...Love letter book to video games on the Commodore 64...

You can download the books (.RAR-files) via the links below. Since they are in "comic book formats", i.e., image archives, Comic Book Readers like MComix, ComicRack, or ComicScreen are highly recommended for viewing them.

Pages: 784
Word count: 270K
Format: CBZ
Release date: December 23, 2017

Choose image quality:

(File "1" would probably be suitable for many smartphones (Mostly due to the file size.), "2" or "3" for tablets, and "5" for computers that aren't older than "10 years". "4" is that middle ground between image quality and file size.)

1. 134 dpi, JPG (50% Compression Quality)
[ 155,9 MB ]

2. 134 dpi, JPG (70% Compression Quality)
[ 200,4 MB ]

3. 167 dpi, JPG (70% Compression Quality)
[ 273,0 MB ]

4. 167 dpi, JPG (90% Compression Quality)
[ 437,9 MB ]

5. 200 dpi, JPG (90% Compression Quality)
[ 558,0 MB ]

PREVIEW 58 pp. (The first three chapters.) - 167 dpi, JPG (90% Compression Quality)
[ 28,6 MB ]


There were nearly ten thousand commercial software releases for the Commodore 64. Most of the popular and best selling titles were, not surprisingly, video games - Produced and developed during a creative explosion that was instrumental in making the "C64" the best selling home computer of all time during the nearly twelve years (1982-1994) it was manufactured. Not only marked the 80s / early 90s a groundbreaking era that would shape the entire video game industry, but also a time of innovation and pioneering in game development. The Commodore 64 made it possible - After all, this was a machine that breezed through the infamous video game crash of 1983.

PLAYING COMMANDO! attempts to spark, renew and / or reinforce the interest in C64-games by bringing slightly coordinated attention to approximately 1100 of them - Not only The Best of the Best and the Greatest Hits, but also; "Guilty Pleasures" ("Innocent Pleasures", more like!), exclusives, fan favorites, forgotten gems, genre-definers / changers, under-appreciated cult classics, "controversial" wonders, and last but not least: The masterpieces that were better on the C64 than on any other platform. (The 16-bit machines included!) One chapter is also reserved for a bunch of very specific games - Games that more often than not cost like (and were marketed as) ordinary ones, but turned out to be severe disappointments to most players...

...

So who is this book for?

Anyone with an interest in a significant part of what now is known as Retro-gaming - The C64 paved the way for modern gaming alongside popular, contemporary platforms like the Commodore Amiga, the NES, and the SEGA Master System. This publication is also dedicated to all those who look back on this era with a strong sense of nostalgia. And, more naturally, those who in "this modern age" wish to be reminded of many of the games that created these wonderful memories through eight-bit graphics and the sweet sounds of the SID-chip.

A small section of this book focuses on how to get and play all these games. Emulation is still the cheapest and safest way to go all these decades later. Many of the original tapes and disks may unfortunately be gone or lost, and hardware failures are all too common... But the rich preservation- and emulation-community is what keeps this extremely diverse gaming platform alive.

And immortal.



The #MD5 checksums for the downloads are as follows:

fa37df7bde48d386d02c42a2bed4b0e5 - PC_134_50.rar
761e5048c703da9508f750c12221c777 - (CBZ-file)

6c05d64711304b8488e0f75332e8c83c - PC_134_70.rar
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640c40b5b446a5ecf4987d3e2852feb7 - PC_167_90.rar
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4b6e41c68fbed7ca968ab99ae48da560 - PC_200_90.rar
d0380c96dd4ad6e717118c9f90474c6d - (CBZ-file)

(Updated / re-uploaded on: 8/30/2020 - v1.4)

Pages: 672
Word count: 225K
Format: CBZ
Release date: June 1, 2019

Choose image quality:

(File "1" would probably be suitable for many smartphones (Mostly due to the file size.), "2" or "3" for tablets, and "5" for computers that aren't older than "10 years". "4" is that middle ground between image quality and file size.)

