A Lazy Saturday Sword of Fargoal Session on the VIC 20

 Well of course I acquired the greatest Commodore VIC 20 game of all time - Sword of Fargoal - not long after committing to the system. If the reader of this blog looks back to 2007 they will spot my previous pathetic attempts at beating this game on the Commodore 64 and iPhone versions. The VIC 20 version is the original and is even less forgiving than any since. No saves, no checkpoints, no mercy. 

It's a top down, procedurally generated single player dungeon crawler with the map only revealed through exploration. The player has to descend anywhere from 15 to 20 levels deep, grab the titular Sword of Fargoal, and then escape back up through all newly generated and hidden levels before a timer expires. There is no fighting one's way out as any contact with a monster instantly teleports the sword back to a new hiding place on a new level 15-20 somewhere, and there is not enough time to backtrack once that first timer goes off. The timer does not reset.

A few attempts last fall were very educational for the descent, and I developed a strategy to reach the sword with a full compliment of potions and spells in my inventory. I simply did not use them and choose to heal up slowly in real time, with long periods being AFK while that went on. In one session, I went back and forth between waiting to heal by standing still in Fargoal and grinding runes in Elden Ring on my PS5.

This strategy allowed me to reach the sword during my previous three playthroughs. Once grabbed, the player has either 2000 turns or 30 minutes to get the hell out and win. As previously stated, any contact with a monster means the sword is lost and rehidden, so I realized later that some potions, spells, and items one collects on the way down are not necessarily useful on the return trip. My next playthrough, I told my self, I would draw a distinction between the two (combat vs. non-combat) and only save the ones that will help me avoid contact on the way out.

For the descent, I would use most of the healing and regeneration potions, only saving a few for the way out in case I get damaged by traps. I wonder if trap damage also causes sword loss? That’s a frightening thought. 

For the return trip, I will attempt to save the Invisibility spell for obvious reasons; Shield to maybe prevent damage from traps, and Light, which works only for the level the player is on. A thought I had was to, once I get to level 14, grind levels by going back up to 13, resetting it with monsters and treasures in hopes of having around a dozen light spells, but that could take hours and a shitload of luck. 

12:32 PM: Level 1 - I appear in the maze and first encounter a mercenary, which takes my health to 3. I win, wait on the spot where I defeated him, and heal. I found the temple shortly after beating the second mercenary. I start exploring the level, gathering gold to take back to the temple for experience, and find a drift spell before remembering my rule to save the "treasure or trap" spots for last. That's right, there are spaces one steps on that have a fifty-fifty chance at being either a treasure (like a spell) or a trap, which range from explosions to cave-ins to pits. A drift spell can be used quickly if a pit trap activates to avoid damage. Other Level 1 enemies included an ogre and a werebear.

I get enough gold to level up my character to level 2, thankfully more than doubling my hit points to 28. I also find a map to the level and a teleport spell. Oddly enough, no traps. On to Level 2.

12:47 PM: Level 2 - I start in a big open room and am besieged by an elven ranger and a weak hobgoblin, defeating them easy. A barbarian does some damage before I find the temple on that level and pause to heal. The gold I had picked up so far was enough to take my character to experience Level 3/ hit points with only a third of the level I am on revealed. The rest of the level has me set off a ceiling trap and clumsily let an ogre start a battle. Fortunately, I still won.

Initiating combat with an enemy by walking onto them allows the player to break free and run if the battle is not going well. Letting the monster make the first move by walking into the player traps the player there until someone wins or loses. So exploration must be more careful here - no running through the dungeon like a maniac.

I scoop up a magic sack which allows for the player to carry more gold between trips to the temple, as well as a teleport spell and character level 4 before I head to the stairs. Before I climb down I decide in the real world to check on laundry in the dryer and grab a smoke and a snack. 

1:14 PM: Level 3 - No time for snacks as I enter the level and am beset by a weak werebear and a weak ogre, who were weak enough to die in one hit each. Another weak gargoyle falls before a tough elven ranger does some damage. Not knowing where the temple is yet, I stand still to very slowly heal and eat some chips and salsa. I watch the screen though - enemies can and will wander into you from unexplored parts of the level.

I take a little more damage from an explosion trap once I start exploring again, and again wait a few seconds to heal up before continuing my search for the temple - it heals much faster than standing still anywhere else, and of course it levels the player when they bring it gold. Luckily, I was close as I can see two monsters wandering into areas of the level I have uncovered. It's time to get back out there and finish this level.

