Genesis Project's Sabre Wulf Remastered Rewrites Ultimate's 1984 Jungle Maze for the C64 as a Free D64

Sabre Wulf came out in 1984 on the ZX Spectrum from Ultimate Play the Game, the company that later became Rare, and sent the explorer Sabreman through a jungle hunting for the pieces of an amulet. Time Extension notes that the Commodore 64 port fell to one developer, Greg Duddle, and got “pretty mixed reviews,” from 36 out of 40 in CVG to “40 out 100 from Zzap!64.”

That port is where this project started. Genesis Project’s coder Raistlin wrote in a 2023 making-of post that the original C64 version “was using pretty THE worst addressing modes for reading and writing every byte of data to draw the screen,” and its sprites “flickered like a bugger.” Patching it wasn’t the answer: “I decided that it would be easier - and much much better - to just remake the game completely.” His rewritten screen drawing, he wrote, takes “approx 14 cycles per byte compared to the original’s 28.”

The finished game’s itch.io list covers what changed. Graphics are now “320x200px” where “the original C64 version was 256x184px like the ZX Spectrum version,” with “stunning new MC tilesets.” There’s “a brand new intro sequence” and ending, a “fog of war” map “to help you not get lost in the massive map,” “smoother character movement,” “much much faster screen update as you move around the map,” “more critters than the original,” an improved UI, and saved high scores. The game’s own site sums up the world in six words, “256 screens of jungle. One way out,” and lists it as a PAL game with the joystick in port 2.

The credits on CSDb name Raistlin on code, Mermaid and psych858o on music, JonEgg on graphics, a loader by Sparta, and directory art by tNG of Fairlight. The release is marked “Contains NO AI generated content,” and the itch.io page says the same. It took four years: a Preview V0.1 went up October 30, 2022. The game is unofficial, and its site says it is “not affiliated with or endorsed by Rare Ltd. or Microsoft,” with no boxed edition, only the download.

The hardware rule is strict. “Note that the game is a 40-track disk and requires hardware that is either a real C64 and 1541 disk drive - or a fully compatible device,” the itch.io page says. Asked in the comments about SD card adapters, Genesis Project answered that “we’re using our own loader, Sparkle,” and “rather than support SD2IEC we may in future look at a cartridge build… but, for today, you need real compatible hardware.” Whether that cartridge build happens is still an open question.

The guess here, with medium confidence, is that the cartridge version arrives within a year, since the group already named it and SD2IEC owners are the loudest people in that comment thread. With lower confidence, the attention pulls Rare toward an official Sabre Wulf release on a modern retro collection. The one near-certain outcome is more full rewrites of weak 1980s C64 ports, because this one shows how much the hardware could do when the code is new.