37 years ago, a developer named Colin Porch started work on a sequel to the classic computer puzzle game Head Over Heels. With the rise of console gaming pushing aside demand for games on early personal computers, that project was shelved – until now. The 81-year-old Porch has just completed and released that sequel, all because an old boss told him about the rising market for retro games.
Return to Blacktooth is available from Thalamus Digital Publishing on Itch.io for both Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga. As in its predecessor, you control a pair of characters – Head and Heels – who have different abilities you need to use to solve puzzles and explore an isometric castle filled with hundreds of rooms. To my fellow Americans, who likely grew up either on console games or post-IBM PCs, it'll look a little weird, but this is bread-and-butter stuff on the computer platforms that were popular in the UK and Europe through the '80s.
