#oneaday Day 1117: Secret Agent man

I'm really impressed with new-Apogee's Secret Agent and Crystal Caves "HD" versions. I haven't yet tried Monster Bash but I'm anticipating something similarly excellent. And I sincerely hope that new-Apogee continues to trawl its back catalogue for titles that are ripe for this treatment: stuff like Bio Menace and Major Stryker (off the top of my head) could really benefit from the "HD as a means of making things move smoothly" treatment.

Mostly I think I'm impressed at how well both Secret Agent and Crystal Caves hold up as games. They're simple, but they're very, very playable and enjoyable — and the improved presentation makes them more enjoyable without compromising the fundamental things that made them good in the first place. They still feel very much like the original games, but they run much better than they ever would have done back in the day — I described Secret Agent HD over on Retrounite as being "the game it always wanted to be".

This is a really interesting approach to "HD remasters". While I'm sure it's tempting to do a remake of something that fundamentally changes what the original was all about — remaking rather than remastering, essentially — this approach is something I'd dearly like to see more of, and I can imagine a whole host of classic shareware games from the early to mid '90s that would really benefit from this treatment.

I mean, just take Jill of the Jungle (not Apogee, I know), which I've done some vids on recently, as an example. Imagine that with smoother scrolling and sprite movement, but the same fundamental gameplay — it'd be great. Commander Keen would benefit from this treatment, for sure. Even Apogee's really old stuff like Paganitzu would be interesting to see remade and modernised in the same way as Secret Agent and Crystal Caves.

It remains to be seen if we'll get any more of these; new-Apogee is also pushing some of its new original work at the moment. But if they have any sense they'll capitalise on the fondness people have for the classic Apogee brand and bring back even more '90s shareware classics. I will certainly buy each and every one of them!