Are you ready for some high-speed espionage mayhem involving boats? Well, The New Dimension in co-op with Alf Yngve are pleased to bring to you River Barrage, first released on the Zzap! 64 Micro Action #21 covermount and is released for you as a free to download game.

This is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up action game for your Commodore 64, theC64, Ultimate64 or whatever - you name it :) River Barrage is a fast paced river boat blaster originally created with the Sideways Scrolling SEUCK Right-Left version and has been fully enhanced with the SEUCK Redux framework which pushes this game even further. It contains:

Loading bitmap artwork.
Full colourful front end presentation.
Independent hi score table for each player (For fairer game play).
Full game map with plenty of action.
New score panel for both players.
In game background animation.
Aim firing from some enemies .
Full linked enemy explosion .
Powerful sound tracks all the way through.
Compatible with theC64, Ultimate 64 and VICE (all set in PAL mode).

River Barrage is compatible with PAL C64s only. Sorry NTSC users.

GAME INSTRUCTIONS

This is a game for 1 or 2 players.

Player 1 controls agent 1, in a white boat. The boat is armed with a long distance rifle which can only fire forward.

Player 2 controls agent 2, in a yellow boat. The boat is armed with a missile launcher, which can fire directional.

A terrorist ring leader has captured a National Park, and has sent his hench people to drop mines into the river. He is plotting to destroy a dam which is there to protect neighbouring villages from being flooded. What used to be a large beautiful natural tourist attraction has been transformed into a deadly war zone. Sightings of the leader has been spotted inside a blue plane - heading towards the dam. He must be stopped!

Your mission is to guide your boat through the National Park and find the terrorist ring leader's plane. You will not be alone because you will have to fight his hench army with your own firepower. The enemy forces are based on ground, air and water. Some enemies will require more than one hit before they are destroyed. Some other enemies will target your boat before engaging fire.

During your travel, you will encounter various obstacles. Some of which must be avoided, and others which can be shot. These include mines. Floating mines can be shot, the underwater mines dropped by grey military boats cannot be shot. You should avoid running your boat onto the mines, otherwise a life will be lost. Other deadly obstacles, which can be shot include bridges and hungry crocodiles. Mind you, we would not want one of those reptiles to clamber on board your boat do we?

Rescue swimmers who are stuck in the water. For every swimmer rescued, you will be awarded 1,000 points. Pick up life rings for 2,000 points. The higher the score, the closer you are to being awarded an extra life. Extra lives are awarded for every 10,000 points reached. Unless of course, you already have 9 lives in the lives counter.

Can you help save the dam (and its neighbouring villages) from being destroyed before it is too late?

Good luck agents!

CONTROLS:

Use joystick in either port.
Run/Stop: Pause game
Q (While paused): Abort game and go back to the title screen.

CREDITS:

Design, graphics, concept and sound effects by
Alf Yngve and Richard Bayliss using the Sideways Scrolling SEUCK - (Right to Left version by Martin Piper).

SEUCK Redux Framework by Martin Piper

Additional programming and music by Richard Bayliss

Loading bitmap by Alf Yngve

Bonus content:
RAW SEUCK file and all data files for exploring in Martin Piper's SEUCK Left tool.

This game was created as a little fun hobby to pass time. It was created exclusively for Zzap! 64 Micro Action Magazine's digital covermount. You are welcome to copy and share this production providing it is free.

CC-BY-NC

More information

Status	Released
Platforms	HTML5
Rating	Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars (4 total ratings)
Author	Richard of TND
Genre	Shooter
Tags	2D, Commodore 64, espionage, redux, Retro, seuck, zzap

Download

RiverBarrage.zip 307 kB

Install instructions

Download the "Zip" file. Check it using antivirus software before opening it. Extract the C64 media files (D64/TAP) to your PC and run in VICE. Alternatively you can run your files on to a stock Commodore 64 with 1541 Ultimate 2 (or other hardware devices that is supported on the machine), theC64 (configured correctly to display the bottom border) or the Ultimate 64.

Comments

Radio PARALAX68 days ago (1 edit)

Very nice game, even with 2 players. Our German-language review can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 01:08:05. English subtitles are also available. Subscription to our YouTube and Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂

Retro Gaming Dino106 days ago

Excellent game with great musics, thank you. I also added it to my new "Gameplay of New C64 Games from August 2024" video.

Josepzin120 days ago

Buen juego!!!

Catham Joker121 days ago

this is a pretty worked out and polished SEUCK game if i may say so, soundtrack's pretty booming too. so "scene" CAN make games huh :p

Sparky-D117 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

The game is not polish, Richard is from the UK as far as i know.

( little joke that suggested itself, I couldn't resist ). :-)

Catham Joker117 days ago

i think the gods will forgive thy little transgression in this case lol someone should come up with an all-in-one SEUCK package that runs on loonix and dos10/11 , sadly thats above my braingrade. I see stuff here and there around, title screen makers, hiscoresavers, music-adders and what not all to be combined with the main program from back in the pleistocene when gaming was gud. And i bet in this case "additional code" means what it means, like captain ishtar and stuff - is pretty great to see so much new stuff release tho i think the spec is giving the 64 a run for the money when it comes to number of releases yearly - - - not sure but i think the order is ZX - C64 - Amiga (followed up by consoles megadrive, nes, snes, gb and gba even , the jag has 3 times more titles in addition to what it had before it was opensource , sadly the ST gets less love and the godcomputer probably doesnt even have enough docs for all but a few oddball geniuses to learn how to code it and the Falcon is probably even more obscure) but in short : for a seuck game this rocks ... the bayliss name might have given him away if he really pretend to be polish ...

