What did you do for AGA today?

The Mega Drive's fastest hedgehog has finally reached the A1200! The port CodyJarrett posted on English Amiga Board on 22 October is complete: eleven zones, twenty acts, special stages, Super Sonic and a two-player VS mode. Tails is run by the computer or by a second player. The game's 68000 code was translated to C with Claude from the Sonic Retro community's disassembly. You do need 4 MB of fast RAM. Hard-disk install, HDF or five floppies: your choice.

Remember US Gold's old conversion? You'd rather not, would you? Str1der wrote the engine from scratch and took the graphics from the PC Engine version. The build in the thread he opened on 25 October has every stage, the bonus stage and two-joystick support. An ECS A500 with 1 MB of chip and 2 MB of fast RAM runs it at 50 frames a second (WHDLoad only). There's a separate AGA build too. The screen is 320 pixels wide, so the fighters have plenty of room. So does the forum argument about it.

Namco's gory 1988 arcade game has come to the A1200 by way of the PC Engine version. This conversion by MVG has all seven stages and every boss. Scrolling runs at 50 frames on PAL and 60 on NTSC. The music has been rearranged for ProTracker, and the CD32 build adds CD audio. But careful: the game itself isn't in the package! A Windows tool builds the A1200, WHDLoad and CD32 versions from your own PC Engine ROMs. A 68020 and 2 MB of chip RAM will do.

Hands up if you still think SWOS is the best football game ever. baker76 and team have rewritten it in C, and the same code runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and AGA Amigas. Cups, seasons and the 20-year career are all there. Graphics, sound and teams aren't in the package: the setup tool builds them from your own SWOS 96/97 disks and the PC version. It's open source and free. The page still says "in development", and it doesn't give the memory needs.

Taito's bubble game on the A1200! dlfrsilver wrote it in 680x0 assembly and released it on EAB on 24 October. The screen is 320x224 in 256 colours. There are 30 single-player rounds and an 11-round two-joystick duel. OpenAI's Codex was used in development, and the result was tested on a real A1200. A stock A1200 isn't enough, though: next to 2 MB of chip RAM it wants 8 MB of fast RAM and 20 MB of disk. The manual comes in five languages. The sweetest port of the month, if you ask me.

Konami's 1986 arcade classic SALAMANDER, known in the West as LIFEFORCE, has arrived in two versions. TjLaZer put LIFEFORCE on itch.io on 12 October and the Japanese SALAMANDER the next day. The music is your choice: the arcade's recorded soundtrack or a converted one. The recorded music takes about 9 MB of fast RAM. A 68020 and 2 MB of chip RAM are a must, and a 50 MHz 030 is recommended. Graphics-card owners get RTG builds too.

ShinobiZ's aim: give Sega's 1987 arcade game the Amiga version it deserved. The result is a remake written for a 1 MB A500. Version 1.0 has all five missions, the bosses, the ninja bonus stages and the ending. The code is built around the OCS blitter, sprites and Paula. It comes as ADF and WHDLoad. The 1.1 test build gives the WHDLoad version three music channels plus one for effects and speech. Codex helped with the code.

Another game from ShinobiZ in the same month. This time it isn't a remake but a conversion: the game logic in the arcade machine's program has been rewritten in 68000 assembly. Eight areas, 32 rounds, bonus stages and a two-player mode taking turns are all there. On an A500, 1 MB is enough but the colours are approximated. On an A1200 or A4000 the AGA mode switches on, with the arcade's exact colours and 6-voice stereo music. The same page has a Mega Drive ROM too.

A shoot 'em up from the mid-nineties, but from the Sharp X68000 rather than a console. Famibe No Yosshin's 1995 game came to GitHub in October in Adam Polkosnik's port. The port runs the original program on a 68020 and emulates the X68000's hardware in software. The game always runs at full speed, and how many frames reach the screen depends on the machine: 9 to 10 a second on a stock A1200, 25 with a 50 MHz 030 and AGA. AGA needs 8 MB of fast RAM.

This game never came to the Amiga. JUDGMENT RITES, Interplay's follow-up to 25th Anniversary, is finally on the Amiga through an interpreter written by nexusle. The game itself isn't in the package, though: you need the 68k Macintosh version, and the install wants 3.5 GB of temporary space. It plays on a 68EC020 with some fast RAM, and a 68040 is recommended for the high-resolution movies. AGA or RTG, with AHI for sound. The text is in English and German.

One of the month's games that isn't a port. Fliegeralarm Games has built a cowboy town in full 3D that runs on a 68030 without an FPU. Saloon, hotel, bank, jail: you can walk into every building. The story makes you choose between an army captain and an Apache scout. Enemies take cover and flank you, and the weapons even include a lasso! It wants a 33 MHz 030. According to the page, AI was used for the code, graphics, sound and text.

Let's close with a brand-new AGA shoot 'em up, friends. NeilEricson's STARWINDER plays 7 of its 14 worlds, picked at random. Every stage has a mid-boss, and at the end comes a seven-part final boss. Two players can take turns or play together. Boss Rush, a practice mode and 16 original 4-channel modules are thrown in. No fast RAM needed. Nine floppies, a hard-disk install or a CD32 image. Pay what you like, or download it free.