That attitude did not last long as another explosion and a ceiling trap send me back to the temple to heal and drop off gold. Two monsters still wander nearby but I take them out quickly and explore more. A pit trap almost takes me downstairs but i cast that Drift spell I picked up earlier and walk away, still on Level 3. It's been all trap and no treasure so far on this crappy level but there is one left. Luckily, it's another magic sack before heading down some stairs rather than a pit.

1:34 PM: Level 4 - I picked up another character level and am now at 5. The loading screen between levels shows one's stats and inventory - and is the only chance to see it as the game does not pause to do that. The level is pretty quiet and sparsely populated so I find the temple, round up the gold, and wisely save the 50/50 spots for last in case they are traps and not treasures. The first one I try is a pit and this time I have no drift spell to save me from falling into Level 5, so I use a teleport spell that keeps me on the same level but erases the map. I quickly locate the last 50/50 spot, which was yet another magic sack, before heading down.

1:48PM: Level 5 - Upon appearing I am standing next to a monk and must quickly attack before he does. He does some damage before his defeat so I stand still in my corner of the level for a few moments to slow-heal. Sure enough, as soon as I write the above sentence and grab a chip a swordsman shows up and steals my gold. My only chance is to chase him with my health already a little low and defeat him to get my gold back. Fortunately, I achieve that with hit points to spare before slinking back to my corner to heal up a bit more.

After a bit I feel healed up to be comfortable sneaking away to use the restroom before resuming my search for the temple, finding it with a hobgoblin on my tail. I had presumed that standing on the temple granted the player immunity from attack, but in my previous playthrough I saw it happen. They seem to avoid the temple for the most part, it seems, but not all the time.

I take a break to finish that laundry and come back with the maze cleared and mapped, and four of the 50/50 spots to reveal. I get a teleport spell, a healing potion, and then a ceiling trap which erases my map. I remember where the last unchecked 50/50 spot is and head there to finally get an Enchanted Weapon, or basically a weapon upgrade.

2:22 PM: Level 6 - My first foe is a gargoyle that does some serious damage before biting the dust. I head to a corner to heal but am tracked down by a troll, which I dispatch before standing still for slow-healing once again. A few more enemies barely slow me down before I find the temple and drop off gold. I level up once again from the experience and am at 98 hit points. The last two 50/50 spots contain two more healing potions. I still have no Light nor Invisibility spells and that is concerning.

2:35 PM Level 7 - This one went by pretty quick and once cleared out there were a whopping six of the 50/50 spots to try my luck on. I get a drift spell but then an explosion erases my map. Four 50/50 spots to go and I have to relocate them from memory. Next I find another healing potion before a teleport trap sends me across the screen. The last 50/50 spot is a Shield Spell, at least.

2:45 PM Level 8 -  I run into a monk right away that whittles my hit points down enough that a wyvern almost finishes me off. I use a healing potion to avoid the wait. It does not restore full health, though, so I wait a bit longer for the slow-healing to bring me back up before seeking out the temple. Still not at full health, I take a chance on a 50/50 blocking the hall and get an explosion trap, erasing my map for the second time on this level with no temple in sight.

I'm starting to bury gold until I can find the temple at this point, but soon locate it, drop off the gold I'm carrying, and return to the spot where I buried the excess a few minutes earlier. Finishing off the level meant fighting another wyvern, this one tough enough to send me running back to the temple to heal halfway through the fight. 

Only two 50/50 spots left, one is a pit so I use up my Drift spell, the other, finally, a Light spell.

3:07 PM Level 9 - Immediately attacked by a wyvern, a dimension spider, another wyvern, and a mercenary, and all but one were vanquished without taking any damage. Next I run into my first assassin, an invisible enemy, but I kick his ass and a nearby swordsman's ass as well. Another wyvern falls before I finally find the temple and deposit gold.

I grab the rest of the gold in the now empty and mapped level before starting on the 50/50 spaces. This time I get a teleport spell, a healing potion, an explosion that does not erase the map, a regeneration spell, a ceiling trap, and a shield spell before heading back to the temple to heal before taking on the next level. 

