Game 13: Wheel of Fortune (1986)

United States (probably)
Released 1986
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Hari Wiguna
Date Started: 26 June 2025
Date Ended: 26 June 2025
Total Hours: 0.5
Difficulty: -
Final Rating: 22

Wheel of Fortune is a fine adaptation of the popular TV game show of the same name for being a very early non-commercial Amiga game. It’s written in AmigaBASIC but feels pretty solid for what it is. I also like it makes it possible to create your own puzzles via data files, which is forward-thinking for the time. I’m giving it a 7 for Programming. The game is mainly mouse-driven, which works fine, but there are also optional keyboard shortcuts which is a nice bonus (and not something you see in every game, annoyingly), so I’m giving it a 6 for Controls. There is a certain nostalgic charm to this, though it’s very limited thanks to almost non-graphical nature, so for Vibe, it’s getting a 1. The Graphics are very simple and rely mostly on basic AmigaOS GUI elements with a few dashes of AmigaBASIC graphics. I have to say the game gets quite a bit out of that limited options and has some nice animations that make it feel alive. I’m giving it a 3. There is no Story, of course, so that’s a 0. The game has a few basic sound effects, but no music. You can also enable the Amiga Workbench’s text to speech system, but that’s very robotic and more like a gimmick. I’m giving it a 1 for Audio. I had a bit of fun for a quick session, and I can see how this would have been a fun game to play with up to 3 friends back then. There’s no computer opponent, though you can play alone. I’m giving it a 4 for Fun. This gives it a final rating of 22, which is pretty good for an early game like this.

Not much interesting I can add to this, seems Hari Wiguna didn’t release any other games for the Amiga. Well, at least in terms of TV game adaptations, there’s undoubtedly more to come, as this was a popular genre in the 80s and 90s, even if the vast majority of these are commercial products and not Freeware or Shareware.

Game 12: Imbiss III (1987)

Germany
Released 1987
Genre: Economy Simulation
Developer: Oliver Schwald
Date Started: 26 June 2025
Date Ended: 26 June 2025
Total Hours: 0.5
Difficulty: 2/5
Final Rating: 22

Another quick review, this time for Imbiss III by Oliver Schwald, a simple German economy simulation game where you run a small snack bar. There is no fixed end state, you simply have to make as much money as possible in the number of weeks you choose at the start of the game. Each round, you can stock up from a fixed selection of goods (fried sausages, french fries, cola, 3 types of ice cream, cigarettes and newspapers) and set as selling price for each item. After accepting, the game simulates a business day, and you can watch your stocks going down and the amount of money in your cash register going up. As the manual notes, people will buy more on the weekend days, while you’ll be only able to buy stock on regular weekdays, so you have to plan ahead. The game also simulated temperature, which affects the sales of ice cream and drinks. If you’re good enough, you can add your name to the high score list at the end of the game.

Programming seems fine for what the game is trying to do. I noticed no bugs, but it’s no technical marvel: 6. The Controls are completely mouse-driven and feel perfectly adequate without annoyances. I like that you can keep buttons pressed to quickly set the price for an item, without having to click each time. 7. There is certain charm to this, even if this feels more like an Excel sheet than a game, mainly because it’s about simple, mundane stuff everyone can relate to: food and drinks on a hot summer day, so Vibe gets a 3 from me. There are no Graphics in a traditional sense, just a very simple, mouse-driven text interface, so I’ll give it a 1. There is no Story, of course, so that’s a 0. There’s no real Audio either, apart from a short melody that plays when you start a new day: 1. I had some good, simple fun with this, so I’ll give it a 4 for Fun. This gives it a final rating of 22. That’s pretty good for such a simple text-based game, but it feels very solid and like a game that was fun to play in short bursts back then.

There’s actually a bit of history attached to Imbiss III. Apparently, it was a port of an earlier version of the game simply called Imbiss the author released in 1984 for the Commodore 64 (whatever happened to Imbiss II), which in turn was based on a 1983 Apple II game called Imbiss-Bude by F. Brall. From there all kinds of ports and remakes to various home computers and later the PC and Android followed. The last version I could find was a PC version from 2021 by GitHub user Steinheilig and is written in Python. It can be found on GitHub, where you also find a bit of historical details about the different versions, as well as infos about historical bugs and, just for the fun of it, how to optimize strategies for the game using machine learning.

Game 11: Rock Slide (1987)

United States
Released 1987
Genre: Arcade
Developer: Jimbo Barber
Date Started: 26 June 2025
Date Ended: 26 June 2025
Total Hours: 0.5
Difficulty: 2.5/5
Final Rating: 11

Another real quick review for the second Jimbo Barber game I’m playing, Rock Slide. This is another Boulder Dash clone, and certainly not the last one I’ll encounter by any means. It’s a pretty bland port that seems decent from a Programming standpoint (4) and is written in compiled True BASIC. Alas, the Controls are horribly laggy (this seems to have become a pattern on these early arcade games...) and keystrokes are buffered. This weirdly even happens while a new level is building up. I was impatient and tried a few keys to maybe speed up the process, but this somehow managed to kill the player once the level started properly. Oh, well. So it gets a 2 in this category. The Vibe is non-existent (0), the Graphics are pretty bland and unremarkable (2), there’s no Story (0) of course, and the Audio only consists of a few beeps and boops that would even be shameful on a PC speaker (1). Ultimately, it’s not very Fun (2) because all of that. That gives it a final rating of 11.

Jimbo Barber announced his coming-up game, Landing at Io, in the About menu of this game, so that’s what I’ll be playing next.

Update: I couldn’t fomd Landing at Io anywhere, so this is off the table for now.