Free retro platformer Punchy Collection launches for Commodore Amiga

Homebrew developer MrDig has released Punchy Collection, a free platformer compilation and remake for the Commodore Amiga available now on itch.io. Built to run on original Amiga systems as well as compatible software emulators, this brand-new project adapts the 1983 British microcomputer game Punchy for Commodore's 16-bit and 32-bit computer hardware.

While the original 8-bit game hit half a dozen computers during the early 1980s, it missed the Amiga, which didn't launch until 1985. MrDig's release fills that historical gap as a free, donation-supported digital download.

Sausages, policemen, and 1983 speech synthesis

Originally developed and published by Mr. Micro Ltd in 1983, Punchy was a staple of the early British home computer boom. The game arrived on the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, VIC-20, Commodore 16, Plus/4, Amstrad CPC, MSX, and even the Tatung Einstein, though most UK players encountered it later in the decade when Sinclair bundled the cassette with the ZX Spectrum +2.

Mechanically, it's a direct cousin to Century Electronics' 1983 arcade hit Hunchback, swapping medieval castle ramparts for a traditional seaside Punch and Judy puppet booth. Players guide Mr. Punch across single-screen obstacle courses to rescue Judy, jumping over pits and dodging flying sausages, tomatoes, policemen, and crocodiles.

What actually separated Punchy from the dozens of other Hunchback clones crowding British computer shops in 1983 was its crude digitized speech. Hearing a stock 48K ZX Spectrum or C64 wheeze out "That's the way to do it!" was a genuine technical parlor trick at the time, and the Spectrum release even supported the Currah MicroSpeech peripheral for an extra dose of robotic seaside menace. Single-screen obstacle-dodgers from 1983 don't leave the player anywhere to hide, and I'm curious how forgiving the collision detection is in this Amiga recreation compared to those punishing 8-bit originals.

MrDig's Amiga homebrew pipeline

Punchy Collection is the fifth Commodore Amiga project released by MrDig on itch.io in the past few months. It follows the Amiga 1200 arcade games ChipSnake and Futsal, the AGA action-platformer Sparkpaw: The Stormstone Quest, and an Amiga port of the 1988 Atari ST vertical shooter Chopper-X.

A web software engineer by trade without a background in traditional Motorola 68000 assembly, MrDig builds these releases by combining modern cross-compilation toolchains with generative AI assistance. Earlier projects in the developer's catalog used C code compiled via VBCC and custom Python scripts to convert artwork into native 16-color IFF/ILBM graphics, package tracker music, and generate bootable ADF disk images that run on real Commodore hardware. It's an unconventional workflow for the retro scene, and the developer has been candid on previous project pages about testing the limits of AI-assisted coding for vintage systems, though it produces actual native Amiga executables rather than modern PC wrappers.