3:22 PM Level 10 - The map I found on Level 1 was for Level 10 and it really pays off, as I can see the entire map revealed when I arrive. Monsters are nearby though, and the temple is on the other side of at least one 50/50 space which could be a trap. Also of note is an inaccessable area of two rooms, with one 50/50 space, off of the main maze. I take out one monk and stand still to heal before trying to get to the temple.

The other monsters were easy so I made it to the temple, scooped up the remaining gold and dropped that off, and then checked all of the 50/50 spots. There were a few teleport traps but I picked up a drift spell, a map to Level 17, and a teleport spell on the way out.

3:41 PM Level 11 - It's all House Full of Dragons or whatever down here as I immediately fight two fyre drakes and one shadow dragon, taking little to no damage myself. A dimension spider, which can teleport, also took a shot at me and died.  After that is was clearing out the gold and the 50/50 traps, which were about 50/50 this time. Another pit, another used up drift spell, but also another weapon enchantment. Heal up and head out.

3:56 PM Level 12 - Greeted by a tough wyvern, I chill and wait a bit to explore. A sudden fyre drake attacks chips my health down further so I explore a little and find the temple nearby for a full heal. I'm at the point where I suppose I can start just using up the healing potions, as they will probably not be needed on the way up. I decide to wait until after this full heal at the temple, though.

A dark warrior hit me hard, repeatedly, and I had to retreat to the temple to heal. It was a good reminder that even though most monsters are now not too much trouble, and occasional one is still life-threatening. I do the usual and gather the gold, level up to 10, check the 50/50 spots and get another much-needed Light spell, and head to the stairs down.

4:17 PM Level 13 - Like real human players ganking a spawn spot, four different enemies were upon me before I could move, one after another. I used another healing potion here as well but still wasn't up to exploring for a few minutes. Standing still and healing, I watched to make sure no new enemies were sneaking up on me. 

It would be time soon to decide whether or not to grab the sword and make a run for it, or grind back and forth between levels 13 and 14 to see if I could pick up a few goodies. I think I have three light spells, a few shield spells, but no invisibility spells. I decided while waiting to heal that I would try it once to see what the revised and redrawn level 13 would hold.

But first, level 13. Once I had healed to about a hundred hit points I set out looking for the temple again, only to be beaten down again by a dark warrior and chased away by a dimension spider. I was going to be on this level for awhile. I decided to walk up to the mailbox and take another smoke break (it's weed) while the stupid spider bounced back and forth on the other side of a wall I thought it could teleport through.

Returning to the game, I walk toward the spider a bit and he does teleport through the wall to greet me, taking my hit points way the hell down again. I got brave and continued to explore, which was dangerous as I encountered one of those invisible assassins again. Luckily I defeated him and found the temple soon after. After bringing in all the gold to the temple, there were a whopping twelve of those 50/50 spots to check out. My hope was that five were Invisibility spells and five were Light spells, but I had no such luck.

Four ceiling traps, two pits, a teleport/lose map trap, another damn magic sack, and time healing after the damage from the traps. Finally an Invisibility spell along with a healing spell. Before I could finish them off I walked into a pit I had already revealed and ended up falling through.  Level 13 was unlucky for me in a lot of ways.

4:59 PM Level 1415 - No immediate enemy attacks so I was able to slink away from the hole I fell through and heal in place. As soon as I used up a potion, though, the enemies emerged and a War Lord forced me to use another potion. I pressed H again and accidentally used two. Oops. I take another break in the real world, too, and catch an afternoon shower with the wife.

When I come back and finish Level 14 I am not seeing the temple as I explore, but that has been common in previous levels, and I assume bad luck. But then I found the Sword of Fargoal instead, sitting there all shiny between two gold piles. Of course, I did not pick it up yet and set off  the timer.

I had thought that the sword could only be on levels 15-20, but I was on 14. Or was I? I admit to forgetting to look between levels as it loaded when I fell into that pit. Did I drop two levels to fifteen? Either way, there was the Sword. Laden with gold and no temple on the level to drop it off, I had to decide if I should go back up, go down a level, grind its loot, and return to this level later for the sword.

I decided to go up, leaving the sword there for now. It turned out that I was on Level 15 after all and as I appeared back on a new version of level 14, once again obscured until I explore it, but hopefully restocked with goodies. At the least, there will be a damn temple so I can drop off all of this gold. At this point I have picked up so many magic sacks that I can carry 900 gold at a time.

