play c64 games online

January 23, 2006 10:02 AM

c64s is a pretty amazing site. Much of the popularity of the old c64 was in its wide array of games and this site offers a way to play most of the popular ones all in your browser (in java). Waste time today by reliving those old early 80s memories.
posted by mathowie (44 comments total)

I'd snark about Copyright Infringement, but considering the source...
posted by unixrat at 10:17 AM on January 23, 2006

Well, I read somewhere that the authors of the site got an ok by the original companies behind the software. And of course, most of it is abandonware you can't buy anymore.
posted by mathowie at 10:25 AM on January 23, 2006

Wow. That's quite a trove. It's probably worth noting that most of the games are in the "unknown" category -- I thought their collection was rather unimpressive until I checked out that category.
posted by gurple at 10:30 AM on January 23, 2006

All games on assumed to be abandonware or copyleft.

I sincerely doubt the forces behind Ghostbusters, Batman, Spiderman, Blade Runner and Back to the Future participate in abandonware or copyleft. Great site though.

All kinds of ROMs available here.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 10:33 AM on January 23, 2006

my.

god.

thank you so much.

I can't find the indiana jones game I remember being addicted to, but MY GOD IS THAT AN EVIL DEAD GAME?!

whoopee!
posted by shmegegge at 10:41 AM on January 23, 2006

So, just curious... which came first, Mario Bros. or Giana Sisters?
posted by cilantro at 10:43 AM on January 23, 2006

No Loderunner. Lame.
posted by keswick at 10:46 AM on January 23, 2006

I am trying to play the oddly alluring "Rags to Riches", but can't figure out the controls. Any help?
posted by TonyRobots at 10:46 AM on January 23, 2006

which came first, Mario Bros. or Giana Sisters?

Mario. Nintendo threatened to sue and Giana Sisters was pulled from shelves. It became popular through piracy.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 10:49 AM on January 23, 2006

Hmm, Paperboy is much harder than I remember. Great site, this will keep me from getting work done for quite a while...
posted by greycap at 10:53 AM on January 23, 2006

Another alternative (though I don't know what this "becomes available" crap is when the local Toys-R-US was dumping these 2-for-1 back 'round November...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:53 AM on January 23, 2006

No Last Ninja II!

I tried playing some, but my safari beachballed for hours. Then in Stunt Car Racer it wouldn't accelerate, only reverse. Boo.
posted by bonaldi at 10:56 AM on January 23, 2006

Can't access it from work - can anyone tell me if Paradroid is on there?
posted by longbaugh at 11:00 AM on January 23, 2006

Oh my god, spindizzy!
posted by poppo at 11:04 AM on January 23, 2006

Wonder if he actually cleared the design with Mr Cederholm?
posted by samstarling at 11:14 AM on January 23, 2006

Tangentially on topic: does anyone know if there's an equivalent site for Amstrad CPC 464 games, or a way to play Amstrad games on a Mac? The only computer game I've ever enjoyed playing was Harrier Attack, and this site reminded me...
posted by jack_mo at 11:17 AM on January 23, 2006

Saw this last week and it's just as awesome now. I love the psychedelic crack screens that precede some of the game intros.

Give me a site like this for Atari and I'll never get any work done ever again.
posted by killdevil at 11:17 AM on January 23, 2006

Beautiful. I just wish it had M.U.L.E.
posted by COBRA! at 11:32 AM on January 23, 2006

Beautiful. I just wish it had M.U.L.E.

I agree. M.U.L.E. was the highwater mark in my gaming experience. Sigh...
posted by 327.ca at 11:37 AM on January 23, 2006

Damn I guess it would have been too much to hope for Pirates! too
posted by poppo at 11:47 AM on January 23, 2006

M.U.L.E and Seven Cities of Gold. Maybe it is good that neither of those games are on here as I would never get any work done.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 11:49 AM on January 23, 2006

Beautiful. I just wish it had M.U.L.E.

Ditto. Best thing I ever found on teh intarweb was an MP3 of the M.U.L.E theme. Awesome game.
posted by eriko at 11:50 AM on January 23, 2006

Seven Cities of Gold

There's another that ate a large part of my life.
posted by eriko at 11:50 AM on January 23, 2006

Free online Pirates! and Wasteland would ruin me. So far I have escaped my doom.
posted by furiousthought at 12:05 PM on January 23, 2006

One of my best friends when I was seven, a kid named Noah, had a C64 that his brother and father hoarded in the library. On the rare opportunity that they'd let the two of us on, we would play a game where you were a pumpkin of somesort bouncing around a map of somesort and trying not to get roasted by a dragon of somesort. Or something.

