previous issues here.

If you want to find out more about K&A Plus #17 or order yourself a copy, head on over to the Komoda & Amiga Plus website. The magazine is produced in Poland but they produce an English language version too. Shipping to the UK is pretty quick (COVID disruptions allowing of course).

K&A Plus #15 Magazine has arrived!

K&A Plus #15

Received my copy of K&A Plus #15 today. This was another magazine heavily impacted by the current Coronavirus situation but it was definitely worth the wait. As with the previous issue I paid an extra €5 for the cover disk. This issue came with a second compilation of 11 super C64 games; ‘Good Old 8-Bit Games #2’.

 

K&A Plus #15 Front Cover

K&A Plus #15 Front Cover.

 

I have to say I really love the fantasy artwork on cover of this issue. The  illustrated colour disk jacket is pretty awesome too, a really nice touch.

 

The CoverDisk

 

Good Old 8-Bit Games #2

Good Old 8-Bit Games #2.

Even better, an extra matching jacket was included for the previous ‘Good Old 8-Bit Games #1’ disk!

 

Good Old 8-Bit Games #1

Good Old 8-Bit Games #1 wearing it’s snazzy new jacket!

 

There’s some superb games on the cover disk. Highlights for me are PowerGlove, Bruce Lee – Return of Fury and PO Snake. Amazing value for money for just €5!

Here’s a full rundown of what’s included…

 

K&A Plus #15 disk contents.

Good Old 8-Bit Games #2 – Disk Contents.

 

Magazine Preview

 

There’s a big emphasis on gaming in this issue with game reviews galore. There’s reviews for every major Commodore system from the VIC 20, the C64 through to the Amiga and CD32. The reviews cover a mixture of old and modern games.

Of course there’s some other non-gaming stuff featured too. There’s a look at how to get a C64 emulator running on the Nintendo Wii, RayCasting on the VIC20 complete with (partial) program listings, news and lots more.

Here’s a quick look at the contents page of K&A Plus #15.

 

K&A Plus #15 Contents.

K&A Plus #15 Contents.

And here’s a little preview of some of the stuff in this issue:

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If you’ve never come across this magazine before you might want to take a look at some of my previews of previous issues here.

If you want to find out more about K&A Plus #15 or order yourself a copy, head on over to the Komoda & Amiga Plus website. The magazine is produced in Poland but they produce an English language version too. Shipping to the UK (before COVID-19 at least) only takes a few days.

 

A look at K&A Plus #14 Magazine

K&A Plus #14

Received my copy of K&A Plus #14 today. As is normal with these things I was pretty excited to see what articles it contained. My excitement level was further increased because this issue came with a cover mounted floppy disk. The disk was an optional extra €5 but I felt it was well worth it.

 

K&A Plus #14

K&A Plus #14 Front Cover

 

Here’s a look at the magazine cover and that snazzy cover disk in more detail.

 

K&A Plus #14

K&A Plus #14

 

The Cover Disk

The last issue (#13) had a cover mounted CD containing Amiga goodies. This time around there’s a 5.25″ floppy disk packed with programs for the good old Commodore 64.

It comes housed in a regular paper sleeve with a nice colour label emblazoned with ‘Good Old 8-Bit Games #1’. This suggests it may be the first of a series of disks… I certainly hope so! The disk is double sided and features 12 games spread across those two sides.

K&A Plus #14 Floppy Disk

There’s plenty to read through in this issue but here’s a few of my highlights. First off there was an interesting article looking at Desert Strike, one of my favourite Amiga games, and just how much it may have been based on real events. I also really enjoyed the article looking at Iron Lord, a mighty fine looking adventure game which released on both the C64 and Amiga.

K&A Plus #14

A BASIC program listing… in 2019!

Possibly the most memorable section though was the ‘BASIC 10 Liner Contest’. This was a competition held to find out who could write the best game using just 10 lines of BASIC code. The standout part of this article was the inclusion of some of the programs as ‘listings’ that you can type in! Now that really takes me back to the 80’s when I would spend hours typing in programs from Your Computer magazine, Commodore Horizons and several others. Good times indeed.

Magazine Preview

 

Here’s a quick look at the contents page of the magazine.

 

K&A Plus #14

K&A Plus #14 Contents

And here’s a little preview of some of the stuff in this issue:

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If you’ve never come across this magazine before you might want to take a look at some of my previews of previous issues here.

If you want to find out more about K&A Plus #14 or order yourself a copy, head on over to the Komoda & Amiga Plus website. The magazine is produced in Poland but they produce an English language version too. Shipping to the UK only takes a few days.

 

A look at K&A Plus #13 Magazine

K&A Plus #13

It’s been six months since the last edition of K&A Plus plopped through my letterbox. Consequently my excitement level was high when I received K&A Plus #13 last week. Doubly so as this is the first edition of the magazine to come with a coverdisk!

