Another retro title has landed on the Commodore 64 scene as the The New Dimension (TND) website hosts the exclusive debut of Dantalion, a dark fantasy platform puzzler by Eleanor Burns. The game was originally developed alongside another title for a special Scene World magazine cover tape. Because that physical tape release has encountered delays and has not yet made its way to the public, the development team received official clearance to bypass the wait and launch the digital files directly online via TND.
Here's the latest. "The first game comes by the form of Dantalion, a flip screen platforming puzzler created by Eleanor Burns using the SEUCK Sideways. It also features a lot of amazing in game enhancements. You play as a hero Dantalion, who witnessed a horrific fate of his mother, which was caused by the evil monster, Bael. Dantalion enters the Academy of Dark Arts in order to try and learn and upskill so that he can face his nightmare and defeat Bael for good. The only thing that steps in your way are his evil monsters and other obstacles. Prepare for a magical adventure."
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Eleanor always does crazy stuff with the SEUCK engine, and this looks fabulous!
ReplyDeleteThank you for covering this. :) Strictly speaking, this was made using standard vertical SEUCK, not that it makes any difference except to the coder (Sideways SEUCK has a glitched byte in the map code that likes to change on a whim, so can be a bit of a pain doing very large flip-screen games in).
ReplyDeleteGood game , I've played very far into the game, so far two bugs in the game
ReplyDeleteWould be interested to hear what those bugs are, as I'm currently in patching mode (if it's getting trapped in blocks when sometimes respawning, that will be imminently fixed, but interested to hear of any other issues).
DeleteAlso, nice music!
ReplyDeleteI feel like an arse, because I'm divided—I love the music, it's really good, but it feels mismatched for the games' theme and ambience. Someone mentioned casually in passing a few days ago in a YouTube comment for some retro game how this was a common thing in 8 bit computer games in the 80's, and I must admit, they weren't that far off. I think something more akin to Ron Hubbard's stylistic choices for Escape From Singe's Castle, or making the compositions more, say, castlevanish, would have suited this way better and would have done wonders to help setting a more mysterious, ominous mood. Like, say, Gryzor87's work for Locomalito's L'Abbaye Des Morts. Just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteInteresting game, especially when considering, that it was made with S.E.U.C.K! I like, that it's very different from the most other games, that were made with this engine. The gfx are nice and the music too. I also really like the game's mechanics, the ability to collect and use items, and so on.
ReplyDeleteIf I had one criticism, it would be the player character's jumping behavior. It feels a bit off and looks somewhat peculiar, compared to many other jump and run games on the C64. I guess, the problem here could be the S.E.U.C.K. engine, because normally, it was designed for shooters, which don't involve things like jumping mechanics. But perhaps it’s something that could still be tweaked a little.
All in all, however, it’s a great game, especially considering the limitations of the S.E.U.C.K. engine. It’s fascinating to see, what can be squeezed out of it these days, by people who really know their way around the engine. This game is a prime example of that.