A new Commodore 64 Ghostbusters demo overhauls the 2021 prototype

Developer Dave Izon has released a new gameplay trailer for Ghostbusters Revisited, a major overhaul of his 2021 Commodore 64 assembly project. The updated homebrew game adds side-scrolling Ecto-1 driving sequences, room exploration, and first-person ghost trapping. It's a completely free fan project built specifically for original hardware and accurate emulators.

Izon started the project as a simple PETSCII programming exercise. He released a short demo in 2021, but the project went dormant shortly after. Now, he has revived it. The new version drops the basic PETSCII graphics for full custom sprites, and Roland Hermans has joined the team to provide a brand new SID music soundtrack. The game includes encounters with Slimer, the Library Ghost, Zuul, and Gozer the Gozerian. It also includes text quotes directly from the 1984 film, including "Nice shootin Tex!" and "I am Vinz, Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer."

The 1984 original

The Commodore 64 already has a massive history with the franchise. Activision published the original Ghostbusters video game in the fall of 1984. David Crane designed it under an extremely tight deadline to match the theatrical release of the film. It was a massive commercial hit and became one of the defining licensed games of the 8-bit era.

Crane was already famous for creating Pitfall! on the Atari 2600. His work on Ghostbusters proved that movie tie-ins didn't have to be cheap cash grabs. The 1984 game combined city management, top-down driving, and side-view ghost trapping. It also famously used the MOS Technology 6581 SID chip to play a digitized version of Ray Parker Jr.'s theme song, complete with a synthesized voice shouting the title on the title screen. Crane's design forced players to balance their budget, buy the right equipment, and keep the city's PK energy levels from maxing out before they could enter the final Zuul sequence. The game was ported to almost every 8-bit computer on the market, but the Commodore 64 version is widely considered the best due to its superior audio capabilities.

Comparing the gameplay

Izon's new project takes a completely different approach to the source material. Crane's 1984 game focused heavily on the business side of running the franchise. You managed a budget, bought equipment, and navigated a top-down city map to reach active ghost calls. Ghostbusters Revisited drops the business management in favor of direct action.

The Ecto-1 driving sequences are now side-scrolling action segments where you dodge obstacles on the road. When you reach a location like the Sedgewick Hotel, the game shifts to room exploration. The actual ghost trapping happens in a first-person perspective. The first-person view makes the proton streams look much more dynamic than the old side-view mechanics. You have to actively track the ghosts across the screen before throwing the trap.

Pushing the hardware

The Commodore 64 has 64 KB of RAM and a 1 MHz 6510 processor. Modern homebrew developers continually find ways to squeeze more out of that hardware than commercial studios did in the 1980s. Izon is building this from the ground up in assembly language. The Commodore 64 retains an exceptionally active homebrew development scene decades after its commercial lifespan ended, and projects like this show exactly why developers keep coming back to the 6510 processor. It forces creative problem solving.

The project is currently listed as coming soon. There isn't a final release date yet, but the progress shown in the new trailer is a massive step up from the 2021 prototype.