Tiki Project - A Commodore 64 nod to The New Zealand Story by Robert Wilson is in development!

We've just received another great update in our inbox, especially for Commodore 64 gamers across the globe. As if you're looking for another HOT news story for the C64, then we have just been told Robert Wilson is working on a brand new game called Tiki Project(Name may change); A re-imagining of the Tiki character from The New Zealand Story in an upcoming C64 game. In light of this news, the creator has also shown some very early footage of the game below.

Here is what the creator says about his latest game that's in development. "  The C64 version of the arcade game was converted by Ocean software and has patchy history.  It was brought in-house late in 1989 and they gave the development team less than 6 weeks to get it ready for Christmas release, having pulled the contract from Choice Software earlier in the year, who still went on to convert the Amstrad, Amiga and Atari ST versions.  The C64 version was full of bugs, it had numerous cuts to it and graphically was let down by the poor main character which didn't even resemble the arcade, crude enemy sprites and poor backgrounds.  It was the only version whose main character didn't look anything like the arcade". 

"So, I've decided to redesign the main character to make him as close to the Arcade version as possible given the limitations of the C64.  Rather than re-creating The New Zealand Story game exactly. I've decided to write a new platform game with the main character".

"This second preview adds an additional enemy from Level 1-1 of the original arcade game to see how it looks and given it a new colour palette and overlay to enhance its look.  Both the snail and crab look quite close to the originals.  I've limited to just two frames of animation for both, to keep number of sprites in my sprite bank to a minimum. Both enemies are the same sprites just multiplexed.  I would think I will add another two enemies for a total of four on-screen at once.  No collision detection so far in this preview".

"I've refined the Tiki sprite in a few places, his standing feet at the back were not 100% correct.  His beak is slightly changed to match the arcade more. There is an additional falling animation frame when jumping to a platform on the arcade that I will add in the next preview, rather than looking upwards. Tiki looks forward briefly before landing and doesn't flap his wings unless he's fallen from a certain height, or just fallen straight off a platform".

"The game is using EBCM for the backgrounds and I'm quite pleased with the look so far.  I've added a bit more detail and added a maori-style totem pole.  The faces were inspired by Level 2-1 in the game.  The flags are purely an embellishment and they wouldn't normally be placed on a totem pole in real-life.  I just wanted a little bit of animation going on in the background".

"Tiki now fires arrows!  The bow is pretty much identical to the arcade. The arrow sprite is also detailed like the arcade and is as close as I can get it.  In the arcade version of New Zealand Story, Tiki can fire when jumping and so this would require a bow adding to that animation frame.  I'm still deciding on whether to replicate this or make Tiki fire only when on the ground or a platform. The game is at a very early stage of development and I have no timescales for completion, or when I will return to it next to update it further.  The game at this stage should however be both PAL and NTSC compatible". 

So yes this is one game we will be keeping an eye on as it develops! :)