Parallaxian WIP December 2025
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By Kodiak
Parallaxian WIP Update December 2025
This is just a very brief update on the state of
Parallaxian, a "next generation" game in development for the Commodore 64,
on which I have been working
pretty much full-time for most of 2025, six days most weeks, morning to night.
An advanced playable demo has been distributed to a tiny handful of trusted confidantes and I am awaiting their feedback, but in the
meantime I can say that all of the game's major coding challenges have been completed and all the new planets have been either
designed or started; again, I am keeping most of this new material "classified" because of December 2024's unsanctioned leak.
And to reiterate again, the game can now only appear in cartridge form, for use with real hardware; there will be no digital release,
because (a) too many people just gave
Seawolves away to their mates (way to go in supporting game
development, fellas) and (b)
sales
of Seawolves digital release were dismal, despite the
good reviews the game received - but see point (a).
Parallaxian Gameplay Summary
Far from being yet another clichéd
Defender clone,
Parallaxian features gameplay that is rare or largely novel to the C64, as follows:
- Adrenaline-charged dogfight sequences with belligerent, "smart" drones; currently there are 4 grades of Hunter Killer drone, each with its own unique AI and tactics, each increasingly nastier than its predecessor. I really loved the NMEYE enemy in Dropzone and thought far more of the game should have been built around the exhilarating dogfights with it, so now finally such gameplay is possible with Parallaxian.
- Rescuing stranded colonists... but this is not the simple pick-up and drop-off dynamics of Dropzone; rather, part of it entails ferrying engineers to satellite dishes to repair them or finding the undercover injured marine on each planet so that he donates his assault weapon to the pilot.
- Collecting mineral samples from each planet, running the gauntlet of attacks from "zomboids", etc.
- Destroying ground forces arrayed against you and evading terrifying SAMs.
(featuring extensive use of ECBM graphics
and an animated northern lights effect)
You can check out some of the gameplay below; note that the Hunter Killer drones become much more aggressive and lethal the
more of them you shoot down in each planet:
The audio in the above embedded video somehow ended up lagging the visuals (sorry about that!) and note that there are some obvious
minor gfx and coding glitches indirectly caused by my careless impatience to get a video online - again, sorry about that!
I really need to improve low speed inertia / momentum effects to make the low speed handling feel more natural and then the A-TAC weapon
and ground forces / enemy defensive weapons have to be added.
After that it's really just a matter of adding more SFX, planets and what John Rowlands used to call "presentation" (title screens, etc.)
2025 was consumed with rewriting huge chunks of the game code for the umpteenth time but I think the hardest work is all behind me.
Other news #1: Seawolves Redux - a Cartridge Release
I hope to release a cartridge edition of Seawolves with some extra new features and a new gameplay mode (provisionally called
"basketcase mode"), whereupon the digital version would no longer be offered for sale.
Draft new features:
- High score saver.
- Title screen music.
- Additional "basketcase" gameplay mode.
- Paddle support.
- Keyboard support.
- Extra warship types.
- Slightly easier gameplay.
- Interlude mini game.
- 1-2 new scenes.
Other news #2: Football Game Concept
Just for fun one evening when I was burned out with Parallaxian, I produced some concept design for a potential new football game for the C64.
The little footballers would each have two sprites assigned to them (as is the case with
Microprose Soccer), so that more complicated kits
such as those worn by Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Crystal Palace, Hamburger SV, et al, could be rendered by the multiplexor.
A difficulty I noted is, of course, the green clubs, such as Celtic, Werder Bremen, Panathinaikos, Hibernian, Real Betis, et al.
For now, it's only GFX swatches to test what might work, but it should be do-able with a decent multiplexor system and side-to-side scrolling.
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