PETSCII Dungeons & Droids: a tactical card rogue-like lands on Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 homebrew scene keeps churning out ambitious titles. PETSCII Dungeons & Droids, developed by Ko-Ko (Kornel Kolma) and published by PleasureBytes Games, has just been released for the C64, with versions also planned for the Commodore Plus/4 and Commodore PET. The game is a tactical rogue-like presented entirely through animated PETSCII text graphics, quite a technical feat on a computer released back in 1982.

The gameplay pairs a deck of attack cards with unpredictable, fickle dice for tense fights against hostile robots. The title boasts 12 base mechanical enemies that can fuse into mutated mini-bosses, creating up to 220 distinct robotic encounters. Players can also collect upgrades called Widgets to strengthen their gear. Everything runs on a single joystick plugged into port 2, and the soundtrack was composed by Vincenzo, known for his work on The Witcher 3.

The game is available on the official PETSCII Dungeons & Droids itch.io page, as a ready-to-use disk image for a real C64 or an emulator. For anyone without an actual Commodore 64, the VICE emulator manual explains step by step how to load and run a C64 disk image.

Source: Indie Retro News