Anyway, Noah lived in a very big, very cold house in downtown Lexington, near where we went to school, and for some reason I have a hard time thinking of him existing on anything other than chilly, grey winter days.

Thanks for the Commodore nostalgia!
posted by ford and the prefects at 12:11 PM on January 23, 2006

samstarling writes "Wonder if he actually cleared the design with Mr Cederholm?"

In the footer:
Thanks to Dan/SB (graphical inspiration) and Joakim (tech).

It's possible that "Dan/SB" is Dan Cederholm. It doesn't necessarily mean he "cleared the design" with Dan (I was unaware of the fact that you had to do that anyway, although yes, an argument could be made for professionalism/integrity etc.) but at least the site's designer does give credit.

Dan also used SimpleBits as a real-world example in both of his books. It is conceivable that the designer simply took what he read and applied it.
posted by purephase at 12:11 PM on January 23, 2006

Neat!

They have Lazy Jones which is probably best known for it's theme music, which was the inspiration for Zombie Nation's big hit, Kernkraft 400.
posted by empath at 12:30 PM on January 23, 2006

Most of that nostalgic goodness is available on virtualapple:

Loderunner

Seven Cities of Gold

Pirates!

Wasteland

No M.U.L.E., sadly. And virtualapple only runs on IE or with the Mozilla ActiveX plugin installed.

(And yes, Paradroid is on C64s.)
posted by TonyRobots at 12:40 PM on January 23, 2006

Perhaps worth repeating: Game-Oldies.com. Pssst: They have M.U.L.E. in the NES section...
posted by Gator at 1:12 PM on January 23, 2006

For at least some games you can quit the game, get to a BASIC prompt, and then dump the source with LIST. Fun!
posted by grouse at 1:13 PM on January 23, 2006

Oh, and if you want to hit up Wasteland, you'll be needing the paragraph book.
posted by TonyRobots at 1:16 PM on January 23, 2006

*rips a clip and makes TonyRobots explode like a blood sausage for 71 points*
posted by longbaugh at 1:22 PM on January 23, 2006

time passes...
posted by johnny novak at 2:35 PM on January 23, 2006

If they had Jumpman, they'd have captured the entire summer of 1985 for me. Holy moses.
posted by Spatch at 3:36 PM on January 23, 2006

MULE should exist as ROMs out on the Web somewhere. If you want a modern version, Space Horse from Shrapnel Games is a pretty faithful remake.

If you can't find MULE, and you're really desperate for it, drop me a note at m&etaf_ilter at m*al_or.c!om, less the weird punctuation. I'm almost sure I have a copy of that ROM here somewhere. Assuming I can find the CD, I can also send an (old version of?) CCS64, which was the best 64 emulator when I was last fooling with this, several years ago.

These are tiny files, and will easily fit in an email. An entire C64 floppy disk was only about 160K, as I recall.
posted by Malor at 3:38 PM on January 23, 2006

Gator, you have given me the gift of Bubble-Bobble. Truly you are a prince among men.
posted by booksandlibretti at 3:59 PM on January 23, 2006

So, um, it doesn't look like I can use this on Mac 10.x without having Tiger? That can't be right, can it? If so, whoa, man, talk about a tease...
posted by nevercalm at 5:12 PM on January 23, 2006

Malor, thanks for the suggestion. I've dl'd a copy of CCS64 and the M.U.L.E. ROM. It's pretty clear I won't be doing anything productive for the next six weeks...
posted by 327.ca at 5:26 PM on January 23, 2006

I agree with Spatch - Jumpman is a necessity.

I also spent a lot of time with some of those classic EA games: Racing Destruction Set and Adventure Construction Set. Great stuff.
posted by pitchblende at 5:43 PM on January 23, 2006

I did, by the way, find the files for someone, so if anyone else needs them, let me know. See garbled email above.
posted by Malor at 8:39 PM on January 23, 2006

So ... did anyone else buy a C64 for $800 bucks? Or were you smart enough to wait a week until they dropped to $150?
posted by RavinDave at 9:08 PM on January 23, 2006

[this is good]
posted by roboto at 2:21 AM on January 24, 2006

Another alternative

i got one of those and other than jumpman, it was the suck.
posted by 3.2.3 at 12:26 PM on January 24, 2006

jack_mo:

1. Arnold
2. ftp.nvg.ntnu.no
3. never get anything done ever again.

(I was occasionally one of Colin, Liz and/or Nigel, the games reviewers for Amstrad Computer User magazine.)
posted by scruss at 7:57 PM on January 28, 2006