Hi, let me explain the lack of second button support. When I started working on lester I didn't have a clue of how a C64 worked, so I decided to make a simple game contained in a single load. This decision had a major downside, at the end of the development there was simply not enough memory to implement an organic support of the second button with an option screen with different control schemes. The only way to include it with the memory available was leaving both options always on. But this introduced two problems. Pad users could accidentaly press up and make unintentional jumps ruining the gameplay and then there is the real elephant in the room: there are a lot of real C64 out there with apparently working SIDs that have analog paddle lines completely busted and this would have made the game unplayable on those machines. But if you need a second button support, crackers on csdb made a version for everyone who needs it.
Eh, purtroppo mi hanno incastrato in un maxiprogetto nella real life con un crunch terrificante che ha un po' fermato tutto. Appena me lo pagano mi prendo sei mesi sabbatici e cerco di accelerare un po'.
Regarding my experience this is my first game ever. Not for the C64 but for every platform. But I'm a good player and in all those years I developed a taste for a certain type of games and I tried to reproduce what I like about them. Or, at least, the things reproducible on an 8-bit machine.
What I like about the C64 is that despite its infinite library there are few games that explicitly try to mimic the japanese productions on consoles and home computers. The great majority feel so 64ish. But what I learned with much surprise in those last years is that it's more a design choice than an actual limitation of the machine. Despite the heavy limitations of its graphic modes the C64 has a palette that is more colorful and vibrant than what the average 80s game made us think. And Lester is not even the best demonstration of this because I choose to have a dominant color per section which made my life a lot easier but take a look at Sam's Journey. What they made is insane and a testament of the VIC-II real capabilities.
Regarding the next game I'd like to take again inspiration from productions on other machines like I did for Lester which was a love-letter to both MSX and NES platforming, but this time looking to the other side of Japan... late master system/early mega drive era.
Thanks! I don't want to spoil the game here but if you are stuck there's a great playthrough done by VIPER's Retrogame videos down in the comment section, at 20:30 in the video you'll find the answer.
Hi, thanks for the feedback! Actually it turned out to be quite a nasty issue that could crash the game under certain circumstances. A couple of other player have experienced it. The good news is that this bug is fixed in V1.1 which will roll out shortly.
Thanks! Regarding the second button support I'll see what can I do in v1.1. There are literally few bytes left in memory and they may be needed to fix a couple of bugs surfaced in v1.0
Thanks! Can I ask you where you played the game (real hw, winvice, vice on linux, other)? Another player spotted the same bug and I'm collecting info for a fix in v1.1
Think about the old times where we had to figure what to do in some obscure game from some obscure pirated collection without on screen tutorial AND without manual.
You spotted it right! I loved it and it's the main inspiration of Lester, along with the old Konami's MSX metroidvanias. Actually this game started as a conversion attempt just to kill some time during 2020 lockdown.