Here’s a look at the magazine cover and that snazzy coverdisk in more detail.

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The CoverCD

Coming in a ‘proper’ slim jewel case with glossy cover and inlay the quality of the CoverCD is superb. The CD itself is a standard printable CDR but it’s been laid out well and is also printed in colour. The CD is loaded with software, utilities, wallpapers, icons, games and more. There’s also PDF versions of every edition of K&A+ on there. This is a really great feature since issues #1 – #6 only exist digitally.  Other content includes several full PD games such as the rather splendid Barbarian+ and Trap Runner. Demos of brand new games such as Bridge Strike and Reshoot R are also ready and raring to go too. I’d definitely recommend getting the CoverCD – it’s only an extra €5 and totally worth it.

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Inside the magazine there’s tons of content for all Commodore machines from the VIC20 right through to MorphOS and emulators. One of my favourite game series, The Settlers, gets a terrific multi-page article devoted to the game. There’s also reviews of many new games such as Mancave, Farming Simulator, Bridge Strike, Trap Runner and loads more. On the more productive side there’s a review of a new PDF viewer for the Amiga and tutorials for WinUAE and the C64 Strike WiFi modem. Incidentally, RNOPDF, the PDF viewer reviewed in the magazine is also included on the CoverCD!

Magazine Preview

Here’s a little preview of some of the stuff in K&A Plus #13:

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If you’ve never come across this magazine before you might want to take a look at some of my previews of previous issues here.

If you want to find out more about K&A Plus #13 or order yourself a copy, head on over to the Komoda & Amiga Plus website. The magazine is produced in Poland but the English translation is great. Shipping to the UK only takes a few days.

 

K&A Plus Issue 12

K&A Plus Issue 12

K&A Plus magazine is only published twice a year but is always packed with great content and issue 12 is no exception. Weighing in at 81 pages there’s plenty of content to get stuck into over the coming weeks.

 

K&A plus

What a great cover!

 

Although the magazine supports all Commodore machines (even MorphOS and AROS systems) the bulk of the magazine is devoted to the good old C64 and original Amiga systems and that suits me just fine.

 

K&A Plus Issue 12

Here’s a look at the contents page showing the breadth of articles

 

The magazine is packed with interesting articles and reviews of new games for both the C64 and Amiga computers.

 

K&A Plus Issue 12

The rise and fall of Psygnosis

 

As a scouser, one article that immediately caught my eye was ‘The rise and fall of Psygnosis’. This deals with how the company sprang into existence and what they got up to before being engulfed by Sony and ultimately, closing. There’s even some photos inside their old Liverpool offices where they used to work.

 

K&A Plus Issue 12

Expedition to the world of Dune

 

Another fascinating article is ‘Expedition to the world of Dune’ which is a in depth look at the transition from book, to movie and ultimately the games.

 

K&A Plus Issue 12

Gunship 2000

 

As a big Microprose simulation fan the article about Gunship 2000 for the Amiga also warranted my immediate attention.

If you want to find out more, or order yourself a copy, head on over to the Komoda & Amiga Plus website. The magazine is produced in Poland (but the English is great) and shipping to the UK only takes a few days.

 

Fire Breath, Little Knight Arthur & Valkyrie Trilogy – Mini Reviews

Fire Breath, Little Knight Arthur & Valkyrie Trilogy

This is a quick look at Fire Breath, Little Knight Arthur & Valkyrie Trilogy published by K&A+ Magazine for the Commodore 64. These are basically volumes #2 and #3 of a series. Volume #1 was ‘Single Button Games‘. All the games feature attractive loading screens and great music to entertain you whilst they (turbo)load.

 

Fire Breath

 

Fire Breath, Little Knight Arthur & Valkyrie Trilogy

Fire Breath

 

This is a charming little flip-screen platforming game where you control a fire breathing slug, making your way out of an underground warren of tunnels. You must avoid contact with any of the critters you meet along the way, preferably roasting them with your fiery breath and collecting points for doing so. There are power-ups to collect and rooms full of bonus items to discover. Kill all of the critters in each location to move onto the next. I found this to be a very relaxing and enjoyable little game.

 

Fire Breath, Little Knight Arthur & Valkyrie Trilogy

Fire Breath

 

Update: Since writing this I discovered the author’s website, ctrl-alt.dev.nl which provides a good history of how Fire Breath came into existence. Well worth a read.

