Retro Rumble 2016 ~ Winter Edition ~

January 1, 2017 by stopXwhispering

I managed to squeeze in another Retro Rumble before the year ended, on December 27th. This time was an all-time high in the amount of visitors! We were over 30 people! At least 21 of these were competing in the Retro Rumble competition ^_^ It was great, and a bit crowded XD A lot of old friends who I haven’t seen for a while came this time, and also a bunch of new friends who had never visited my game room before! :D My godson Benjamin is now the youngest Retro Rumble visitor ever XD

Benjamin intrigued at Retro Rumble

Robert and Julie at Retro Rumble

Retrospelsfestivalen represents at Retro Rumble

Casandra playing Super Mario Bros 3 at Retro Rumble

Benjamin and Mona at Retro Rumble

R.O.B the Robot

Tobias playing Twinkle Tales on Sega Mega Drive

Tobias at Retro Rumble

Crowded at Retro Rumble

People at Retro Rumble

Trying to get R.O.B to work

Tobias gaming

Happy kitcheners Andreas and David at Retro Rumble

Karl-Henrik at Retro Rumble

Intense Dr. Mario gaming at Retro Rumble

Blast City

The competition consisted of 5 games that everyone had to play. These were:
1. Race on Philips Videopac 7200, one try, 2 minutes, get the highest score.
2. Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time on VIC-20. One life, get the highest score.
3. Spaceman Splorf on C64. One life, get the highest score.
4. Cycho Rider on PC Engine CD. One try, 2 minutes, get the highest score.
5. Katochyan & Kenchyan on PC Engine. One life, one stage, get the highest score.

Competition going on at Retro Rumble

Competing in Cycho Rider on PC Engine at Retro Rumble

Spaceman Splorf on C64

Competing in Race on Philips VideoPac G7200 at Retro Rumble

Katochyan & Kenchyan on PC Engine

Competing in Spaceman Splorf on C64 at Retro Rumble

Race on Philips Videopac G7200

Everybody competes individually but they’re also divided into teams, there’s a winning team score as well as an individual score :) The winning team was team “Spökplumpen” with Mattias, Matte and Leigh! :D The individual scores were really close this time, so we had to have an extra match to see who would make it into the semi-finals. This stood between Christian and Klas. They got to play The Kick Boxing on Sega Mega Drive and Christian came out victorious! :)

The victorious team at Retro Rumble

Christian and Klas competing for the 4th place to enter the semi-finals at Retro Rumble

Who’s going to the semi finals?

The Kick Boxing for Sega Mega Drive

Christian and Klas battling it out in The Kick Boxing on Sega Mega Drive

In the semi-finals the 4 highest scoring individuals battled in 3 different games on Super Famicom. I usually have these games or similar ones, because it’s so convenient using the Super Famicom multitap, and there’s just so many games on the system which has 4 player compatibility. The games they competed in were VS Collection, Sugoi Hebereke and Super Bomberman 2.

Semi-finals at Retro Rumble

Semi-finals in VS Collection on Super Famicom at Retro Rumble

Cristian being serious in the Semi-finals at Retro Rumble

Semi-finals at Retro Rumble

The two highest scores from the semi-finals were Matte and Christian. They went on to play in the finals which started of with Freeway on Atari 2600 :D Christian won this one, and the second game was Air Sea Battle on Philips Videopac G7200. They couldn’t seem to win over eachother in this one, after two rounds it was a draw XD So it ended with a game of Combat on Atari 2600 and Christian came out victorious! Congrats! :D

Matte and Christian competing in Freeway on Atari 2600

Finalists crossing the road in Freeway on Atari 2600

Freeway on Atari 2600

Finalists at Retro Rumble

Finals at Retro Rumble

Matte didn’t take it very well XD

A winner is you!

I know a few people have contacted me about what their scores were, here you can download the PDF >>

Thanks to everyone who attended! Hopefully I’ll see you again for a new Retro Rumble coming up in 2017! :D

l00t from Retro Games Stockholm!

