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Potential game ports for B&W Macs

CharlieFrown

Well-known member
Hi,

What I really like about 1-bit Macs is how they managed to let it run games like Lemmings, Arkanoid, Civilization, Tetris which rely on color graphics on other platforms. Which game ports would be possible in 2021? Personally I am not interested in Doom type of games (ok maybe except for raycasting RPGs), so #1 choice is old school two-dimensional game with top down view, which comes from Sega Dreamcast library. It's titled Chu Chu Rocket and 20 years ago it was ported to Atari ST without any lawsuits from Sega. See here http://rg.atari.org/chuchu.htm Lite version works on 1 MB computers with stock CPU 68000@ 8 MHz, there's also home-brew rendition of this game for NES.

Note that in single player mode doesn't really on color graphics (unlike multiplayer). It's a single screen game without any horizontal scrolling, but there are plenty of sprites at times (depending on level progression).

Do you think that's possible to achieve on Macintosh with black and white graphics?
Would like to read about your other potential game ports' ideas.
 

BacioiuC

Well-known member
It's really doable brining it to 1bit macintoshes. Some special attention needs to be given to the sprites themselves to make sure they look good in 1bit color but other than that there shouldn't be too much issues from the looks of it. I'd need to play the game a bit to understand what it is about and if it relies on any special hardware trickeries to simplify the work it has to do.
 

mattsoft

Well-known member
I've always thought that classic Spectrum games would look quite good on the Mac's 1-bit screen.
 

olePigeon

Well-known member
Ultima III, IV, and V. I think Ultima I and II were the only games ported to the Macintosh, with a shareware color version of Ultima III. Same with Bard's Tale II and III.

But EA would never let those games be ported.
 

Crutch

Well-known member
There was an original port of Ultima III “Exodus” back in the 80s also (I know because I had it :) ), in black and white. The later color version was a colorization of that version, I think. None of the later Ultimas had classic Mac OS versions.
 

Crutch

Well-known member
I would love a boxed copy but guess those are super rare? I cleaned out my parents’ basement a few years ago and found my old copy of “Secrets of Sosaria”, the sort-of-hint-book for Ultima III (not Mac-specific). Having no use for it I put it up on eBay. It auctioned for over $300 (!!!) despite having my 10-year-old-self’s handwriting on it. I was blown away.
 

olePigeon

Well-known member
@Crutch I pieced mine together. Won an auction for the "box and manuals only." Then I found just the disk a little later on from someone else.
 
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