Our next entry into the archives is an obscure sideways scrolling game where you control Eddie, whose great passion is hang gliding. The game got mentioned recently in a new thread on Lemon64.
The adventure begins with news of the kidnapping of his beloved Lisa, by a tyrant called Ozman who is the ruler of Kali Ambar. You must save Lisa by manoeuvring your glider past Ozman’s assistants, walls and repeatedly appearing faces. You collect bonus stars by kicking your feet, where 100 stars will get you an extra life.
Using different collectables, you can be immune to the background elements or even destroy them temporarily or get additional lives and points as you try and progress through 31 levels.
The game was reviewed in the German magazine Joystick and got average scores overall, but was praised at least for the cheap price. However the game was to completely disappear and only would see brief mentions in magazines.
64’er wouldn’t review the game, but mentioned that there was 13 pieces of music overall and a competition to find a hidden word on the last level.
The game should have been sold and released by a relatively unknown publisher called “U.L. Software”, who don’t seem to have done anything else. Was the game actually ever sold by mail order, or was it canned after the poor review?
As mentioned on the Lemon64 thread, the game may well have been inspired by the 1982 Atari/Kaneko arcade game – Fast Freddie. According to an anonymous contributor, the Author was Manfred Leidorf from City Pirmasens in Germany – we’re just trying to establish more information but have listed as a possible credit for now.
Sadly, according to a forum64.de post, Manfred unfortunately passed away some years ago – so recovering the game now may be almost impossible, unless someone happens to have a copy they were given or sent.
We hope to find out more soon. If you know anything about the development or who “U.L. Software” were, then please let us know.
Contributions: Kirie e Leison, Bultro, Fabrizio Bartoloni, Anonymous
The Author was Mandred Leidorf from City Pirmasens in Germany.
Hi there, thanks very much for the submission. Can I just check where this information came from and how this is known? Was it printed in the press at some point? Many thanks :)
I think he meant Manfred, not Mandred. There is a game developer under that name who made games on C64 and Amiga:
https://gb64.com/game.php?id=5967&d=36&h=0
https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/developers/games/38991-manfred-leidorf
Thanks Fabrizio – updated :)
BTW, in case the author was Leidorf, he’s passed away meanwhile according to this post by the late Stingray:
“[…] Was mir noch einfällt, es gab damals in der Amiga Special einen sehr brauchbaren Assemblerkurs von Manfred Leidorf (möge er in Frieden ruhen!), falls Du irgendwie an diese alten Amiga Special Ausgaben herankommst, wäre das sicher hilfreich. Ich hab’ den Kurs damals gerne gelesen, weil er didaktisch recht gut aufgebaut war und viel Wissen vermittelt hat.”
https://www.forum64.de/index.php?thread/100911-seka-vs-asm-one/