5:31 PM Level 14 - A shadow dragon took a few good swipes at me right away so I had to heal in place before finding that damn temple. And so went the rest of the level, with all enemies now pretty tough, but a few remaining easy to beat. By the time I found the temple there were buried gold stashes throughout the level and most of it was explored. 

After healing at the temple I checked out a few 50/50 spots hoping for some good loot. I made a mental note to check the totals between levels when I head back down to 15. To be honest, I had no idea if the sword would still be on 15 after I left it behind and returned to 14. Another thought had occurred to me - if I had fallen to 15 from 13 via pit, would it be better to do that again, so I could grab the sword, then climb up the pit to 13, skipping 14? 

I decided to get really weird by clearing 14, going up to 13, and clearing that again in hope of finding a pit to 15. If I failed to get a pit on 13, I would just head down to 14 again like normal. 

5:59 PM - Level 13 Again- One again under immediate attack and having to run and heal after engaging multiple enemies as soon as I arrive. One of them was a new one to me - he looked like the usual shape for a gargoyle but when I engaged him in combat the screen showed a message "THE DEMON HAS DRAINED YOUR EXPERIENCE LEVEL", and then the Demon disappeared, presumably with that level. Ouch.

I found the temple shortly after that and set to healing while two humanoid enemies danced across the screen, waiting for me to come into range again to notice me. After healing, I cleared out the level but found only a few 50/50 spots. One Light spell, but no pits. I decided to head back down to 14 and 15 and grad the sword and go for it. I had a few light spells, a few shield spells, and a very few invisibility spells. It would be time to make my run.

6:20 PM - Level 14 Again - I quickly find the stairs down to level 15 and presumably the sword.

6:22 PM - Level 15 Again - Being careless while sneaking away to heal, I activate a pit right away but use Drift to remain on level 15. Taking a breath, I remind myself that once I pick up that sword, every step must be very careful. So I carefully finish clearing level 15 our before I start the timed escape process. 

6: 39 PM -Level 15 The Escape Begins - When it loaded up level 14 again, I jotted down my inventory of potions so I know what I have going up. I had to run my ass off right away, cast Light and Invisible, as a dimension spider and other monsters were right on me. I run across the maze and take the first stairs up that I can find.

6:41 PM - Level 14 The Escape Ends - Again I cast Invisibility and Light and dodge monsters until I find stairs up. Here is where it all fell apart. Assuming Invisibility was working, just as I stepped onto the stairs and pressed C for Climb, a monster wandered into the same space, discovered me there,  and started combat, thus stealing the sword. 

My run was over. Six hours of setup destroyed in six minutes, as it has been going since I reacquired Sword of Fargoal six months ago. I make these attempts to learn more about the escape and how to manage it, but it falls apart so quickly each time that I get discouraged from trying the effort again. But that is the design, primitive to not allow for saving, or even resetting the damn timer when the sword is stolen.

I'll try again someday, and probably forever, because it is fun to get there, even though the eventual resolution is so damn elusive. The only thing I learned today is that the stairs up are not sacred - just being on them and pressing C is not enough to protect the player from harm before the Commodore VIC 20 acknowledges that they are going up. So while one is desperate to get there and leave the level behind, make sure there are no monsters even in the vicinity before attempting to climb them. Six-hour painful lesson learned.

Committing the Sin of Unsealing: Dodge Cars for the Commodore VIC 20

 The Wizard's Magic Toy Box / 1982 / by Scott Elder

There are lots of games for the Commodore VIC 20 on EBay that I want but I only see them for sale for a huge amount of money because they are still sealed (I'm looking at you, Atarisoft titles). I've even passed on some affordable sealed games hoping for an open one to come along, leaving the sealed ones for those who want and can afford them. Collecting sealed games is certainly a thing, with some official agency now grading them and sealing them in more plastic presumably forever, to be held and traded without ever being played. I'm good with that but I collect them to play them, and maybe write a few things about them for shits and giggles. 

But a curious old game that no one but me cares about showing up sealed for less than fifteen dollars caught my eye recently and I pulled the trigger. It's a cassette game called Dodge Cars from the company The Wizard's Magic Toy Box that was based in San Jose, California back in 1982. I've previously wrote about their game Muncher (I've also acquired Search and Destroy but have yet to blog about it) and the pattern from their games is that they are simple but functional and basically fun, cheap games. They saw a market for Commodore VIC 20 cassette games at a discount and dove in, the plucky entrepreneurs that they were.

