New Amiga games in 2021

 It's 2021, and it seems I have gone back 30 years! There are so many new release games on Amiga and Commodore 64 in the past few years and I wanted to highlight some of these new games.

It is wonderful to see the high quality of many of the releases, and especially the trouble the authors have gone to to package them in professional boxes. 

It feels great to be able to support new Amiga game development in 2021. I hope you have also been able to do this, even if you just buy the digital download versions of the games to enjoy on Amiga emulation or on the real hardware. Please try out some of the games here if you haven't already.

In my case, I really wanted the game boxes too. I know that game authors don't make a lot of money selling digital versions of their games, but they DO make more money when the box up the games and add another margin on top. 

For me, it just makes sense to buy these full "collector's edition" games, as I like to think I am supporting the developers even more. If nothing else, if gives me that "new Amiga game" feel I used to get 30 years ago when buying games for the Amiga at the peak of its popularity. It never gets old!

For those who think that the Amiga didn't get much in the way of new games since Commodore went under in 1994, you would be surprised how many games have been released since then! 

In the late 1990's and early 2000's (with the main remaining commercial game developers like Team 17, Bitmap Brothers, Vulcan) having left the Amiga market) we saw new games released in smaller numbers that explored the full speed of accelerated 060 Classic Amigas, RTG graphics, and more.

Games like Payback, Virtual GP, Napalm, T-Zero, Foundation, Tales from Heaven, Nightlong, Desert Racing of BarDos and others continued the ongoing new games on the Classic Amiga, now with much higher system requirements.

We also saw ports of Quake, Doom, Heretic, Wolfenstein 3D, Abuse, and many other games thought previously too complex to run on Amiga - only Amiga makes it possible :-)

The new games released moved on to PowerPC based Amigas and the Next Generation AmigaOne systems using PowerPC and AmigaOS 4, MorphOS and AROS. I have covered most of these games in this very blog over the past 10 years,

Then we had the whole Retro computing era come in during the mid 2010's and with the stagnation of development on AmigaOS 4.1 and the expense of these new PowerPC systems, people moved back to the Classic Amiga platform again, either with old hardware, FPGA solutions like MIST/Minimig or via emulation on modern Windows, Mac, Raspberry Pi or Linux systems. 

We then started to see a steady increase in new games for the Amiga again, with some new commercial game publishers emerging to take advantage of the increased interest in Retro platforms like the Amiga.

Thanks to the modern amazing new Classic Amiga accelerators like the Vampire 500/600/1200, we can also now play ports of PC games on our Classic Amigas, like Diablo, Starcraft, Rise of the Triad, Tyrian, Quake 2, and many more:

There really is a lot of new and old gaming to be done on the Amiga in 2021! If you have not been in the Amiga scene in the last few years and have just come back after a long time away - there is a lot to catch up on and enjoy!

Today I want to focus on new Amiga specific games in 2021. 

The first title to look at is the 2021 released Amiga game called Inviyya, from Tigerskunk, available from Poly Play in boxed form and also via digital on itch.io. 

Inviyya is a shoot em up genre game that has been released for ECS/AGA Amigas, including a Amiga CD32 CD version. It is this version that I bought. You can buy the disk boxed version or download versions also.

Here is a closer look at the impressive game box:

Inside I got a Amiga CD32 game sleeve, manual and CD32 bootable CD, a poster, ship patch for your jacket, stickers, story book and the games on MicroSD card in ADF and CD32 ISO for use with emulators or if you want to write out the floppy disk version for use on a real Amiga.

The graphics and the game itself are stunning, with 6 levels to shoot your way through, and well worth a look.

The quality of the graphics and sound in this game are first class. It is a tough shoot em up, but Inviyya is a lot of fun to play, and very professionally presented.

Next up is the recently released Turbo Tomato, available in boxed form from Bitmap Soft.

Inside the box, you get a Amiga floppy disk (labelled), some stickers, manual and a poster.

