The Commodore Amiga’s Public Domain (PD) scene is a core part of my video gaming experience as a young teen. Thinking back to those days, it becomes clear just how much some of the games from the PD scene rank just as warmly in my memories as commercial releases. I likely spent at least a quarter of my time gaming back then playing anarchic little indie games supplied on hand-labelled floppy disks for a small fee (usually no more than £2) or served up free alongside demos of commercial games on magazine coverdisks.

In recent years, I’ve also realised something else: Amiga PD is how I first experienced some of the arcade classics of the era – not through their official home ports but through clones, knock-offs, and unofficial ports. And how in some cases, these are my mental go-to images of them and not the actual official releases.

So, for this article, I’d like to wax nostalgic about four of them, starting with…

Deluxe Pac-Man / Pac-Man Deluxe

Let’s start with the headline game and the one that best typifies the unconcerned-by-copyright freewheeling nature of the Amiga PD scene: Deluxe Pac-Man.

Created by Edgar Vidgal, this was one of those games included on an Amiga magazine cover disk and was one of the first PD games I ever played. Edgar takes Pac-Man, shrinks down the maze sizes while greatly expanding the size of the sprites, and then… throws in some unexpected surprises, such as the aforementioned gun power-up that allows Pac-Man to blow away ghosts with impunity.

Pac-Man arcade purists will surely dislike some of the other power-ups, such as a FREEZE that, well, freezes the ghosts in place. When combined with a power pill (sometimes given an actual pill sprite!) these make getting the 1600 score bonus a breeze.

This was the first version of Pac-Man I’d played since the Atari 2600 port (my first experience with Pac-Man) and absolutely loved it. I wouldn’t actually play an official version of Pac-Man until several years later and Namco Museum Vol. 1 on PlayStation. It’s still a blast today, very moreish thanks to the small maze sizes and their quick turnaround, and also to see what other wild power-ups the game will throw at you next.

Mr Wobbly Legs & The Invaders From Space

This is easily my favourite of the arcade-inspired PD games I’ve played. Mr Wobbly Legs, named so for his pin-wheeling locomotion, must take on the Spa…I mean, Invaders from Space! But first, and here’s the main deviation from the familiar: he must first earn a promotion to First Class Pilot. He does this by running the gauntlet back and forth, picking up a star on the right and then hitting the lever on the left. All while dodging a fusillade of fire from the Invaders. Once you’ve got your rank-up, you can continue running the gauntlet for as long as you have lives left to pick up power-ups for your ship, such as extra bullets or reducing the cooldown on firing. Then it’s off to traditional blasting!

This could be the first bullet hell I ever played. The Invaders will drop a veritable hail of fire down on you, far more than the Taito game it’s based on. All while emitting an intriguing chem/jem chorus of sound while Mr Wobbly is rewarded with a “WOO!” every time he picks up a star. It’s such charming stuff and still very playable with an effective risk-reward mechanic. As with Deluxe Pac-Man, this would have been the closest to Space Invaders I’d played since the Atari 2600 version.

Squigs

Squigs! While other people were playing Columns or Puyo Puyo, I played this game in 1993. My mum also played this often, so it’s associated with her in my memory, too.

It’s nothing special in terms of gameplay, it’s the standard falling-and-matching blocks/tiles action, albeit with a few twists thrown in ala Deluxe Pac-Man. And it’s called Squigs! I often wondered if the person who created it named it after the ferociously toothy creatures from Warhammer 40,000.

GORF

GORF! Midway and Dave Nutting Associates’ 1981 take on Space Invaders AND Galaxian! And now here was my first experience of the game with a PD take on it.

Kevin Gallagher’s GORF is a charming little thing with the kind of presentation flair you can point to as a good example of the PD scene. Just look at that adorable logo with Pac-Man taking a Byte out of a Tower! There are also distribution and greetings screens, giving us a perspective on Dave’s philosophy for how his game was to be shared.

As we can see, Dave classifies this release as charityware. You’re free to copy and share it with your friends, but he asks that you don’t alter the code and send two pounds to an appeal for an MRI scanner. I remember now other charity drives for MRI scanners, so they must have been ferociously expensive things and in short supply in hospitals then. I truly hope they did reach their goal.

The request to PD game disk distributors not to sell his game purely for their own benefit is something I sometimes see from other PD game creators but mainly demoscene prod crews. Many of those were staunchly against their productions being used for commercial gain at all.

As for the game itself, it’s a charming and competent GORF fan port, albeit with some annoyances, such as post-death invincibility frames running out while you’re still fixed in place and vulnerable to projectiles. The five waves of the game are represented, as are the rank-up mechanics. Oh, and if you’d like to learn more about Kevin and his works, AmigaPD.com had a chat with him a while back. Much like Kevin’s GORF, the site itself operates under a Charityware philosophy supporting Mencap.

Until Next Time, Friends

I’ve enjoyed revisiting these games for this article and shining a spotlight on them. I will most certainly do another one of these in the not-too-distant future. They’re all worth firing up your Amiga’s gotek or emulator of choice for and enjoying for yourself the free-wheeling design anarchy of the Public Domain’s take on some commercially released classics.