I pay so very little attention to the vast number of YouTube videos of retrogamers self-aggrandizing and pleading for likes and subscribes, but I know that they sometimes post unboxing videos of new games or special collectors editions of new games or whatever. For the unsealing of possibly the last sealed copy in existence (unconfirmed) of Dodge Cars, I made my first video:

As for the game itself, the title Dodge Cars also happens to be the instructions for playing. The player dodges cars. To elaborate on that, the player is a black car toward the top of the screen, facing and driving toward the bottom screen, into six lanes of oncoming traffic in the form of multicolored cars and trucks. Where I live in central Ohio some drunk or other type of idiot does that about once a week. 

This is a simple game, like the kind one might find written in BASIC in a copy of Compute's Gazette back in the day, but it plays great. The scrolling effect by seeing trees along the side of the road pass works well, and the pacing - starting out slow and building up speed - is perfect. Once it gets going it's over pretty fast, but in the meantime it's good fun.

The controls are tight and precise for a VIC 20 game, with the player's car responding so fast one can squeeze between two oncoming but slightly offset diagonally cars with some practice. The game shows the current top five high scores, but does not save them on tape, so they are lost when the VIC 20 is shut off. Back then, sessions with friends were often taking turns with a single player game, so this feature was welcome.

I've enjoyed all three of the games I've found on Ebay from The Wizard's Magic Toy Box and am eagerly watching for the fourth and final one they mention in their documentation. 

There is almost no information online about The Wizard's Magic Toy Box, but Dodge Cars was designed by Scott Elder, the same one behind the company Nufekop, who created and published Dodge Cars on their own. It is my suspicion that the Wizard either licensed the game from Nufekop and released it simultaneously, or they got the rights to publish it before Nufekop started up. The other two games from the Wizard that I have were designed by another person. 

To the two or three collectors of sealed Commodore VIC 20 games out there who find this article and are anguishing over my decision to unseal this ancient treasure, my sincere apologies for that. But for me, the play's the thing, and Dodge Cars plays pretty well for a cassette game that was sealed for forty-four years.

Beaten: Cthulhu Saves The World (360)

 Well of course after playing the prequel Cthulhu Saves Christmas last year on the Nintendo Switch, it wouldn’t be long before I dusted off the original Cthulhu Saves The World, still there on my XBox 360, downloaded shortly after its release in 2010.  Attracted to the weird title and finely-crafted gameplay and presentation, I barely played it then but knew it was great, deciding to save it for when the time was right. 

Sixteen years later, my XBox 360 still chugs along, its ring redded when Red Dead Redemption booted up, its hard drive upgraded with a magic one-use cable gifted by an old friend, its ethernet port destroyed by a power surge in the early 2010s, its disc drive door requiring a paper clip and some luck to open, and Cthulhu Saves The World still stored on its internal hard drive. Microsoft's store for the XBox 360 has long since closed and the game cannot be obtained anew (it survives and is available on PC), but there it sits among my sloppily-crafted small group of downloaded XBox 360 games that I am hoping to have there forever.

Microsoft scares me though. Cthulhu Saves The World is an XBox 360 Indie Game, with no achievements and not reviewed by their board of standards and practices, yet still in 2026 it has to check in on Microsoft's servers before I can start the game. A few times this actually failed, requiring reboots of the system and repeated attempts to resolve. It's not an online game and it has no achievements yet Microsoft maintains enough of a leash on it several console generations later to make playing it troublesome at times. At some point in the future these old downloaded games will either be free of that leash or unplayable I suspect, and that will be a tragedy.

Enough with the depressing crap, though, as Cthulhu Saves The World was a funny, grindy, old school top-down-traversal and random-combat-with sprites role-playing game that captures the magic of the genre while making a lot of quality-of-life improvements that lets up on the traditional frustrations often experienced with those types of games. A dark, evil entity like Cthulhu would seem an unlikely candidate for being a likeable hero, but the great writing and unfolding adventure take the player there.

