itch.io

It's lovely! We might run an extremely limited (aka, mostly for ourselves and a few friends) boxed version in the future. If we do, we'll add the official disk label to the goodies for sure ;)
Until then, everyone can grab this lovely version!

NewsStand is a technically impressive, very colorful game. The humor is great if you were a  kid in 80-90es, but it has a few touches to make it more understandable to the modern audience.
Graphics are extremely colorful. Sprites are rich of details and colors, there is background animation, and the background itself is very detailed.
The title screen music is quite catchy. The levels mostly have sound effect only, but I think that's appropriate since some menaces can be detected by sound way easier.
The game is difficult, sometimes downright annoying and counter-intuitive, but it feels to me that was by design, as a lot of the games of that time period were exactly like that. This one has good controls though, so you can't blame anyone but yourself if you die :)

All in all, well done, guys!

it's not a bug. It's a (partial) citation from the last verse of the Inferno (Hell) part of The Divine Comedy, in its native language, and the game designer wanted to keep it that way on purpose.

Inferno, XXXIV

My Leader then, and I,
in order to regain the world of light,
entered upon that dark and hidden path;
and, without caring for repose, went up,
he going on ahead, and I behind,
till through a rounded opening I beheld
some of the lovely things the sky contains;
thence we came out, and saw again the stars.

Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso 
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo; 
e sanza cura aver d’alcun riposo,
salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo, 
tanto ch’i’ vidi de le cose belle 
che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo. 
E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.     

Hello!
Thingum_Bob already replied to this question, but as a stopgap measure, I've added to the download section a quick reference guide, with some tips and a healthy dose of humor inside. Hope you like it, while the full manual is being worked on!

Hello! The game uses the standard kernel load routines, which aren't known for their speed. I am surely not a master C64 programmer, and in fact the game has been written in XC-basic (https://xc-basic.net/), not in assembly. Surely someone expert in assembly would have been able to write a fastload routine, and would have been able to write code in a more efficient way. But alas, that someone is not I.
A side effect of using compiled code, is that some revisions just do not work when compressed. I haven't a clue of what triggers this problem, and it has been a mad rush to get the game out before Xmas (although it was a self-imposed limitation, we would have never released it if we didn't set a date for ourselves). That being said, I'll make sure that the post Xmas updates will have compressed executables. Those quicken the initial load time (aka, the black screen one) by around 60%. I strongly suggest using a kung-fu flash cartridge on original hardware if that load speed won't be enough. On VICE, CTRL+W activates warp mode that will considerably speed load times up.
About the other suggestions, I will try to implement them in the next update as well. Really, the only limit is the meager amount of free memory, but I'll try :)
Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks mpjedi :D

Thank you! And thanks for the coverage!

Thanks n0l4n! It's indeed a love letter to the whole retro community from us to you all :D

Thank you! And thanks for the coverage on your channel!!