This is a quirky game, with an interesting gameplay mechanic that makes it stand out from the usual games in this genre. It is also intended for OCS/ECS Amiga systems.

A nice feature of Turbo Tomato is the level codes as you progress, so as long as you make a note of them as you go, you can always resume where you got up to, without having to start from the beginning.

The presentation of the game is polished and runs great.

The game itself involves collecting and firing bombs with timers that run down to zero quickly (when they explode) at enemies on screen. New enemies are introduced as you progress through the game.

I will admit I found this game to be a lot of fun, and very easy to get into and play.

Once you kill all the enemies, you can go to the exits that appear to move on to the next level.

As you progress through the game, as mentioned, you get the level codes to continue from that point.

The levels naturally get more difficult as you go, with obstacles on the levels to make progress more difficult, and the variety of enemies also presenting quite a fun challenge.

Watch out for the radiation, as it quickly saps your life if you stay close to it for too long.

The sure sign of a good game is when you get hooked on it and end up playing it for far longer than you had planned. Turbo Tomato is definitely an addictive game.

I tackled the Potty Shed but failed - I'll have to have another go later on!

You also get a unique code for your high score to add it to a website to show off your skills at Turbo Tomato! This is a fun game and recommended!

I have touched briefly on the next new 2021 Amiga game release in a previous blog post, but it is worth including again together with the other new releases. 

This next game is called Turbo Sprint for AGA Amigas (1200/4000/CD32), and is available for purchase via itch.io from the author. 

Unfortunately this limited release game box I purchased here is no longer available, but you can still buy the download version of the game.

Inside the box you get the Amiga floppy disk (labelled), CD32 version, and a cool F1 car shaped USB drive.

It is of course based on the classic arcade game called Super Sprint, and looks almost identical to it in gameplay also. As Super Sprint was never released on the Amigas back in the day, it is great in 2021 to finally have it!

Turbo Sprint has all the usual tracks you expect from Super Sprint:

As a simple racing game, the hook was competing against the other drivers, with shortcuts, oil slicks and tornados to make life more difficult.

Presentation is slick and runs well on my Amiga 1200. 

As I loved the original Super Sprint and the many different variants released on the Amiga like Badlands, Offroad Racer, Indy Heat, Supercars 1/2, Nitro and others too, it is easy for me to recommend this game!

The next new Amiga game to look at is Smarty and the Nasty Gluttons, also available at Bitmap Soft. This is a typical platform style game for OCS/ECS Amigas, but still an original game.

Inside the box, you get a badge, manual and Amiga floppy disk (labelled). Note that this game does not include any digital download version. You have to buy the floppy disk version to get it. This was a little frustrating as I had to wait for the physical game box to arrive before I could play it, but then again, this is how it always used to be back in the day right?

Firing up the game you get an impressive graphics platform game.

It is clear someone spent a lot of time on the graphics for this game to make it sing, and it shows.

From the beginning of the game, it is clear that this games graphics sparkle and draw you in.

With this platform game, you need to keep shooting and pushing dazed enemies you have shot so they land on top of another enemy to produce one of 5 keys you need to complete the level.

The green arrows indicate where you can fall through the level and land back at the top again. This is important to use when choosing when and where to push an dazed enemy to land on another one to get another key:

With some weapon upgrades you can unlock some serious bonuses when shooting enemies too!

This game is a lot of fun and does require  thinking to complete each level, which makes it quite an interesting challenge! 

Before you know it, you are dead, it is dream over and have to try again!

Next up is the new Amiga release Tiny Little Slug, released through APC&TCP.

This comes with a floppy disk and CD with the game files on it for hard disk installation or to rewrite the ADF file to floppy disk.

Another OCS Amiga game, Tiny Little Slug is a platform game with a twist. 

The slug you control in this game can only travel around the edges of the screen using the walls, and drop onto other levels when on top of them,

Actually, this game is a lot harder than it looks, and the graphics look great!

As the game progresses, the levels get ever more difficult to navigate.