One of the frustrations from those old RPGs that these Cthulhu games from Zeboyd Games has reduced is the issue of infinite combat as one explores. Traditionally, dungeon levels and overland areas present the danger of constant attack, hindering exploration as one's party of adventurers tries to explore every level meticulously in hopes of acquiring loot and experience. In the two Cthulhu games, there is a set number of random encounters in each area, and once those are done, the dungeon is open to unhindered exploration ahead of the final boss encounter.

While I played Cthulhu Saves Christmas, at first I just stood at the entrance and started the fights myself to wear down the counter. I would save after every battle and head back to town and recharge magic as needed; but it was a dry, grindy process that felt a little shallow. By the end of that game I was exploring a little while I was grinding down that counter to mix it up a little. I found, however, that the interruptions of battle would sometimes throw off my mental image of the map and I would emerge disoriented, so I generally did not complete the exploration of the dungeon before finishing the required number of fights.

It was always worth it, as a well-designed game balance meant that clearing out the dungeon also levelled my party of quirky characters to where they needed to be before facing the boss at the end. Each dungeons' monsters were also a joy to behold, with all sorts of cute variations of other themes, and occasional weird one-off monsters like "Horror Writer". Fighting them with various physical and magical attacks was also great fun, seeing what spells were effective. There are lots of combat options that also reduce the old school frustration, like 1-Ups to restart the battle after a defeat, and an Escape spell.

The player can save anywhere, and victory in battle usually revives and heals the party completely. The only diminishing resource the player has to deal with is magic points; those can only be recharged in towns at the Inn or by sparse pools found in dungeons. There was usually one of those pools ahead of boss fights, so even dealing with monitoring one's magic points is more that fair when balanced out against all the other things making the game easy.

Levelling is fast and frequent, with each character getting a choice between two upgrade options each time, from stat increases to new spells to new passive abilities. It's a simple but engaging levelling system that gets the player back into the game quick. Each player also upgrades armor and weapons, with items found in chests or at shops in town, not as loot from monsters. Each item is unique to a specific player and can only be used by that character.

I was once again in the mood for an old-school roleplaying game and Cthulhu Saves The World fit the bill. Between its offbeat premise, wacky enemies, and perfectly-sized campaign length there was a lot to love here. I also love that an indie game released in 2010 and stored on a nearly-broken old console of mine for sixteen years still works most of the time. Gameplay like that is forever; let's hope the downloads we made back then are as long-lived.

A Renaissance in VIC 20 Gaming

Renaissance (UMI)

Designed by Louis X. Savain

There was an actual historic age called the Renaissance, where art, culture, and science were allowed and appreciated by the powers that be. Leonardo DaVinci has become the poster child of that bygone era for his art and inventions, often called a “Renaissance Man”. 

In 1982 United Microware Industries put his face on the cover of their Othello-inspired video game and called it Renaissance. It’s important to note that Othello was invented in 1971 as a refined version of Reversi, itself invented around 1880, loosely inspired by the possibly four thousand year old Chinese game of Go. Go had not spread to Renaissance Italy in DaVinci’s time and there’s not even historical evidence that he played chess.

Their own description on the back of the box and in their pamphlet says “Turn back the clock 1000 years and play the game of the classical masters”. Simple math would have put that as the year 982, about half a millennia before DaVinci, with Go still in China then too. 

I really shouldn’t nitpick so much about all of that as Renaissance is not just a fun, quick, and challenging way to play Othello or Reversi, it’s a software package complete with enough tools to call it a trainer on the game. Some of the options here are so advanced for 1982 that I wonder if Renaissance was their first appearance in any software. Upon consideration, I bet chess programs from that time also had them.

As much as I went on about the box, seeing it with the game on Ebay at a low price got me so excited I pulled the trigger before checking to see if UMI’s cheap-ass photocopied black and white instruction sheet was inside. It was not. I would have to just fire up the game and figure it out, not even knowing how to play Othello. Luckily, the description above does list a few features that I could correspond to the in-game menu options, which were presented as two-letter abbreviations:

  Here is what I have worked out:

• PL=Play 
• CH= Change Sides
• TA=Takeback Mode
• SE=Set Board
• HE=Help
• LE=Set Level
• LO = Load a save
• SA= Save

Now let's break this out into more detail.

PL (PLAY) - Ends the player's turn and allows the computer to start thinkin'.

CH (CHANGE SIDES) - The player and computer switch sides in the middle of the game. This is a pretty cool gameplay feature that might actually allow one to win once in awhile.

