26

Sorcery from memory

I am looking for a game from the end of 80's/early 90's game on Atari ST. Where two wizards, one purple, one red have to turn the color of a checkerboard tiles to its own color using spells. The main screen in game as the aspect shown on the linked image.

It seems that the game is an advanced version of Hex on amiga/Atari ST (1985). The sorcerers is clearly inspired from the bearing lantern character from on the 1985 game "Hex" on amiga. But I am still unable to find it...

character from Hex

Spif
  • 263
  • 2
  • 5
  • Was this game on a dedicated disk or was it part of a collection containing many games? There were tons of homebrew and BASIC games of the era, some you could type in yourself (like from Compute! magazine). This kind of sounds like something simple like that and not an actually published game. – Dan Apr 12 '23 at 12:38
  • 3
    @Dan Bleh, I can just imagine typing in the DATA lines for those wizards. – Sneftel Apr 12 '23 at 14:24
  • Hex 2 maybe? https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/09/hex-2-puzzle-game-released-by-antonio.html & https://github.com/Antonio-Luque/Hex –  Apr 12 '23 at 23:14
  • Without the wizards and the spells, but with squares to change colour until you take over most of the board, "7 colors"? Very different look though. – jcaron Apr 12 '23 at 23:18
  • @jcaron The game was closer to Hex. There was no wasp, Jelly fish or unicorn in the game though. Just the character with lanterns. – Spif Apr 13 '23 at 07:55
  • I vaguely remember playing this kind of game (the graphics definitely rung a bell, and the concept matches) with my cousin. IIRC it was shareware or public domain. – Jani Miettinen Apr 13 '23 at 12:25
  • Sounds a bit like the old BBC TV gameshow "Turnabout". – AJM Apr 14 '23 at 15:20

3 Answers3

33

I guess your are looking for "Spectral Sorcery" from Jeff Makaiwi, and your drawing is absolutely on point ;)

Title Screenshot with scanlines

Menu Screenshot with scanlines

Gameplay Screenshot with scanlines

Help Screenshot with scanlines

I got it on disk #64 of French magazine "ST Magazine" which can be downloaded here ("sorcery.tos" is a self-extracting archive).

Stephen Kitt
  • 121,835
  • 17
  • 505
  • 462
nbarjolin
  • 376
  • 2
  • 5
  • 11
    1897... this is definitely retro. – Chris Clayton Apr 13 '23 at 23:30
  • @nbarjolin Than you so much ! So great you found it ! Madeleine de Proust on me ! – Spif Apr 14 '23 at 07:10
  • 1
    I don't know how I ever tolerated reading screens full of allcaps text in cute fonts. It didn't seem to bother me then, but wow it's awful now. – Wayne Conrad Apr 18 '23 at 18:58
  • @WayneConrad Yes I thought the same, so here is an album of screenshots with scanlines on: https://imgur.com/a/ohMrwH8 Maybe I should put them instead in the post – nbarjolin Apr 19 '23 at 17:30
  • @nbarjolin Isn't that interesting. The same text with scan lines seems a lot easier on my eyes. I never would have guessed that. – Wayne Conrad Apr 19 '23 at 20:03
11

I'm almost certain you are talking about Hex by Mark of the Unicorn. The only difference between your description and the actual game is the shape of the "squares", which were, as the name implies, hexes:

enter image description here

The company would only make this one game that I am aware of, but they lasted for years doing midi stuff.

Maury Markowitz
  • 19,803
  • 1
  • 47
  • 138
0

"I have no memory of this place." - Gandalf, TFoTR.

I was heavily into ST gaming from 87-92 and cannot recall a game like this, which would appear to combine elements of Q-Bert, Crystal Castles, and some other isometric puzzle games (of which there were several). But then again I don't claim to have played every game ever.

Aside from the tile-colour-changing element, might you be remembering Hero Quest...?

Eight-Bit Guru
  • 1,083
  • 7
  • 16
  • 1
    The game I am looking for was more basic than heroquest. Very close to Hex, mentionned by Maury Markowitz in the thread. The lantern bearing character in Hex was definetely the model for the wizard of the game. – Spif Apr 12 '23 at 19:16