I've been seeing people do amazing things with AI in terms of updating / porting 8 and 16-bit games. In terms of updating on the ST scene, I've seen a lot of ST games updated to make full use of STe hardware - blitter, hardware scrolling, extended colour palette and DMA sound. So I got the urge to do something similar.
However, after an initial attempt that went rather poorly, I decided on a slightly different end goal. So I found a very simple, very old game (not quite as old as me, but still pretty old!) and update it with one or two things on the STe hardware side, but mainly focus on actually adding some gameplay elements.
I'm quite pleased with the results. The game is "Monkeys & Balloons", created by Frank Cohen in 1988, and features a clown being bounced around via two monkeys holding a trampoline, trying to get all the balloon above him. It's a game that definitely has that "one more go" quality, and I've been able to add some extra features that I personally feel make it a more enjoyable game, without changing the core gameplay loop.
The game is available on a disk image which also contains the original game (which was public domain) for those who want to see both the original and updated versions, and I've put full update and methodology notes on the game's Itch page.
