Kye for C64
A downloadable game
This is the C64 port of Colin Garbutt's puzzle game from 1992, Kye. You can play the original game via archive.org's emulator here.
The reason I made this port was primarily technical: I wanted to implement a game in 6502 assembly involving hundreds of active objects interacting with each other, and push graphical limits at the same time by augmenting hi-res graphics with a dynamic sprite overlay. Kye was the perfect candidate for this experiment, since it saved me the trouble of having to come up with my own design, and it's a mostly forgotten game with a lot of user-made levels that's definitely worth a bit of fresh attention.
The goal of the game is simple: move around with the green circle thing and collect all the diamonds. It's up to you to discover the rules!
Controls: joystick in port 2 exclusively. No keyboard input.
Credits:
Original game: Colin Garbutt
Level sets:
- Default: Colin Garbutt
- Sampler: Dr Floyd?
- Plus 2: Mark & Dave @ Positive Ltd.
- New Kye: Unkown
- Shapes & Monsters: Dennis K. Fitzgerald
- Danish: Jytte Madsen & Erik Jacobsen
C64 port and music: Patai Gergely
The full source of the project is available on GitHub.
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Comments
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Nice but hard puzzle game. Our German-language review can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 00:32:39. English subtitles are also available. Subscription to our YouTube and Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
Is there any plan to create a full-fledged level editor and update this engine so that we can play levels from the level editor? This way, we can share levels through the Internet.
There are tons of levels available already thanks to the existing editors in other versions, but the catch is that right now you have to compile them into the game yourself. Unfortunately I don't have the bandwidth to add a run-time level loader, but the source is on GitHub, and if someone sends me a patch, I'm more than happy to merge it and create a new release.
I’ve been playing this and it’s great. Though I’d love limited undo moves!
It also blows my mind that the original was made by a guy from Towednack who I used to see around when I lived in St Ives ~2010.
Yeah, it's annoying when you know how to solve a level and make that one mistake while executing your plan... Not sure how undo would work in this game though, since the levels evolve without player input unlike PuzzleScript games, e.g. a bouncer could move a block you just pushed. The only solution that comes to mind would be a quick save system, maybe with just a single slot. An exercise for the reader, as the game is open-source. ;)
A friend and I are making a version for Playdate handheld (from scratch, based on the information in The Book of Kye) and we have added rewind function (using the Playdate’s Crank, naturally). It’s a game changer! :)
You can now try our version on Playdate (or using Playdate SDK Simulator) it is at https://mouflon-cloud.itch.io/kye & thoughts appreciated! It was launched in today’s Playdate Community Direct video stream.
Now I tried it, and the undo functionality is quite nice indeed! It certainly makes the experience a lot smoother by removing the pain caused by mechanical mistakes.
I noticed that the simulation doesn't really follow the rules though, even a simple level like Counters from the default set breaks. My C64 version is actually pretty solid (even when it comes to tricky combinations of stickers), so you can use it as a reference. Processing order matters a lot! The Kye 1.0 port written in Python also seems to be quite faithful to the original in its behaviour, so just replicating that logic should get you pretty far. The others with source (e.g. the Unity one) are not to be trusted.
That’s good to know! We have been using the web player of a Unity port (didn’t know the source was available!). We’ll look to make some changes. Thanks for the feedback.
Excellent version of an excellent game
Interesting game. One for playing over Christmas I think with a bit of spare time to get into it. Well done.
Very interesting game. I am a fan of puzzle games 😁 This title gives you something to think about, which is something for me. If you allow it your work will be posted as a fresh news in our magazine "K&A PLUS"
( https://ka-plus.pl/en/ )
Also, if you agree we will put it in our COVER DISK. For further discussion, I invite you to email:
yahwey88@gmail.com
With best regards. Editor of "K&A PLUS"
Retro Chlop 😎
Sure, feel free to distribute the unchanged versions of the game, just please link back to this page.
Ok thank you on behalf of the editorial staff 😁 Due to the fact that our COVER DISK for issue #22 of our magazine is already full (such is my latest data) your game will appear in the next one i.e. #23. Of course, you are welcome to continue working with us. Regards.
Retro Chlop 😎
very good game,thanks
very good
Nice game!
Thanks for the feature! I see there was a bit of struggle. ;)
Very good job! :-)
https://c64games.net/2022/12/07/kye-2022-patai-gergely/
Thanks for the boost!
c64games_net could you please reach out to me, have been trying to get in touch. Email me at dabinvt@aol.com
Website is down, so here’s an archive version https://web.archive.org/web/20230129114435/https://c64games.net/2022/12/07/kye-2022-patai-gergely/