November 4, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Since I went to Stockholm by train this time for the Retro Games convention I wasn’t able to buy more than I could carry, but once I got home I realised I had at least 35 games and also a new system with me home XD It was mainly games on cassette tapes though, and they don’t take up as much space ;D

Let’s start with the system. A few weeks ago I acquired a game from Zeela that I had previously seen at Retro Gathering, I mainly wanted to have it because of the cover. It’s called Softporn Adventure, and it’s made by On-Line Systems, which later turned into Sierra Online. The game is the predecessor to Leisure Suit Larry, but without graphics, it’s a text-based adventure. On the cover from left to right in the hot tub are Diane Siegel, On-Line’s production manager; Susan Davis, On-Line’s bookkeeper, Rick Chipman, an actual waiter from a local restaurant and Roberta Williams, famous for games like the King’s Quest series etc :)

Softporn Adventures by On-Line Systems on Atari 400

Once I got the game though I just really wanted to be able to play it, and especially I want my friend Gabbi to be able to play it, because she’s totally into text-based adventures and she reaaaallly wanted to try this game when she saw it at Retro Gathering XD So I’m working on getting a setup for it to work :) At Retro Games I bought an Atari 400 from Michael Berglund, unfortunately he didn’t have the floppy disk drive, so I’m still looking for one of those.. but the Atari 400 computer he had for sale was apparently quite rare, since it was a Swedish version with a Swedish keyboard :) Either way, I can at least play some cartridge games that I got with the systems meanwhile, until I find a floppy drive ^_^

Atari 400 Computer

Atari 400 game cartridges

Atari 400 Pole Position

Atari 400 Swedish keyboard

Atari 400

Atari 400 game Bug Hunt

Atari 400 Pole Position

Atari 400 system

Most of the cassettes I bought this time were for ZX Spectrum, and a few Commodore 64 ones. One VIC 20 game slipped in and also one that I discovered was for MSX! O_o I actually have an MSX that I just haven’t blogged about yet, got it not too long ago, but unfortunately I don’t have a cassette tape deck for it yet :/ I guess that’s next on my list together with the floppy drive for Atari 400 ^_^

Mission Mercury for VIC 20

Jackle & Wide for MSX

I’m really happy to have found the other two Horace games that were officially released for the ZX Spectrum, because I really really love Horace Goes Skiing! I’m hoping these ones will be just as good ;D I also got a bunch of other ZX Spectrum games, some that are text-based adventures for Gabbi to try when she visits, and some I just bought for the name or the artwork :) Transylvanian Tower looks rad! :D

Hungry Horace & Horace the the Spiders for ZX Spectrum

Doomsday Castle and Beaky and the Egg Snatchers for ZX Spectrum

Fire on the Water, Never Ending Story and Espionage Island for ZX Spectrum

Spy Hunter and Gauntlet II for ZX Spectrum

Molar Maul, Penetrator and Invincible Island for ZX Spectrum

Ah Diddums, Transylvania Tower and Braxx Bluff for ZX Spectrum

Planet of Death, Cavernfighter and Pimania for ZX Spectrum

When it comes to these old cassettes I mainly just buy them based on the name of the games or just looking at the artwork. I got six Commodore 64 cassettes :) The Official Father Christmas will be my go-to game this holiday XD

Xenon Ranger, The Official Father Christmas and Raid for C64

Thrust, Starlifter and Alcazar for C64

I got a few games for other systems. I bought Neo Drift Out from Sol, I now also owe him a game night at my place with freshly bakes scones because I got such a good price on it XD I bought Yie Ar Kung-Fu together with a 3DS game called Dream Trigger from Peter at Arkadbutiken. I found one Japanese Sega Mega Drive game I didn’t previously have together with some C64 games from Söders Spel & Skivhandel and I bought Martin Lindell & Thomas Sunhede’s newly released book “Svensk Videospelsutveckling“. Martin also had some promo games, so I grabbed Castlevania for my Castlevania Collection, and I got Pac-Man World 2 and Space Race with it ^_^ Thanks Martin!

