For Canadian Wolfgang Bochar, this is his first Commodore 64 game - although he was a user back in the 1980s, running bulletin boards and cracking a few games. The beta was released in August 2019, with the final version - fixed for PAL and NTSC compatibility - arriving in September.

Sometime in the 1980s, a zombie outbreak plagued the local town. A daring group of heroes lured the undead to an abandoned mine. On the 64th level, they blocked the trogue (drain) and flooded the mine. Recently, a depth alarm has gone off - the mine is draining. Someone has popped the trogue!

Starting from the lowest level of the mine, you must activate at least eight pumps to flood the ravenous undead before they can escape. Each pump raises the water level, so move fast - or join the ranks of the undead!

This Rogue-like game, with its procedurally-generated levels and line-ofsight rules, has three main items to collect. Medikits (F1) heal the player to full health, shown by the row of hearts. Scuba gear (F3) gives the player more time to walk underwater, while the Holy Hand Grenade (F5) damages enemies within its blast radius. Enemies are attacked by walking into them. Killing enough will help the player level up, increasing his maximum health and strength.

The bitmap intro screen is nicely done, with the instruction pages (moved through with A and D) giving plenty of help. The small hi-res graphics are well-drawn. The pressure to move upwards is a clever gameplay twist, as it gives a sense of urgency to each game. A clever idea is the colour change in the screen border, showing how high up the mine the water has risen.

Once you have the hang of the controls, it is fun to come back to and try to reach a higher level. Another unusual touch is the animated disk directory; a small addition but well carried out.

It's a shame this is keyboard control only, as it can be quite fiddly pressing directions and the function keys to activate items. It is also easy to die rapidly at the start of the game.

An enjoyable variation on a classic theme.