Sparky-D116 days ago (2 edits) (+1)

Yes, the "additional code" term in SEUCK games is something like a quality-seal, in the upmost cases, because only then, in my opinion, such construction-kit games, can be really good. When you look at the best SEUCK games so far, nearly all of them uses the enhanced engine and i really like, that these kind of games are getting better and better. The special-edition of "Zap Fight 2" still is my SEUCK number-1 game and a really good shooter on the C64.

About the number of releases for retro-systems. I think, C64 has the most ones, of all the older systems, because when you take a look at things like for example the C64 Scene-Database (CSDB), then really every day, new things for the C64 were released there. This can be pics, songs, demos, games or tools. Unbelievable, how many new and also often really good, new things come out, for the C64. It's really great, having such a computer at home since childhood and now to see, how much the system is coming back to life. I just wished, that for my other favourite retro-system, the Amiga-500, also more good new games would be released, but sadly that's not the case so far.

Catham Joker113 days ago (1 edit)

:) i havent actually counted tho i check about all new releases on csdb myself since the c64 was my " first love " followed by an Atari ST and STe later (cant even remember if it was stfm or st first) but since the mister fpga i had the chance to discover so many stuff i never even heard about . That little box is like a computer museum where i can fiddle around instead of watch-the-box on display tho to most who have it its probably an arcade cabinet.

Its hard to count but look at places like https://zxart.ee/ , https://www.msxdev.org/ , https://www.indieretronews.com/ , or the forums (denial hall of light, Mister fpga, Atari ,, etc ...) even if you count those silly gamejam games or the onehour thing hokuto force likes to pop out im not quite sure the c64 has the most, certainly not the most finished games a year anymore.

Not that it matters, every week stuff gets out for plenty of platforms the only thing thats sorry to me there is that the amiga-boom isnt countered with an Atari boom, the old rivalry seems to have lost fire and if you look at Atari forums its mostly engineering and tinkering, if games get released its almost all for the XL series , which i dont really have a past with

more = merrier tho its amazing how much life these things have after 40 + years

i cant say exactly when the c64 arrived to the kid but it certainly must have been early 80s so im probably around longer than a lot of present day csdb groups lol but im not too tribal about it. you never forget your first kiss so to speak and im still recovering from the culture shock of spending the first 48 hours trying to find the programming language on the Atari ST which for some reason when i turned it on showed nothing but a little green desktop ( that was a shock if ever i had one ...) broke fast got an STe but after the jag flopped i played a game called warlords and panzer general at a friends house and its been pc - i just "recently" re-acquired a c64 b/c i couldnt figure out wether a sid tune sounded real or not as it sounds different in goattracker, sidplayer and vice (and indeed on real hw on a tv again as i found out again) but i kinda dont use it b/c im scared to break it , mostly for stuff the mister cant handle like easyflash games (briley for instance) and testing out personal dabbles like the game we'd like to present by 2150 in early beta access for only $99.99

I like the smorgasbord the mister presents since i have it, even the consoles even if those leave little room for dabbling but the old machine that never die will always take first place

(whew ... my fingers went on while my head was in some other places sorry for that)

the post-2020 era for 8bit computers is really something the kid would never even have dreamed of and im really curious to see what all they come up with, stuff like metal slug for the STe or proxima3 for the amiga and here run 'n gun and briley and all that and even this seuck game that pushes the concept of seuck-game

i devour it

so feed me more heheh

Sparky-D112 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Yes, talking about retro gaming is always fun, also for me. I've been into this topic for a long time too, actually, since I got my first Atari-2600 back in the year 1982 (before i had a Philips pong-machine, but it had no interchangeable game-modules), then the first Commodore-64 in 1984, some years later an Amiga-500 and so on.

In the last 10 years, at least 500 games have been released for the C64, if that's enough, so i am sure, no other retro-system will come anywhere close. If you take a look at the website "Lemon64", for example, where newer C64 games have been added since the beginning of this year and the archive has already grown from around 4700 games before, to over 7270 games now. It's crazy. Looks like, the C-64 will soon be mainstream again. :-) *lol*

I'm just afraid, that this big retro-theme is going a bit beyond the scope here, because this page is actually about the new C64-game "River Barrage". So, maybe we should get back to the topic.

View more in thread

bteamfox121 days ago

A very nice game, smooth graphics and great music. Nice to have a high score table. Very enjoyable!

Sparky-D123 days ago (1 edit)

Really nice for a SEUCKer. Graphics, music and gameplay, everything good. Found out, that it uses the enhanced engine of the construction-kit. I thought before it does, because it's better than the most other SEUCK games. Nice work.

Richard of TND86 days ago(+1)

Yes, that's right. It uses SEUCK Redux, which makes games created from SEUCK, Sideways SEUCK (either version) look and feel much more incredible. The projects take some time to develop, but results are really pleasing. Alf and I love SEUCK Redux, and it is even better that I can code additional things into it, like new IRQs, enhancement ideas, etc. It is generally a programmers' tool based on ACME Cross-Assembler :)

Sparky-D85 days ago (2 edits)

Yes indeed, some of those Redux games even don't feel like SEUCK anymore. The special-edition of "Zap Fight 2" is my alltime favorite SEUCK game and a really good shooter for the C64. The later released trilogy-edition of "Zap Fight 2" looks even better (nicer score-display etc), but unfortunately this seemed to be at the expense of playability and less enemies are on the screen then. Therefore i like the special-edition of this game more. SEUCK Redux games are really interesting and a next step, compared to the normal SEUCK games, which can sometimes (not always) be a bit boring. Looking forward to a possible part 2 of "River Barrage". Maybe with a 2 players simultan mode? By the way, my favorite game from you is "Trance Sector Ultimate", a really good clone of good old "Solar Fox".