Neo Drift Out for Neo Geo MVS

Yie Ar KUNG-FU for MSX

The Kick Boxing for Sega Mega Drive

Svensk Videospelsutveckling (Swedish Video Game Development) by Martin Lindell and Thomas Sunhede

Castlevania Curse of Darkness Promo for PS2

Dream Trigger 3D for 3DS

I recently purchased an arcade cabinet from a friend (I’m up to 4 arcades now!) and it was a bit of a rare one, I’ll make a blog post about it soon :) I’ve gotten to know another collector in Sweden who knows a lot about this particular cabinet and when I showed him pics of mine he told me that one of the buttons wasn’t original. He apparently had a spare original part and was kind enough to give it to me ^_^ Thank you so much Pinge! <3 Also when I was talking to Peter from Arkadbutiken and he found out that I had a Blast City cabinet, he gave me the manual for it ^_^ Thanks a bunch Peter! <3

Red arcade button

Sega Blast City manual

I’m really happy with my l00t, and that I managed to bring it all home on the train XD The Retro Games convention was a blast, and I can’t wait for the next convention to get to hang out with all these awesome people again! :D Now I’m off to play some Atari 400 ^_^

Retro Gathering L00t part I

October 6, 2016 by stopXwhispering

It takes time going through, cleaning, testing and taking pictures of 105 games, a few consoles and other things.. that’s how much I came home with after this years Retro Gathering XD Anyway, let’s get to it! I mainly focused on cartridge based games this year, I found a whole bin full of cheap Atari 2600 games to start with ^_^ In the bottom were even some boxed ones :D I tried all these ones out tonight and some that stood out was Planeten Patrouilie and Sub Scan, these were fun and intuitive :) Fatal Run was also interesting, it had the most advanced tunes I’ve heard in an Atari 2600 game so far! Unfortunately it only played the music when you got Game Over XD Superman was probably one of the worst Atari 2600 games I’ve played.. I didn’t even understand what the hell I was supposed to do…

Atari 2600

Human Cannonball, Wüstenschlacht and Sorcerer – Atari 2600

Racquetball and Arilock – Atari 2600

Fatal Run – Atari 2600

Gangster Ruine – Atari 2600

Planeten Patrouilie – Atari 2600

Midnight Magic – Atari 2600

Sub Scan – Atari 2600

Superman – Atari 2600

I found these two little handhelds that were super cute! I love how “Hero and Princess” is such a total rip-off from Donkey Kong Game & Watch, it’s even dual screen! XD And the gorilla looks totally derpy XD

Grandstand handheld

Hero and Princess handheld

I finally got myself the Zapper for Famicom! It’s so funny how this one actually looks just like a regular gun, while we had to have the “kids-version” XD

Famicom Zapper Revolver

I managed to extend my Tetris collection a bit, but not with a game.. a music LP and an old ad! My friend Marcus sold it to me and he also had a few other cool EP’s with video game reference :) I also bought a cute Dreamcast game from him called PenPen ^_^

Doctor Spin Tetris LP

Tetris ad

Space Invaders EP

Ms. Pac-Man EP

PenPen – Dreamcast

After getting to know a lot of other retro gamers online I tend to usually have some deals waiting for me once I meet up with these friends at a convention :) Anders was kind enough to sell me a Video Computer VC4000 game which I didn’t previously have. I just got into this system thanks to an old high school teacher that found this system in his attic XD I also met the guy behind arkadbutiken.se on instagram who had a PCB with Hatris for me :D Can’t wait to try this one out, the arcade version must be so much better than the Famicom one ^_^

32 Invaders – Video Computer VC4000

Hatris PCB

One of the things I bought from Zeela was this really cute little Pong clone called Las Vegas Super Color Teve-Spiel :D I tried it out tonight and it was fun, I didn’t see the colors though because apparently the TV was black and white XD I’ll try it with another TV next time… what I really liked about this Pong version is that the joysticks also go horizontally, so it actually resembles Tennis even more :) You can run back and forth and not only up and down XD It has SO MANY BUTTONS on it though! I had to read the instructions just to figure out what they were all for..