If platform games are not your thing, next up on the new release Amiga games in 2021 is the Slayers of High Toro, released by Bitmap Soft.

Inside the box you get a badge, stickers, manual, poster and Amiga floppy disk (labelled):

This game is definitely a full-on strategy, turn based game with all the trimmings. You definitely need to read the manual to play this game as there is a lot to it.

Not reading the manual to start with I selected the first game called Mixed, and instantly regretted it!

Basically you are pitted against a number of other armies, all trying to conquer the whole map. For this game, my castles are in light green, and I need to turn all the colours and castles on the map to my colour in order to win.

When you click on your castles, some have available men to deploy outside to take over lands, others are collecting various attributes you need to progress through the game.

I moved my 10 men to the next square, and then need to end my turn:

That done, the computer does the moves for the other armies on the map:

Things are improving, with more resources now available to me, and I can start to spread my armies out to conquer more land:

You can only move your armies one square beyond your current ring of controlled lands.

There is a lot to this game, and I admit I don't fully understand all the various logics at play. It is interesting though, and worth continuing to try to learn how to play the game to get further into it.

As you can see, my area of control is increasing each turn as I make more progress and defeat other armies controlling various parts of the map:

At this point I thought I was doing really well:

Suddenly though, all my armies died simultaneously (no idea why!) on turn 10.

There is a learning curve to the game, but it is worth trying a few times to get the hang of it.

Heading back to more familiar territory, the next new game release for AGA Amiga systems is a game called Wiz, written by Mutation Software. 

I missed out on the limited collectors edition large game box, and have to make do with the small one instead, which comes with two floppy disks:

Wiz is a platform game, but the main sprite and world is quite large in comparison to the usual platform game. It is very pretty to look at.

You are searching for a magic lantern:

As the game opens I realise the main Wiz game character sprite is huge!

As you travel through the level, you can collect additional potions to unlock other spells, which can be selected by pulling down on the joystick to toggle between them.

The heal potion is especially useful as I seem to have a natural attraction to hitting enemies in this game...

I didn't give up though, and as I started to get used to the slightly strange platform orientation, which are huge, I found this to be an enjoyable game:

I still get killed quite often though, and ended up reliving the first level many times before I managed to finish it!

Eventually though, I made it!

As you move into later levels you also get to ride a masked animal (Dragon?) that helps you quickly navigate enemies on the level:

The animal (whatever it is!) certainly makes life a lot easier.

I found Wiz to be an enjoyable game and very pretty indeed.

I could go on forever, as there are just so many new games out there to try right now for the Amiga. Here are some more I have bought in the last few years to consider too:

Freds Journey (OCS/ECS), a platformer from RetroGuru:

Skill Grid (AGA/CD32) from Retream, a puzzle game published by RGCD:

Reshoot R (AGA/CD32), a shoot em up available on the author's website:

Trap Runner (OCS/ECS), a platform game by Retroguru:

Worthy (CDTV/CD32/OCS/ECS), a stunning platform game by Pixelglass:

Bridge Strike (OCS/ECS) Shoot em up, and Pong 4K (CD32), a pong variant with a twist:

Power Glove Reloaded (OCS/ECS/CDTV), a C64 conversion platform game published by RGCD:

Zerosphere (CD32), a platform game with a novel blurred playscape that comes into focus for short periods, published by Poly Play:

Black Dawn Rebirth (OCS/ECS), a strategy Dungeon Master/Hired Guns style game, published by Doublesided Games:

Tales of Gorluth (OCS/ECS) and the follow up Heroes of Gorluth (CD32/OCS/ECS), Adventure game published by AmiWorx:

Special mention to Rotator, Retrowars IV, Project Lila, Tanks Furry, and plenty of other new Amiga games I have no doubt missed in preparing this blog post!

Please buy and try out some of the many many new games available for the Amiga, and help support these amazing game developers that keep new software coming for my favourite platform!

I look forward to the upcoming new Amiga titles yet to come - it is an exciting time to own an Amiga in 2021!