Little Knight Arthur

 

Fire Breath, Little Knight Arthur & Valkyrie Trilogy

Little Knight Arthur

 

Little Knight Arthur appears to be a Monty Mole / Jet Set Willy style of platform game where you avoid monsters on your way to the exit. I say “appears” because I haven’t managed to get beyond the first screen yet. Either I really suck at this game or it is just brutally difficult. Or maybe both? Your character is quite a chunky little guy and there is virtually no room for error when trying to get past the monsters on the screen – their movement patterns seem to be random too so it’s really difficult to pick the correct moment to jump. The art style is great, very reminiscent of similar games from the period and the music playing throughout is pleasant enough but I just found the game frustratingly hard and gave up after a dozen or so attempts. When I’m feeling like a challenge I will definitely go back to this and try to reach the second screen!!!

 

Fire Breath, Little Knight Arthur & Valkyrie Trilogy

Little Knight Arthur

 

Valkyrie Trilogy

 

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There are 3 games included here. Side A contains ‘Night of the Valkyrie’ and ‘Valkyrie 3 – The Night Witch’. Night of the Valkyrie is a vertically scrolling WWII game where your Valkyrie character has to kill waves of Nazis as you progress up each level before facing off against a boss at the end. Your character can move and shoot in all directions and thus play feels very similar to Commando – definitely a compliment!

 

Valkyrie 3 is again a vertically scrolling shooter but this time instead of playing the Valkyrie character on foot you are in a WWII biplane flying over the landscape similar to 1942. This was a refreshing change after the other two games following a similar style and I really enjoyed playing it.

 

Side B contains ‘Valkyrie 2 – The Templar’. I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that this game actually features an intro sequence that loads as a separate entity before the main game. It features music, some really great character graphics and explains the plot of the game. Once this is over the main game loads. I liked the fact that this game offered me the choice to play with either music, sound FX or silence on the title screen. This is another vertically scrolling ‘kill all Nazi’s’ affair where you play the Valkyrie character on foot. This time however, you start out unarmed and must quickly find a weapon in order to progress.

 

 

"Fire

Password Protected End Sequence

 

When you complete each section of the trilogy you get a password and then an ending sequence will load off the tape. I have to confess this confused me initially as I was expecting the next program on side A to be Valkyrie 3. When the password prompt appeared I just assumed the game itself was password protected. So, if you want to skip ahead to Valkyrie 3 you will need to load the end sequence for Night of the Valkyrie and then reset your C64 and continue the loading process. Thanks to Lukasz for clearing that bit of confusion up for me!

 

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Inside the inlay cover there is space provided for you to note tape counter numbers down for each game. This is actually pretty essential for this title. Here are the counter numbers I recorded on my system. Not sure if they’ll be the same for you (I use a Binatone Data Recorder).

Side A
Night of the Valkyrie
Game: 000
End: 055

Valkyrie 3: The Night Witch
Game: 097
End: 143

Side B
Valkyrie 2: The Templar
Intro: 000
Game: 049
End: 097

 

Worth a buy?

 

I’d definitely recommend Valkyrie Trilogy if you’re a fan of vertical shooters such as Commando – I’ve certainly had a lot of fun with it. Likewise Fire Breath was also very enjoyable but Little Knight Arthur just frustrated me due to it’s high difficulty. (I should point out that I’m not very patient these days!). Had these two not been bundled together I would recommend avoiding the latter but the inclusion of Fire Breath makes it a worthy purchase.

If you would like to find out more or get your own copies of the games then head on over to the K&A+ website. At the time of writing they don’t seem to be advertising them but I’m sure they’ll be added to the website soon enough.

K&A Plus Issue 11

K&A Plus Issue 11

This magazine is only published a couple of times a year but is always packed with great content and K&A Plus Issue 11 is no exception. This is probably the biggest magazine both in terms of thickness and content there is for the Commodore range of machines in 2018, packing in a whopping 81 pages and none of them are filled by adverts!

 

K&A Plus Issue 11

Single Button Games & Exploding Fish Reviews

 

This issue has a fairly even split of content between the Commodore 64 and Amiga computers which is fantastic for me as I actively support both formats. There’s news, reviews, tutorials and retrospective articles covering both machines and even some stuff for the Vic 20 and the post Amiga MorphOS and AROS systems.

 

K&A Plus Issue 11

Mini reviews of C64 Racing Games.

 

The star of the whole issue for me is the included (if you pay a little extra for it) 5.25″ Coverdisk featuring a brand new game for the Commodore 64 – ‘Tower of Rubble’. This is the first 5.25″ Coverdisk I have seen since Commodore Disk User ceased publication back in 1991.

 

K&A Plus Issue 11

Tower of Rubble Coverdisk

 

There’s loads of content, far too much to list but some of the highlights for me are: A look into the Spy vs Spy franchise, H. R. Giger’s Dark Seed, reviews of ‘Retro Radio Stations’, an article about the pro’s and cons of modifying/upgrading retro machines and an ‘Amiga in your pocket’ tutorial showing you step by step how to convert a windows tablet into a portable Amiga!!!

