Anthony's Little Online Archive

These side-scolling shoot-em-up games were made on Jon Wells updated version of the C64 "Shoot Em Up Construction Kit" by Sensible Software, and have been debugged and enhanced by C64 programmers Richard Bayliss and Martin Piper. The enhanced versions can be downloaded at Richard Bayliss' C64 freeware site The New Dimension, and the original versions of the games can be found at The Seuck Vault (Andrew Fisher's tribute site, and an excellent place to download original C64 and Amiga SEUCK games, and Sideways SEUCK games for free). A C64 emulator such as CCS64 or VICE is necessary to play these games.

The games are as follows (from top left to bottom right) ...

"Legion of the Damned" - A fantasy hack and slash-em-up, based heavily on a certain famous Sega arcade game that I wasn't happy with the C64 version of ...

"Legion of the Damned 2" - A sequel to the above, set in a modern urban slum, with armies of vampire thugs and leotard-clad, whip-wielding dominatrices to slaughter. Heavily based on "Double Dragon", and the less said about the C64 conversion of that, the better ...

"The Push" - A First World War variant on classic arcade run-and-gun games such as "Front Line", "Commando", and "MERCS".

"Baphomet" - Loosely inspired by "Altered Beast" and heavily inspired by the paintings of H R Giger. Traverse a nightmarish biomechanical landscape, increase your powers, and beard the evil demon Baphomet in its lair, if you can survive encounters with its many twisted minions.

Not to beat around the bush, Space Invaders with bells and whistles ... though it also includes elements from some of my other all-time arcade favourites such as R-Type (the charge-up plasma beam), Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (the armour system), and just about any shoot-em-up featuring a duel with a dirty great mothership.

This game is set in a world that was once sophisticated and high-tech, but a centuries-old war of attrition has reduced it to a wasteland populated by mutated lifeforms resembling mythical creatures (none of whom intend to make friends with you). Even your "ship" resembles a Victorian-style fairy, but don't let that fool you into thinking she doesn't know how to fling a plasma bolt. The title of this game, incidentally, was pinched from an old Peter Hammill song. Since I'm not anticipating any profits, I'm fairly confident he won't mind...

My first Visual Basic game, loosely based on "Quatermass and the Pit". Help Dizzy the egg to exorcise an ancient curse.

This game introduces an overland map: a concept I borrowed from classic RPGs such as "Phantasy Star", but also with a hint of Dizzy arcade games such as "Kwik Snax" and "Fast Food", hence the music. Set in Dizzy's homeland, this private-eye style game sees the return of the Yellow God statue from the first Dizzy game, not to mention the return of some really quite dreadful poetry ...

This is set between Dizzy II and III in the official series, and is (very loosely) inspired by the first season of the ABC series "Lost". Introduces new controls, cut-scenes, and alcohol, not that Dizzy hasn't fallen off the wagon before. Anyone remember that bottle of whisky?