TA (TAKEBACK) This is a mode that pauses the game and allows the player to cycle back through the previous turns. The Move Counter is in the bottom right of the screen, and the player pushes the joystick forward and backward to cycle through the count. Pressing the joystick button exits the mode at the move count the player is on, erasing any moves forward from that point. Even if the player goes right back into takeback mode, those moves are gone, so the player should take caution when playing with this time-bending tool.

SE (SET BOARD) Here the player can set up the board before play and test various strategies. If one wants to play Reversi instead of Othello, they can just set up an empty board here.

HE (HELP) The computer suggests one's next move by showing the cursor there. It does not think about it and decides almost instantly, which scares me. I tested it against itself on level 1 and level 8 with the same result - failure. On my level 1 test, it stopped suggesting moves late in the game and apparently went out for coffee. 

LE (SET LEVEL) The range is 1-8 with 8 presumably the hardest. In my testing, the higher the level the longer the computer thinks about its next move. At level 8, it can be seen thinking for several minutes, indicated by a red game piece flashing in various open spaces on the board. In my testing of level 1 and level 8, this is the only difference. The AI at level 1 knows how to kick one's ass, but at level 8 it pretends it's hard and really really has to think about it before wiping the player out.

LO (LOAD SAVE) I tested saving a game in progress and loading it several times, but the sad result was that loading a saved game crashed the VIC 20 and locked it up with a blank home screen with just the word READY. there, without a cursor. This required a restart. It could by the fussy, 43-year old cassette drive as well.

SA (SAVE GAME) See LO (LOAD GAME).

With all these options, Renaissance was at least innovative in the spirit of the age it's named after. The ability to rewind a game in progress back in 1982 was not something I had heard of and applied here works splendidly as a learning tool as much as a cheating tool. Having a sort of AI helper suggesting moves was also new, even if here it was a complete loser in my two tests.

Features like setting up one's board and switching sides really complete the package that is Renaissance. Teenage me back in that time had little interest in classic board games being ported to computers or consoles, he wanted more fantasy role playing games and shooters with stunning graphics. Older me enjoys a variety of challenges, and while I may never get good enough at Othello to beat Renaissance, I am old enough to appreciate how much strategic depth the game has, and how well the Commodore VIC 20 handles it all.

Imagic Brought Three To The VIC 20

Imagic was one of the greatest game studios of all time, but I might be biased since they were the only third-party software company to release games on the Odyssey 2 here in the U.S.A.  After Activision, they were the second major software company spun out of Atari by disgruntled designers who rightfully wanted credit for their efforts.

Rob Fulop, the game designer who snuck his initials into Missile Command while working at Atari, gave us Demon Attack as Imagic’s first offering, putting Imagic on the map. I’ll gush about Demon Attack further down. They also brought in some (I assume) disgruntled Intellivision designers and launched a stellar line of unique games for that system like Microsurgeon, Truckin’, and Dracula. 

Their strategy of course extended to include home computers, and they brought three to the Commodore VIC 20. Two one might suspect, but the third was just good luck for VIC 20 owners.

Demon Attack (Imagic)

Designed by Rob Fulop / VIC 20 version by Bruce Pederson 

Demon Attack on the Atari 2600 is a game so insanely perfect, so peak early eighties fixed-position shooter, that even though the formula had been done to death at that point, it was all new again. Crisp, colorful graphics, varying ship designs with ships dividing into two, and sound design that blows the player away - it was all there.

It was a huge hit with players and critics and became Imagic’s flagship title, in a race with Miner 2049er to get on as many consoles and computers as possible. The difference is that Imagic cranked all of them out in-house, whereas Miner 2049er was licensed to a bunch of different companies.

On the VIC 20, Demon Attack is completely faithful to the Atari 2600 version. The movement of the player’s ship and enemy patterns are identical. The awesome WHOOSH when the alien ships warp in, the pounding soundtrack that goes up an octave throughout each wave, increasing the tension - all faithfully reproduced.

Strategies and tactics from the Atari version apply here. The player gets one bullet in the air at a time, but so do the enemies. There are three enemies on the screen at a time at first but up to six once they start splitting into two.

In spite of those numbers, only the ship closest to the bottom of the screen will shoot back, with different types of bullets. The enemies start by warping into the screen at different altitudes high, medium, and low. Once the ships are eliminated another one warps in to replace it, until the end of the wave.

