Amaurote is an isometric action games that was written by Binary Design and published by Mastertronic in 1987. It was released for the ZX Spectrum, Atari 8-bit, Amstrad CPC and MSX. It was also released for the C64, but it wasn’t isometric in style, but top-down view.
However, 35 years later, Elysium64, have remedied this, and have launched an isometric version for the Commodore 64.
Krzysztof Dabrowski (Brush/Elysium) visited an Atari forum in 2014 and read a thread about the Jakub Husak accelerating the game for the Atari 8-bit platforms and became intrigued in a potential C64 rendition that was faithful to the original execution. After years of on-off development, team Elysium made a breakthrough in 2022 by finally addressing all of the remaining bugs of the C64 edition.
Not only was the game complete for the stock breadbin, in addition, this version also utilises the Commodore 128 (in C64 mode), the game uses the 2MHz mode of the processor (off-screen), which provides a 30% increase in-game speed. Not only that, a special speed-up version of the game was also crafted: Amaurote for the SCPU, Turbo Chameleon and Ultimate64 accelerators – all in 20mhz mode. Just make sure you answer “yes” in the trainer menu.
Enhancing the game presentation even further, Michał Hoffmann(Randall/Elysium/MSL) was employed to deliver a new C64 soundtrack, reminiscent of the original, utilising the power of the SID. Additionally, James Svärd (Joe/Wrath Designs) crafted a beautiful title picture to complete the game’s 2022 rendition. As a cherry on top Cal Skuthorpe (Buzz Clik/Onslaught) created a superb dir-art.
Krzysztof got in touch with the Pickford Brothers, who made the original, before releasing the game to get their approval. Ste Pickford said on Twitter “Oh wow, someone has done a Commodore 64 conversion of the Spectum / Amstrad version of Amaurote, a game I made with my brother @JPickford in 1987. Who says you can’t do isometric on the bread bin?”
You can download the game here.
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