Back in July 2019, Simon Jameson, developer of Doc Cosmos among others, began streaming the development of a competitive single-screen platformer on Twitch, taking inspiration from titles such as Bubble Bobble, with episodes later uploaded for posterity on YouTube. Community members contributed ideas, graphics, level designs, music and SFX as well as pointing out mistakes made under the considerable influence of a variety of alcoholic drinks.
All 70 episodes over the next 21 months are available to watch here, and are an invaluable (and entertaining) resource for anyone wanting to start making games for the C64.
Pik n Mix has been released as a project by Simon Jameson (Shallon50k) and Arlasoft, with the latter explaining: “I offered my services to add the finishing touches and get the game out for everyone to play. I focused mainly on improving the single-player mode as the 2P co-op/competitive mode had been the main focus during the streams, as well as touching up some graphics and fixing the remaining bugs.“
In summary, the game is 99.9% the work of Shallan and his Twitch/Discord community, and Arlasoft is a quasi-publisher tying the whole thing together. The game contains 33 challenging levels with a variety of enemies with very different behaviours to keep you on your toes.
The aim of the game is to stun enemies with paintballs and then eat them. When you have gained enough weight, all players must step on the switch to open the door to the next level. The player who wins the race to the door first wins the level and gets a bonus.
Digital download: https://arlagames.itch.io/pik-n-mix
Physical edition: coming in 2023
