Absorbing, thrilling action in a creepy setting by using minimalist design was another attempt Richard Bayliss tried to implement into the game Darkland with the help of the SEUCK (Shoot'Em Up Construction Kit) engine. The programmer is no stranger to this type of development environment. He has his own website on which several hundreds of his games and demos for the C64 are offered. The screenshots on the itch.io website gave me reason to hope that the creative spark leaps over to him and that the result was not just another faceless blast-the-baddies game.
On a normal workday, research chemist Caren discovers a headless human body in one of the biologists' tanks. Who does it belong to? What has happened? And why does anybody make a new Adventure game on the C64 in 2015? At least the last question is easy to answer: because they can!
Inspired by early Lucasfilm Adventures, Caren offers a very slick game experience. You move a cursor around the screen with a joystick. A simple button press will make Caren go there (if possible). Keeping the button pressed for a second or so (configurable) will open an action menu, from where you can either examine or handle ("use") something or combine it with an inventory object.
