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Dedicated to our “Father of the Amiga”
The Late Great Jay Miner
(31st May 1932 – 20th June 1994)
Aged 62 Years Old
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Welcome to The Amiga Boing Blog, Born on 11th November 2020, which started with the Review of Cave Runner and is dedicated to the life and memory of The Late Great Jay Miner, who is the one and only “Father of the Amiga”
This Blog aims to preserve Classic and even some Modern Games specifically on the Commodore Amiga, I am now on my way to creating the BIGGEST EVER Public Domain. Shareware and Freeware Collection the Amiga has seen, even bigger than The Assassins Collection (and that was HUGE at 260+ Disks)
My main aim is, and will always be, to bring the Amiga to the masses, by creating an simple, easy to use Click ‘N’ Load Games Collection (as in Select a Game from a Menu and it loads), for both WinUAE and Amiga Forever, currently as of April 2024, It looks like this:
As the Games Collection is now done as Files/Folders on the PC-side (to get around that ugly Kickstart 1.3 Bug which I explained here), You can even copy the Games over to a Real Amiga, If you have a PCMCIA Adapter for the Amiga, it is as easy as Drag ‘N’ Drop to a CompactFlash Card, insert that into the Amiga, and copy the files off, ideally using something like SID or Directory Opus
The only thing what is missing sadly, are the Amiga Kickstart ROM Images, which are a requirement, But due to them still being under copyright, I cannot legally distribute them, however, if you do own Amiga Forever, There is a file you can run which will copy the Kickstart ROM’s from Amiga Forever into the correct locations so you can use the Games Collection, sadly this is the best I can do (for now), I have of course put my own personal thoughts about this in the Amiga Kickstart ROMS post I made a while ago
I work pretty hard behind the scenes, I have to source the Games from various sources, such as Public Domain, Shareware, and Freeware Game Collections, Magazine Coverdisks, The Assassins Collection and many other Collections which were made for the Amiga back in the day
Then I need to find and copy all the required files that they need to run, such as Library files and Fonts which can even be specific to each Game, as well as making “Assign”ments to hard drive folders, and in some cases, I also need to change where the Game itself looks for its own files, since looking at DF0: is completely useless on a large Games Collection such as the one I am building here
The Games Collection is fully loaded with Classic Public Domain, Shareware and Freeware Games, which are all playable under one roof, bundled with the WinUAE Emulator, This is now distributed in Files Format (in the AmigaBoingHDF folder), this now allows Real Amiga Owners to Copy the Files to a SD Card and insert a PCMCIA Adapter into the Amiga and copy over the Games individually for Click ‘N’ Run on the Amiga-side, Please check the “PLAY” file in each folder for ASSIGN’ments and Libraries and/or Game Fonts are usually located inside the Game Folder itself (and are ASSIGN’ed on Game Load automatically)
I update the Games Collection Downloads Monthly, Just as if you were getting a New Magazine from the Shop, with a minimum of 4 PD/SW Games included in the Update
For those who own Amiga Forever I also create RP9 Files of all the Games I have reviewed so far, so you can easily copy them into Amiga Forever and play them instantly without even requiring any additional files as these are simply compressed ZIP files which mainly contains the Games on a HDF (Hard Disc) Image (which loads much faster than ADF images) and has several screenshots, and even Game Documentation, if available, and Links to the websites where you can find out more about the Game itself, There are still a few contained on ADF Images, usually because they hard lock to DF0: or refuse to load from a HDF Image
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The Amiga shaped the landscape of the 80’s and 90’s and is still today a very well loved machine, and still used by thousands of dedicated fans all around the world, There were many different models released
The most popular models were the Amiga 500, Amiga 600, and the Amiga 1200
I will remain heavily focused on Amiga-based Games and Commercial Demos which was written or made available on the Amiga Platform
The Games I review are not always Classics either, For example, I have reviewed Metal Gear (2021) and Crazy Columns (2021) which are now available for download in the Games Collection and Amiga Forever RP9 Files, as long as it is an Amiga game which is either Public Domain, Shareware, Freeware or a Demo of a Commercial Game (if available), it will be Reviewed and added to the Games Collection
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The Amiga for me, was a huge part of my life growing up, I used to get Games from a local store which no longer exists *sigh* and disk swap with friends, and yes, we all used X-Copy in those days to create backups of games, except my friend “Charlie” (not his real name to avoid his blushes) whos parents bought him an Atari ST *OH THE HORROR* so he could never Disk Swap with me and my friends, awwww….
My late Mother loved playing Mouth-Man, Deluxe Pacman and Flag Catcher and was always playing them when I came home from School, oh yes, Those were the days, when Games were not 3 billion pixels and needed a High End PC to run them, yes we had to wait while the Good ‘ol Amiga spinned up its Floppy Drive (remember those? – maybe not if you are under 30 heh) and you even had to Disk Swap in games such as Cannon Fodder if you only had 1 drive – Nowadays, There are thankfully GoTek drives which can Emulate a Real Amiga Floppy Drive, especially if the one you had now has Read Errors or will simply refuse to read any Amiga Floppy Disk
I truly love the Amiga, and now many more can also enjoy it today, with emulators like WinUAE (Windows), UAE (Linux), and even Raspberry PI ports of them, making the Amiga so portable, You can take it to a friends house, and play in Full HD on a Raspberry PI – Now thats Progress!
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Commercially the Amiga had some kick-ass Games, from International Karate by Archer Maclean (1962-2022) through to The Chaos Engine, and even games such as Shadow of the Beast, through to Another World, and sadly their were some flops too, like the absolutely horrid conversions, such as Rolling Thunder (I even prefer playing the C64 version, then Arcade versions before the slow, poor Amiga conversion)
As for PD/SW/FW Games, there are absolutely tons of them, likewise, there are some absolute gems, such as Richard Langford’s Games, such as Wally World, Cookie and The Pyramid, to Stuart Fisher’s The Matchstick Man, which is always fun to play, and Flag Catcher by Bryan Turnock, where you have to find the flag in a large area within a set number of moves, while there are again, some absolute flops, such as the really poor Les Dennis Hangman which was created in AMOS, But sadly the source code is not available (as it could have been improved if so), and it only includes one word from Les Dennis himself (“Yes”) which was probably ripped off UK Family Fortunes anyway, of course there are literally thousands of PD/SW/FW Games which fall below par, and proves that while AMOS allowed many to create Amiga Games, it also allowed some to create bad Games
Let’s not forget about Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit (SEUCK) which also allowed many to create some pretty decent Shooting Games, now there are not many I can frown upon with SEUCK, most of them are pretty decent, despite the limitations of the SEUCK Engine, and are well designed in most cases, certainly in the ones I have reviewed so far, I have to say Pee Bee is one of my all time favourites, followed by Smurf Hunt, while Godzilla had pretty poor graphics, but reasonable gameplay which draws me in for a quick blast now and again
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On 29th April 1994, Commodore International and Commodore Electronics Ltd declared bankruptcy before the Bahamian Supreme Court, thus ending the companies 40 year history as a leader in consumer products, electronics and one of the pioneers of personal computers, one of which is known as enjoyed as the Amiga.
The Amiga was designed by a small independant team of innovative people in Los Gatos, California, for which we own gratitude to Jay “Padre” Miner, R.J.Mical, Dale Luck and many others both before and after Commodore’s acquisition of the Amiga.
(The Above Text is from “The Game” which was written in Palace Software’s 1989 Shoot Em Up Construction Kit)
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