1. 134 dpi, JPG (50% Compression Quality)
[ 134,2 MB ]

2. 134 dpi, JPG (70% Compression Quality)
[ 173,2 MB ]

3. 167 dpi, JPG (70% Compression Quality)
[ 236,1 MB ]

4. 167 dpi, JPG (90% Compression Quality)
[ 381,7 MB ]

5. 200 dpi, JPG (90% Compression Quality)
[ 485,6 MB ]


In this companion piece to PLAYING COMMANDO!, we dig deeper into the software treasure of the Commodore 64 before taking a closer look at the commercial "final years" of the 8-bit wonder machine in question - These years are often represented by the games that ended up in the shadow of the 16-bits, the ones that never really found their place on the market (Or the proper way into the hearts of potential fans!), and the oddities that didn't get too many nice words written about them. Sometimes, there was a perfectly good reason for this, but other times, the hidden good qualities and ideas were overshadowed by the less shining ones. These values are, like many other things, subjective.

Just like with the previous book (Which is "the first half".), the idea is to bring a bigger bunch of games to your attention and remind you of software that you might want to revisit. There are so many games that "should" have been talked about more back then. A chunk of them might be games that you now have deep nostalgic sentiments for, and there might also be an equally big chunk of quality games that you never had the chance to check out before they vanished from the shelves and started fading from our collective memories. Some things never change. And some things are everlasting. Because, as we all know, it's never too late to get in on some 8-bit action...!

This is also a good opportunity to dig out those shining and rough "hidden" gems from the vast amounts of: Cash grabs, obscurities, Coin-Op conversions, peculiar cross-genre titles, odd experiments, shameless clones, and now mostly forgotten franchises. And in that context, it's also impossible to ignore many of the masterpieces on this platform - Old and new alike. Which brings us all the way to the future, and 2019...!

The Golden Era of the C64 was a wondrous time that constantly awakens the need for retrospective observation and to relive the era through the unstoppable power of nostalgia... Hopefully, more and more people get convinced that this deep fascination is ready to sink its teeth into new generations of video game players.

Because there is so much to discover... And re-discover...



The #MD5 checksums for the downloads are as follows:

f230612807a9de4c8dc22a69c5c76ab9 - SFP_134_50.rar
50a9b943d38a5e71d805e1cf9cc5769e - (CBZ-file)

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b3a5f82bcd6538032ea07a8390e47e8b - SFP_167_70.rar
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875bf73b8527138d28d25175f33ee44d - SFP_200_90.rar
cf5a15de6d97876757a959c49f5bcfc5 - (CBZ-file)

(Updated / re-uploaded on: 8/15/2020 - v1.0)

Pages: 408
Word count: 215K
Format: CBZ
Release date: October 11, 2020

Choose image quality:

1. 167 dpi, JPG (70% Compression Quality)
[ 155,6 MB ]

2. 167 dpi, JPG (90% Compression Quality)
[ 251,6 MB ]

3. 200 dpi, JPG (90% Compression Quality)
[ 325,5 MB ]


The "Pandemic Project"... (A.k.a. "Plan B".)

LOST IN 8-16 BITS is basically a collection of articles, reviews, chronicles and other stuff that is related to games on the Commodore 64, the Commodore Amiga, and the ZX Spectrum. Most of the texts were written during 2019-2020 (Save for two excerpts from PLAYING COMMANDO!), but nearly all of them were published at GGGames.se in one shape or another.

This e-book also includes a couple of new and updated articles from the year that passed.



The #MD5 checksums for the downloads are as follows:

d1f4f169e84bc6d9080200f1090be6b8 - LI816B_167_70.rar
e46ccc8aa69446540f8816aaf03639ef - (CBZ-file)

c3870d3b8c46ecddc53bd7afff5e271a - LI816B_167_90.rar
058937da1228513e20a33e6a0d3809e7 - (CBZ-file)

ea931906ac4f9a021021833ffa4ab94f - LI816B_200_90.rar
d8ad52b161ce4023d1c24609930775cc - (CBZ-file)

(Updated / uploaded on: 1/19/2022 - v1.0)

Additional ramblings:

* Updates, News & Stuff

* The ideas, the journey, and the practical stuff... (And PDFs...!)

* C64 Memories


* Complete Index


(C) 2017- Maximal Brain Malfunction Press