BOULDER RUN

Nonogram puzzles (also known as Picross) hand the player a grid of cells and challenge them to recreate an image using a series of clues positioned on each row and column but, while this might seem simple, the challenges on offer from a good example of the genre can keep players busy for hours.

Over the years we’ve seen a few variations on this theme on a range of 8-bit systems, including one recently for the C64, but

does stand out from the crowd. It’s loaded with puzzles which might initially feel like an insurmountable challenge, but it doesn’t serve up strict penalties for mistakes or taking too long so the experience is surprisingly relaxed and progress can be saved should the player feel the need for a break.

So this a more sedate puzzler, then. One that’s ideal when you want to sit back after a long day at work and kick back with some relaxing brain-teasers. Pico-8 free PAUL hammond Kikstart.me.uk/boulder-run-pico8

There’s diamonds in them there hills, huge ones the height of a man just there to be gathered up by anybody brave enough to go searching. Each stage has a quota of diamonds to collect – sometimes there are extras which can be grabbed for more points – but there are boulders everywhere which will fall and potentially crush whatever is below them should the surrounding earth be disturbed. This does come in handy for dealing with roaming fireflies, amoebas or butterflies, and in some cases dropping a rock on their heads is actually a necessity.

is a love letter to First Star’s classic – specifically the C64 version – right down to the reworked in-game graphics. The levels have similarly been recreated and, because any cave and difficulty level can be from the main menu, more experienced spelunkers can make things tougher for themselves. After the release of on the Commodore 64 there’s been a flurry of discussions over at Atari Age as programmers look into producing similar enhancements for their platform of choice. One of these projects is called and is, if the name didn’t give things away, the original

but backwards. It has issues at the time of writing, but Kikstart.me.uk/eel-ecurb-a8 goes to the announcement in that larger Bruce-themed thread.

We don’t often look at ROM hacks but is an enhancement on the dot-eating Atari 7800 cartridge which, amongst other things, changes all of the graphics out to get a higher resolution. It has a few masking problems right now, but the Atari Age thread with a download is at Kikstart.me.uk/pac-320-7800. £2.89

[C64] It might be level 30 but this needs a 1581. [C64] Doing a spot of worldbuilding, one pixel at a time. [PICO-8] Wondering which is the safest route to take in a cluttered stage. [PC] Goodness, here comes a very large and angry-looking invader.