Ash, a new Amiga platformer from Thomas Mayer Foss, now has a downloadable prototype. The Norwegian folklore project targets the Amiga 500, with an early build offering a forest playground for testing its features.
You play as the Ash Lad, the youngest of three brothers. His adventure draws on Norwegian tales, including The Ash Lad and the Good Helpers. Thomas names reading these stories to his daughter as a source of inspiration, and she also helps play-test the game.
The king’s challenge sets the journey in motion. He promises his daughter and half his kingdom to whoever supplies a ship which travels across land, water and air. The Ash Lad sets out to attempt the task after others fail.
Thomas plans four worlds: the Troll Forest, Mountain Realm, Glacier and Sky World. Their settings range from woodland and caves to frozen terrain beneath the northern lights. Meanwhile, a floating golden castle awaits above the clouds.
Three planned companions provide different ways through obstacles. Rocky eats stone, while Wimpy flies to places beyond Ash’s reach. Chilli changes temperature according to his facing direction, freezing objects when facing left and melting them when facing right.
The planned system allows you to switch between Ash and his helpers at any time. For now, the prototype includes Ash in the first world. The companions and later environments remain part of the wider development plans.
A forest playground for the first prototype
The downloadable area serves as a feature test rather than a finished campaign level. Thomas warns players to expect placeholders, rough edges and changes as development continues.
Within this build, you run, jump and carry blocks. Those blocks serve as steps to reach higher places or weapons to drop onto enemies. Moving lily pads also rise and sink, adding another type of platform to the test area.
The forest introduces four creatures with different behaviours. Hothead charges, Hedgehog keeps walking and Mosskin throws rocks. Meanwhile, Rootling hides among the trees and attacks when Ash approaches.
Multi-layer parallax scrolling accompanies a full-screen playfield. The sky palette changes as you move through the level, progressing from sunrise through daylight to sunset. Thomas reports 50 frames per second on a stock Amiga 500.
Thomas built a custom engine in assembly. The current download page lists an OCS Amiga 500 with Kickstart 1.3 and 512 KB of chip RAM as the tested setup, without a memory expansion.
The prototype comes as an ADF disk image. Boot it from a floppy, Gotek or emulator, then use a joystick in port two. Up or fire jumps, while fire beside a block picks it up. Press fire again to drop it.
You’ll find the name-your-own-price prototype on the official Ash project page. Thomas welcomes feedback, particularly from players using original hardware.
