◆ From Windigo Productions <Rise Of Babylon, The Tribe, Deathflood> comes a new, brilliant first-person horror adventure called Evil Spirit. One fateful evening, your car trip is abruptly cut short and your life turns into a true nightmare. You have stumbled upon a territory inhabited by an ancient evil, freed from its prison deep within a mountains. The evil entity has already devoured many souls, can you save yours? This is a brief description of what Friedrich Volmering, the mastermind behind all the Windigo games, has in store for you.

Right at the beginning, you find yourself in a shooting range. Your task is to grab a few things from your locker and participate in a shooting competition. This level actually serves as a tutorial, so you should read the text, it will be useful later. After you win the shooting competition, you set off on your journey. Things don’t go as planned; exhausted, you crash in a cornfield, right in the middle of nowhere, and that’s where your adventure begins. The main interface consists of icons that serve fairly standard roles – movement, using and combining items etc. In addition, the number of items that can be interacted with is displayed, and there is also a directional indicator that makes it easier to navigate the space. On the right side is the inventory, which displays health, armor, and ammunition, as well as a compass. An important feature is the slot on the player’s head, which is used to restore health or to read notes found during gameplay.

Evil Spirit has three game modes :

Movement mode – It works when the joystick icon on the left side of the status bar is selected – forward, back, left, right. Movement can sometimes be confusing, so you should pay attention to the compass. The catch is that “up” doesn’t mean north, but “forward”. For example, if the compass is pointing south, pressing “up” will move the player straight ahead, rather than north as one might expect. I find this approach by the developers to be a flaw in the game, and I don’t know what they were thinking.

Action mode – While this mode is active, you can explore the scene, collect and combine items, or use those from your existing inventory.

Battle mode – A real-time combat mode that can be at a distance or up close and personal. During combat, a completely new, intuitive interface opens up that can be figured out in 10 seconds. There is also a suitable selection of weapons such as a gun, shotgun, knife, etc.

The interface and movement can seem quite strange at first, but once you get used to it, everything works very well and it’s easy to navigate the game. As for the controls, you use only the joystick, which is suitable for both the real C64 and emulators <*handheld consoles like the Anbernic, etc.> The game also supports saving your current position, but that’s not really necessary for those using an emulator. The graphics are simple and clean, but quite good. There’s no question about what’s on the screen, and there’s no pixel mess. The main theme and music are solid, but the sound effects are practically non-existent.

Evil Spirit is available as a free digital download <.d64>, while the floppy disk edition will cost you €29.00 or €39.00 if you opt for the cartridge version.