Games you may not have known about on the Commodore 64

Thunderground (2021, Arlasoft)

I have to start the list with a game that is very special to me, which Nick Sherman created specifically at my request. This game has been a favorite of mine since childhood, among many other simple but great games on the Atari 2600 platform. I like it because it is simple but fast-paced, which makes it fun to play over and over again. Shooting increasingly tricky enemies in later levels requires even more strategy and skill.

Closer and closer to the enemy targets, vicious Vec- tor nuclear bases which you must destroy at all costs.

My request stemmed from the fact that I had been searching for a similar game on Commodore 64 for a long time without success, and Nick had already ported many great Atari 2600 games to this platform with excellent results. At the time, he was developing the famous Galaga game, so I am especially grateful that he took the time to do this as well.

The game is a mix of the famous Dig Dug and Battle City games where six nuclear bases at the top of the screen are guarded by two “Core Ranger” tanks. The white Sentry tanks only go through existing tunnels and will only shoot at you if there is space between you and them. The blue Digger tanks create their own tunnels to chase you. There is also a Sentry tank at the bottom of the screen that slowly moves toward your reserve tanks. If this tank reaches your reserves before you destroy all six bases, you lose a life.

There are enemy supplies buried in random areas that if you get them will get you bonus points. Later levels have the bases only appear one at a time or have no dirt between you and the enemy tanks, leaving them to pursue you from the start.

If you are also a big fan of Atari 2600 games, then you should try Nick’s other game versions, which he has compiled into a collection called Arlasoft Collection.

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Prince of Persia (2011, Mr. SID)

I first encountered this platform game, originally designed for Apple II computers, on a PC, which at the time was still considered a very special machine alongside the Commodore 64 computers used in schools. The game struck me as impressive, mainly due to its clean graphics and sophisticated player animations. I never expected that the Commodore 64 hardware would be capable of running such a game.

The well known game Prince of Persia (the follow up to Karateka, 1984) by Jordan Mechner was converted for the C64 by Andreas Varga (aka Mr. SID) and published on 16 October 2011. It is based on the original Apple II code from 1989. Same as with the forerunner, the exact animation of the characters movement catches the eye, but this was the first time that human movements were displayed rather realistically with the help of rotoscoping. This game runs on a real C64/128 only with the help of the EasyFlash cartridge.

Due to the game’s enormous success, almost everyone has encountered it on some computer or video game platform.

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Super Mario Bros 64 (2019, ZeroPaige)

To the surprise of Commodore 64 owners, it was finally released when most people had already resigned themselves to the fact that Giana Sisters was the only real Super Mario game they could enjoy on this platform. I also loved that game, but Wonderboy was always much more appealing to me.

This is a Commodore 64 port of the 1985 game SUPER MARIO BROS. for the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System. It contains the original version that was released in Japan and United States, as well as the European version. It also detects and supports a handful of turbo functionalities, and has 2 SID support. 

Since the NES-processor is clocked (roughly 70%) faster than a stock C64 there can be slowdowns during gameplay. A pixel indicates this on the time-watch graphics in the status bar. 

This port will try to detect and use any kind of turbo functionality, such as: 

• Commodore 128 (2 MHz in the border) 
• C64 DTV 
• Schnedler Systems Turbo Master CPU (untested) 
• Swisscomp Turbo Processor (untested) 
• Rossmoeller Flash 8 (untested) 
• CMD SuperCPU Accelerator (untested) 
• Icomp Turbo Chameleon 64

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Sonic C64 (2021, Mr. SID)

The famous platform game for SEGA videogame consoles, which, with a small expansion, has been available for everyone to try on the Commodore 64 for several years now because of its 30th anniversary.

It is 30th anniversary since the game Sonic the Hedgehog is released by Sega Japan in 1991.

This is the first game that has exclusively been designed for the REU, to make a fast and smooth full-screen scrolling version of Sonic with little compromises.
This game is a direct port of the SEGA Master System 8-Bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog, with about 64 KB of code hand-translated from the Z80 to the 6502 architecture.

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