Pharaohs Return - A beautiful C64 style game in development!

Way back in 2012, May 26th to be precise, a C64 styled game in development largely went unnoticed in the retro gaming scene. It looked to have all the hallmarks of a fantastic game, with some incredible detail that even C64 owners would probably drool at the thought of playing. Welcome to 'Pharaohs Return'; a current indie game development by Lazycow that looks just like Rick Dangerous, with enemies such as bats and beasts, underground tombs and caves, ropes to climb, vines to swing on, deadly traps and platforms that move.

According to LazyCow, 'Pharaohs Return' uses a 320x192 multicolor charmode screen with raster interrupts every 32 lines, which splits the screen in six 320x32 zones with select able background colors and multicolor colors, while trying to stick to C64 restrictions. The developer is also aiming for a Windows, Mac and Linux release, with a possible plan to port it to the C64.

The downside though, and this as always comes down to the release date, as from the 2013 posting the developer did mention the game is over 60% complete, whereas from the 2015 update, we may only see a non-playable demo at the end of this year. But still, I for one am really stoked for the next two years, we have Sam's Journey, The Lost Treasure of Cuauhtemoc, Roland of Sherwood, Cosmic Prison Commando and now this game. It's as if the 80's are back in fashion, and damn does it look good!

2013 Teaser

Links :

1) Lemon64 Discussion

2) Development Discussion

3) Tigsource Discussion

3) Website