 

K&A Plus Issue 11

A look at Dark Seed on the Amiga

 

If you want to find out more, or order yourself a copy, head on over to the Komoda & Amiga Plus website. The magazine is produced in Poland and shipping to the UK only takes a few days.

 

Single Button Games for C64 – Mini Reviews

C64 Single Button Games

Here’s a quick look at the new C64 ‘Single Button Games’ collection from K&A Plus including screenshots of each of the 5 games on the cassette.

I always enjoy getting packages in the post from foreign countries, seeing the strange looking stamps on them and of course trying to remember exactly what I’ve ordered from where to guess what may be inside! You know how it is with a lot of retro stuff – often it can be weeks or even months after you place an order before it  arrives.

Anyway, this time it was ‘Single Button Games’ from K&A Plus Magazine in Poland. As the name suggests this is a collection of games that you can play by only using your joystick fire button.

 

Single Button Games

The Cassette Case

 

Single Button Games

The Complete Package – includes some cool little stickers!

 

Amazingly there are 5 little games packed onto this cassette; 2 on side A and 3 more on side B. All of them utilise a turbo loader so you won’t have to wait too long for them to load. Even so,  they all feature loading music and loading screens to entertain you whilst you wait for the games to load – just like being back in the 80’s!.

 

Single Button Games

The Inlay Card

 

Taking a Look at the Single Button Games

As mentioned already there are five games included – let’s insert the tape and take a brief look at them all, in the order in which they appear on the cassette.

Single Button Games

Binatone Data Recorder with the Single Button Game Collection Inserted – Ready to Play!

 

SIDE A

Captain Cloudberry (Tape Counter – 000)

You control a small Bi-Plane and have to destroy weather balloons found around the screen whilst avoiding hitting the frozen clouds. The fact you can only use a single button press to control the plane ensures that this is nowhere near as easy at it sounds! Clicking the fire button causes the planes direction of flight to rotate 45′. Each subsequent press rotates it another 45′ until you have come full circle. Just imagine trying to play ‘Snake’ with just a single button to rotate the snakes head and you’ll get the idea.

 

 Single Button Games

Captain Cloudberry Loading Screen

 

Single Button Games

Captain Cloudberry Title Screen

 

Single Button Games

Captain Cloudberry Game Screen

Pixel City Skater (Tape Counter – 057)

This is a screen flipping ‘endless runner’ where you have to perform skateboard jumps over various obstacles to progress as far as you can before you inevitably collide with something and fall off.

 

Single Button Games

Pixel City Skater – Loading Screen

 

Single Button Games

Pixel City Skater – Game Screen

 

Side B

Fire To Jump (Tape Counter – 000)

This is very similar to the previous Pixel City Skater game but features very minimalist graphics with the same principal of jumping over objects in a screen flipping ‘runner’ style game.

 

Single Button Games

Fire to Jump – Loading Screen

 

Single Button Games

Fire to Jump – Game Screen

 

Flappy Bird (Tape Counter – 059)

This game surely needs no introduction? It’s a faithful reproduction of the frustratingly addictive game that took the mobile world by storm a few years ago. This version is a perfect recreation of the game right down to the same maddeningly difficult gameplay!

 

Single Button Games

Flappy Bird – Loading Screen

 

Single Button Games

Flappy Bird – Game Over Screen – Expect to see this within seconds of loading the game!

 

Flapper (Tape Counter – 102)

The final game in the collection should really be called ‘Chopper’ as it sees you trying to control a small helicopter. You have to navigate it through a side scrolling landscape very reminiscent of the old ‘Scramble’ arcade game. The faster you press the button the faster the rotor blades spin and the more lift you get. It plays a little bit like Flappy Bird but is easier to control.

 

Single Button Games

Flapper – Game Screen

 

And that’s it – a really great little collection of games that I’m very happy to add to my C64 collection. I enjoyed all 5 games but if I had to pick a favourite it would be Captain Cloudberry which has that ‘just one more go’ quality in spades. It’s presentation is top notch too and it has a delightfully quirky little rendition of ‘Lady Madonna’ as its’ theme music which I can’t get out of my head!

 

If you would like to get hold of your own copy then you should head right on over to the K&A Plus website here. They also produce a terrific magazine that covers both the C64 and Amiga computers which is well worth taking a look at whilst you are there.

 

A Closer look at the Cassette

Just to finish I thought I’d show a few close-ups of the cover and the cassette itself which has been really well produced.

 

Single Button Games

C64 Single Button Games Cassette Case

 

Single Button Games

Side ‘A’

 

Single Button Games

Side ‘B’