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The classic adult-themed Commodore Amiga puzzle game Blue Angel 69 has made its way to the Amstrad CPC thanks to Kevin Thacker. This production is for two players only and is a turn-based game, where you can play against the computer or a real human opponent... or even just watch a match between two computer-controlled players.

The aim of the game is to score more points than your opponent by landing on as many positive numbered squares as possible. The snag is that player one can only move two horizontally and two vertically within the matrix and, as this is a turn-based affair, therefore quickly assess the safest square to land on while limiting the options of opponents for that row or column as appropriate. Each round finishes when there are no more numbers to be taken.

Kevin has also put his other CPC titles online for you to enjoy during this festive season, including his excellent implementation of the logic game Sudoku, the previously-unreleased conversion of Richard Bayliss' Commodore 64 game Balloonacy, and the port of Bob Smith's first professional Sinclair ZX Spectrum game Stranded. Balloonacy is the odd one out, not being a puzzle game, but all are really fun. Although each title may be downloaded for free, a small donation is requested if you would like to support Kevin's excellent work. To grab each of these, you'll need to visit cpcfreak.cpc-live.com, and there's a dedicated site for Blue Angel 69 at blueangel69.cpc-live.com.

Loosely based on the Second World War, Theater Of War is a VIC-20 RPG for one or two players remarkably fitting into an unexpanded machine, and with some depth to the gameplay that you wouldn't expect either on such a 'limited RAM' computer.

With three kinds of terrain to navigate and seven distinct types of units to deploy, it's a classic case of using strategy to outwit your opponent - either playing as Germany or the USSR. Not very festively themed, I know, but I'll round up some cracking Christmas-type games for you next week. If virtual war-mongering is more your cup of tea anyway then it's certainly worth a look, and all the better if you can find a friend to play against (it always feels more of a victory if you've beaten your friends enough times to retire as undisputed 8-bit champion for the evening).

As usual with VIC-20 'indie' releases, everything you will need can be found at the Denial forums at tinyurl.com/TheaterOfWar-VIC-20

Commodore 64 fans may well remember certain titles had games to play whilst the main game was loading. One such game was Invade-a-load, which was a pretty hectic Space Invaders clone which appeared on some of Mastertronic's titles back in 1987. To be honest, I wasn't too good at the game, but Rob Hubbard's musical score was simply amazing, so the worst case scenario was that at least you'd have something to listen to.

Well, Invade-a-load-is back as part of Richard Bayliss' release Bionik Granny Returns, which is a beat-'em-up in which you are an old aged pensioner on the rampage. The good point is that it's a two-for-one affair; you can stop the tape when Invade-a-load is ready to play and simply have a blast at that. To get hold of this (and you'll specifically need the tape image if you want both), visit the Commodore Scene Database (CSDb). See you next week.