As the wave approaches its end, ships stop warping in and ones at higher altitudes will drop down toward the lower layer until they are all gone. Finishing the wave without losing a ship nets the player a bonus ship, up to a point I assume, and another nice little audio tone.

Imagic choose a weird color scheme for the VIC 20 box of black and silver rather than black and the usual rainbow colors seen on Atari and Odyssey 2 releases. It's a little weird but it was a tumultuous time in game packaging I guess. Whatever the box, Demon Attack is a masterpiece and an essential part of any console or computer’s collection if it was released for it.

Atlantis (Imagic)

Designed by Dennis Koble / VIC 20 version by Bruce Pederson

Atlantis lead the second wave of Atari VCS titles released by Imagic following up on their success with Demon Attack with another cool shooter, this time with multiple placed cannons doing the shooting rather than a moving ship. The cannons defend multiple sections of domed city and other things from invaders coming from above. Like Missile Command, the game ends when the city is destroyed.

As with Demon Attack, the enemy exists in several layers of sky above. They fly across the screen starting at the top layer and if not shot down emerge from the side again, one layer down. When they reach the bottom layer they fire on and destroy one section of the city. 

On the Atari VCS version the player has three guns - left, center, and right - but subsequent versions removed the center gun, narrowing the options for the player. The guns on each side of the screen shoot at a 45 degree angle towards the center of the screen, so the player’s defense rests on shooting enemies coming from the right with mostly the left gun and vice versa.

It might be tempting to lean on the left or right gun in that situation, firing off enough shots to nearly create a wall of laser fire, taking out most enemies at the higher altitudes. That strategy won’t work long, though, as some speedier ships come into play later that can be low before the player knows it.

A mix or balance of using both guns is ideal, then, but challenging. I’ll admit I’ve never gotten too far in Atlantis, but like most Imagic games, it’s always fun to try. Atlantis on the Commodore VIC 20 looks, sounds, and plays great, even if it’s a bit brutal seeing one’s failure lead to several cool underwater domed cities being destroyed on one’s watch.

Dragonfire (Imagic)

Designed by Bob Smith / VIC 20 version by Tim Yu

Another great Atari VCS game that came after Atlantis was Dragonfire by Bob Smith, a two-screen action game where the player has to avoid the titular dragonfire that comes in the form of fireballs while gathering treasures. 

The first screen has the small figure of a player running left across a beautiful bridge, spanning across a moat between two castles, and dodging fireballs. They come at different speeds and levels, so the lower fireball at pixel knee level must be jumped and the higher, faster fireball at face level must be ducked. There is a discernable pattern on the first and maybe second crossing, but after that the speed picks up and it gets a lot harder.

The danger is running into two at once while on the bridge; the lower one and the higher one coming at the player at the same time. Care must be made to avoid this, so it is wise to time going forward and jumping over the slower fireball in between the faster fireball shots.

Crossing the bridge, the player enters the dragon's lair where the large and angry dragon runs across the bottom of the screen shooting fireballs straight up toward the top of the screen. The lair is filled with treasures the player must grab for points, with the room exit at the top left only appearing once every treasure is grabbed. The dragon is a little slower than the player but shoots fireballs constantly in a sort of upside-down Kaboom pattern.

The key to survival in this room is to keep moving, of course, but back in the day I came up with running in a sideways "8" or infinity symbol, back and forth, picking up treasures that way. If I missed one, I kept moving and came back for another pass in roughly that same pattern. This kept me ahead of the dragonfire pretty well. After a few sets of the two-screen challenge, the speed ramps up drastically on both parts of the game.

It's important to note that having a two-screen game at all was still a pretty big deal back then, especially for the Atari VCS, but Imagic provided that for them as well as Commodore VIC 20 owners. With Imagic one can expect crisp graphics and sound quality and they certainly delivered that on the VIC 20. Dragonfire is quick, crisp fun that never gets old.

Those are the three games Imagic choose for the Commodore VIC 20 before moving on to the Commodore 64 for their last few years. These were safe, surefire hits and VIC 20 owners were glad to get them. Personally, I would have liked to seen some of their Intellivision exclusives ported to the VIC as well. Microsurgeon, Truckin', and several other of their hits would have played well on the machine. Oh well.