Boxed Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Complete Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel Joystick

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

I also bought a bunch of games from Zeela, he has such good prices on old cassettes that it’s hard to resist XD So many pretty covers! I also got some extra memory for my VIC-20, which is probably the reason why I haven’t gotten more than half of the games to work on it so far XD He was also kind enough to dig out a few Jeff Minter games! Hell Gate and Gridrunner ^_^ I also picked up some Amiga games.

Rockman, Cosmic Fire Birds and Critters – VIC-20

Alien Blitz, Outworld and The Alien – VIC-20

Hell Gate and Gridrunner by Jeff Minter – C64

Vic Rescue, Anirog Krazy Kong and Galaxions – VIC-20

Vic Scramble, Chopper and Skips Action Biker Clumpsy Colin – VIC-20 and C64

Vixen 16k RAM for VIC-20

Overkill – Amiga 1200

The Killing Game Show – Amiga 500

I also found a bunch of Videopac G7000 games that I was lacking ^_^ Some I bought from my new found retro gaming friend Jack :) Thanks for bringing them for me!

8 Baseball – Videopac

9 Computer Programmer – Videopac

30 Battlefield – Videopac

10 Golf – Videopac

19 Catch the ball – Videopac

14 Gunfighter – Videopac

Some other things I found were a Case Boy that Söders Spel & Skivhandel thought would look great in my Castlevania collection because of the Castlevania screenshot on the box :D I also bought a reproduction of Trip World, mainly so I can play the game.. I’m probably never gonna spend that much money on the original.. I also got some cheap Famicom pirates, I thought they were quite funny since they read “4 in 1”, then “39 in 1” and finally “1000000000 in 1”!!! I’m skeptical to whether it actually contains that many XD Apart from this I picked up a bunch of other games, like Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi for Famicom Disk System, Slider and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Game Gear, Puzzle Figher II on Game Boy Advance, Cobra Command on NES, Puyo Puyo on N-Gage, a hombrew game called Photon for MSX a few other games and I also got two ZX Spectrum games for free ^_^

Game Boy Case Boy

Trip World – Game Boy

Photon – MSX

Famicom Pirates

Slider & Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – Game Gear

Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi – Famicom Disk System

Horace goes skiing and Space Resque – ZX Spectrum

Puyo Puyo – Nokia N-Gage

Cobra Command – NES

Puzzle Fighter II – Game Boy Advance

Paper Boy 2 – SNES

Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football – Sega Mega Drive

General Knowledge for Dummies – DS

There’s not a lot of Japanese games at this Swedish convention, but I did manage to find a few. I found some cheap PC Engine games I didn’t already have, and also Super Darius which cost a bit more. I also bought some Japanese Sega Mega Drive games from my friend Karl ^_^ And I found some really nice Super Famicom games! :D Yoshi’s Cookie, Yoshi’s Island and Super Bomberman 3 which completed my Super Bomberman set ^_^

Yoshi’s Island – Super Famicom

Momotarou Densetsu – PC Engine

Quackshot – Sega Mega Drive

Yoshi’s Cookie – Super Famicom

World of Illusion – Sega Mega Drive

Super Darius – PC Engine CD-ROM

Super Bomberman 3 – Super Famicom

Street Smart – Sega Mega Drive

Maniac Pro Wrestling – PC Engine

Pro Tennis World Court – PC Engine

Now this wasn’t the entire loot.. I’m saving some of the best parts ;D I’ll be back soon with part II of the l00t!

Retro Gathering 2016 was awesome!!!

