Link: https://handheldhideout.neocities.org/articles/steel-ranger-2-four-years-commodore-64.html

I've been reading through Finnish developer Lasse Öörni's development notes for Steel Ranger 2, his enormous new Commodore 64 action adventure. Which is pretty damn niche, since who runs a C64 these days (I know I don't, but I find it all interesting regardless!)

He's spent over four years making it, handling almost everything himself, from the programming and graphics to the music. The finished game has over 800 screens to explore and a 45-minute soundtrack, all running on hardware from 1982.

I put together a super little article about the game, the technical challenges Lasse encountered along the way, and how wonderful it is that people are still making games of this scale for the C64 in 2026. This isn't on my usual site, just my curiosity with NeoCities which I've been enjoying the last couple weeks or so.

I guess this article is for just a handful of folk, but no better space than retro gaming to share it!

game looks awesome, cool article

I love how it has the look of Aliens meets Metroid!

And thank you!

This is awesome! How can I support this guy?

All I recommend is buying the game!

https://protovision.itch.io/steel-ranger-2

You might be able to contact him directly, and ask if he has a method for donations (I couldn't find any!)

might have to setup c64 for this

man, i used to program games in Assembler back in 1983 when i owned a C64, so this brings back some memories. I have no idea why you'd bother though I appreciate the work.

The Amiga (I had a A1000 and then an A1200) was such a giant leap forward I'm not sure why he didn't work with that ?

The challenge of accomplishing something so complicated on hardware so limited - overcoming the limitations is its own payoff. Sure, he could have done it much more quickly and easily on significantly more powerful hardware, but that wouldn't have been as engrossing, nor nearly as satisfying to complete.

Sweet. Enabling dynamicaly loaded resources sounds like hell to manage and playtest. Their dedication is iron solid.

They have started selling new C64s, but of course you can also emulate it.