October 4, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Last Friday I drove up to Västerås to attend Retro Gathering on Saturday, my favorite Retro Game convention in Sweden ^_^ Retrospelsmässan is also really nice, but as a retro game buyer there’s just more variation at Retro Gathering :) You can find everything from vintage computers, Atari and Commodore to newer PS2 and 3DS games. There have been more newer games lately compared to the first couple of years that I started attending, I hope they don’t take over though, because I love that there’s a place I can go to find these old obscure computers and consoles! I mainly focus on old cartridges and cassettes when I’m at Retro Gathering. Nintendo and Sega I can find at all the other retro game conventions in Sweden anyway.

So this year I was also asked to host an exhibit of my Castlevania collection, so I was there an hour earlier to set it up. People seemed to like it, but there were also a lot of visitors that asked me where it was. My cabinet had been hidden behind a roll-up behind the scene where they hosted the competitions, which was a shame… but people who looked found it anyway :) For those that missed it, this is what it looked like:

Castlevania Collection

The first thing I spotted was a boxed Colecovision that Japon was selling. I snagged it right away, with a bunch of games and a steering wheel controller ^_^ Pontus and Jan at Japon are really nice and gave me a good deal on it :)

Pontus at Japon

I love visiting Zeela’s table, it’s always filled with obscure and colorful things :) He also had a really fun rarity, Softporn Adventure by On-Line systems! On-Line systems later became Sierra, and on the picture of the “sexy” cover are executives and writers from the company, to the right is Roberta Williams, famous video game designer, writer and co-founder of Sierra On-Line who created for example the King’s Quest series :) This is the game that later became Leisure Suit Larry. Such a cool piece of history! I would have bought it if it wasn’t so expensive XD Also I’m not that into text-based adventures… ;D

Softporn Adventures – On-Line Systems

Apart from this he showed me the TRS-80, a computer that I had bought from him a while back that I got delivered here ^_^ I needed one to play my Tandy Tetris game! It’s apparently some kind of Tandy computer.. It was in really nice condition though ^_^ Original box, and I got both a boxed joystick and a big box full of games with it! :D

Ready to hook up!

Tandy TRS-80

Tandy games

Boxed Tandy games

He also had a bunch of other cool stuff ^_^ Like Strip Poker and Centrefold Squares for Atari ST, I bought these for a friend who had been looking all over the place for Atari ST games XD He AND his girlfriend were thrilled and couldn’t wait to play it!! Haha!

Gakken TV-Boy

Zeela’s table

First laptop from Ericsson ///

Bentley Compuvision

Deluxe Strip Poker back

Deluxe Strip Poker

GX4000 – Amstrad home console

Centrefold Squares

Centrefold Squares back

M5 CGL Home computer

There were so many games for sale, and retro game related stuff ^_^ Spel & Sånt had brought some Virtual Boy rarities, they had the three games that I am missing! But they were darn expensive >_< Another seller had setup Zelda on CDi for whoever wanted to try it out XD The creators of Alwa’s Awakening were also there displaying their game which is almost done now, it will be released on Steam :)

Coleco Vision and Vectrex

Retro Game arts

Famicom

Games for sale

Atari 2600

Game Boy

NES

Virtual Boy gems

Sega Master System

Cheap retro games

Games for sale

So much Batman!

Zelda on CDI on display for whoever wants to try it

Cartridges for sale

Games for sale

Alwa’s Awakening

Jumpman Junior

My friends Nathalie and Andreas from up north were also there, and they were selling some of their games. Nathalie tried to sell me a weird DS game, and Andreas wanted me to upgrade my version of Tetris 2 to a mint copy XD I did end up buying Paperboy 2 from them though ^_^ Andreas is a pixel-perfectionist and he had some upscaler connected on display with Super Mario Bro 3, I don’t like when the picture is perfect and the scanlines are too obvious ;P I prefer it the original way with an old CRT and a bit of a glitchy pic XD

Nathalie & Andreas

Good sales pitch by Nathalie ^_^

but no thanks XD

I already have this Tetris game XD

Super Mario Bros 3

Too much scanlines XD

I finally got around to buying the game Photon that has been under development and on display for years at these conventions ^_^ It’s still not finished, but I bought an early version of it :) I also got to talk a bit to the man behind it who told me a bit about the Sord and the community around it :) Apparently there was a club back in the day that released a magazine here in Sweden called “Sordisen”, he had a few issues for sale. He also showed me a few different versions of the system. I almost went and bought one from Zeela, but then again, I don’t have any games for it yet.. so I think it’ll have to wait.

Photon

Sord computer

Sordisen Magazine

Sord M5 Pro

I competed in the yearly Swedish Championships of Pong this year as well :) I won the first take out but lost to my second opponent.. I haven’t been practicing enough, or rather, I haven’t been practicing at all XD I need to get my husband to start playing it with me!! The champion can be seen in the video below, damn that’s an intense Pong game!

Swedish Championships of Pong

Pong championships

As usual they also had a bunch of games and systems set up so people could try them out :) I saw an Intellivision there which reminded me that a seller had promised me from the previous Retro Gathering to bring me one, when I found him though he had already sold it to someone else :((( Hopefully he can set me up with another one.. I have so many Intellivison games and no Intellivisions to play them on XD

Games set up to play

Commodore VIC-20

Commodore C64

Amiga

Coleco Vision

MSX

Texas Instruments

Atari 800

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

Videopac Computer G7000

Fairlight on ZX Spectrum

Crew setting up the games before opening

Intellivision

Colour Genie

Atari 1040 ST

Atari 2600 & NES

Vectrex

Amiga CD32

Sega Master System

Sega Mega Drive, SNES & N64

They also had some other exhibitors, one collection of Sonic games and one of Handic for the VIC 20 :)

Sonic Collection

Handic Collection

One of the best things about going to retro game conventions though is all the people! I met so many old and new friends, and people are so friendly :D

Söders Spel & Skivhandel

Matt8bit

Andreas

Spel & Sånt

Vira & friend

Retrospelsfestivalen

Retroplay

Anders and people :)

After the convention we went out and met up with a bunch of retro gamers, and we found Kralleman and PingeAhlin there who had missed the convention, but had been off on more exciting business! They had scored a bunch of old arcades and other rarities from a connection they had. I was lucky enough to get to go check out their loot :D They had gotten rare prototypes for the Videopac, old minty posters with ads for the Luxor computer, boxed Vectrexes, a Taito Space Invaders arcade cab and a Super Bug arcade with super mint manuals, a really old wooden arcade and an original Break Out arcade. The Break Out arcade had only been played on 64 times, which means it’s hardly been used more than factory testing. That’s pretty rad XD

Box of Videopac prototypes

Videopac prototypes 2-sided

Old luxor ad

Boxed Vectrexes

Taito Space Invaders arcade

Super Bug Arcade manual

Super old arcade

Old orange Break Out arcade from Atari

As you can probably figure, Retro Gathering has outdone themselves again and it was an awesome convention! I’ll go through my loot in a later post when I’ve gone through it all ;D

Traded me some Atari ST games :D

June 15, 2016 by stopXwhispering

A guy named Fredrik approached me on instagram and asked if I was interested in two complete Atari ST games. I don’t really have a lot of games for the system yet (only 5 or 6) so I thought why not ^_^ We made a good deal where he got a double I had on Sega Master System, a game called Rastan, and some cash in between and he sent me this amazing package that made me really happy :D

Not only did I get an extra game, but I also got a beautiful joystick and the FirST BASIC program for the Atari ST :D I’m not really that into sports games, but this is a great way to get my fiancée to play some Atari ST with me ;D Hockey is basically the only game I can get him to play… XD

All the games were complete and in really pretty condition :) It’s gonna be interesting to try them out :D

Space Quest III Atari ST

Space Quest III The Pirates of Pestulon Atari ST

Wayne Gretzky Hockey Atari ST

Ooze Atari ST

Ooze on Atari ST

Fredrik suggested in his letter that if I didn’t like these games I could always learn to program my own games XD I really wish I knew how to do that! Maybe I should give Basic a go ^__^

Thanks a bunch for the trade Fredrik! :D I hope you’re happy too ^_^

You Should Seriously Play: Welltris (Atari ST)

May 28, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I’ve been collecting Tetris games for a while now, and I recently stumbled upon this game called Welltris on Atari ST. Since I was quite new to the Atari ST and only had around 4 or 5 games for it I thought why not! So I picked it up from eBay :) I wasn’t quite sure whether or not to include it in my Tetris Collection since it’s not called “Tetris”, and it’s not the typical 2D-type falling blocks that Tetris is all about. Because I don’t want to have to include games like Block Out that is completely 3D and not called Tetris or Panel de Pon which have different shapes and functions than Tetris, you just switch places of blocks of the same color to try and match them and it builds up from below. If I would add these then I could basically add ANY puzzle game out there, like Tsuyoshi Shikari Shinasai which is one of my favorites, that works kind of like Puyo Puyo, but these games are NOT Tetris. They are puzzle games, and they are perhaps INSPIRED by Tetris, but it’s not Tetris.

Welltris however got to have a place in the Tetris Collection for two reasons.
1. It’s not like Block Out, you just build on one layer, the only difference from regular Tetris is that you can build from 4 different directions of the board instead of just from above.
2. It is actually kind of like a sequel to Tetris, made by the same creator! Alexey Pajitnov! :D Therefore it does deserve a place in the Tetris Collection ^_^

Atari ST – Welltris

Atari ST – Welltris back

I was pleasantly surprised when I finally got the game playing, it was the first game I’ve tried out on my Atari 1040ST :) I first had issues using the original Atari screen, because it was monochrome and apparently not able to display the games I attempted to load, once I switched to a regular CRT it worked perfectly though ^_^ I was sure Welltris would be like Block Out though so I was happy to see that it wasn’t. Here when a block falls down you can rotate around the four walls, kind of like in Tempest. Wherever it touches the ground floor it will then start falling continuously in that direction until it hits another block or the opposite wall. So you can build from all four directions and try to fit the blocks into place.

Atari 1040ST with original Atari SM124 screen

Atari ST monitor in black and white

Atari ST desktop in color

If you place a shape that doesn’t quite make it onto the board, where a piece of it is still hanging onto the wall it came from, then that wall turns red and you won’t be able to move shapes over that wall anymore. You die when all 4 walls are red. Basically it’s like hitting the top of the tower in regular Tetris, but here you have 4 chances. The main board is much smaller though so it’s easy to accidentally misplace a shape. Also when a wall is blocked it increases the difficulty since you can’t place anything from that direction anymore. The red walls do go away after a while though, I don’t know if it’s after a certain amount of blocks have been placed or if you have to delete a few rows first.

Welltris on Atari ST

Welltris – Red Walls

There’s also an increase in speed the higher the level you reach. There’s a total of 5 difficulty stages, each stage has a different environment picture to the right and an increase in speed. The last one on stage five is quite funny! It’s a programmer with a beard, with a computer screen containing the same image in the same image in the same image and so forth XD
I wonder if it’s meant to be Alexey??

You can also choose three various difficulty levels. The first one has regular Tetris blocks, and a few that only consists of two squares that are easy to place. The third one has really difficult pieces like stairs and plus-shapes. See examples of the pieces in the Stage 1 picture..

There’s also two various movement modes. One makes the movement of the block go all around 360° with just holding the left or right buttons on the keyboard, the other mode forces you to switch between up and down buttons on the left and right wall and left and right buttons on the upper and lower walls.. this is difficult, I prefer having it go all the way around with the push of just one button..

Welltris – Menu

Stage 1 on level 3

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Anyway, here’s a video to give you an idea of what the gameplay looks like ^_^ I’m not sure if this game has been ported on other systems or if any similar games have been made. Please do let me know if you know of something that is like this one (and not BlockOut! ;)).

You should seriously play Welltris if you’re into puzzle games :D