Moomin Slaughter

Beware of Hattifatteners

The UK version of The Moomins was a children's TV show that ran right through the 1980s. It had a gentle pace, whimsical storytelling, with characters like Moomintroll, Moominmama, Moominpapa, and their quirky friends. Quite a captivating TV show; the kind that today’s kids sadly won’t have the pleasure of seeing!

With that in mind, here is a crosshair shooter where we get to kill all of the little bleeders!! Moomin Slaughter was released in 1994 by Scotty and has only one screen where each of the characters appears, like a rather lame Operation Wolf clone. Using the mouse, move the crosshair around the screen, picking off Moomins as they appear, climbing down buildings, escaping through windows, or wandering about. The mouse makes killing these childhood memories rather snappy and surprisingly precise (best with a real ST/e).

The game works on the ST, but is "best" played on the STe, thanks to the DMA audio being put to fine use for the Moomins’ hilarious squeals as they’re being killed. Also, if the realism option is enabled, the Moomins appear only for a short while - and when they're dead, it's game over. So, it's best to disable that realism option to cure the problem. Then the screen is filled with the blighters just waiting to be shot down. Sadly, this is when you discover the annoying slowdown, which is odd considering there's not much to push your Atari ST.

This is a quick blaster and definitely good fun for a few minutes, but nothing more than that, really.

• Fancy 5 minutes killing Moomins, then grab the download at Atarimania.
• Look here for a few more crosshair shooters: "PD" and commercial.
• It uses the DMA audio, so this game is added to our list of enhanced STe games.

You can access this menu at any time by hitting the Spacebar.

Peace reigns through the land... How can I change that?

Kill 'em all, and be quick as they're trying to escape out the windows!!

Destructible scenery and all the Moomins are dead. I'm happy lol.

Ditching realism leads to an endless supply of Moomins for a blood bath!!

AstroPanic '94

Unexpected little gem

AstroPanic '94 is a shooter by Dan Ackerman and appears to be a remake of the 1986 original by Charles Brannon. It was released in 1994(!), with updates and bonus sounds a year later. The premise is dead simple - shoot the aliens in what feels like a silly mash-up of Space Invaders and Missile Command.

We control a tank that moves left and right along the ground, blasting upwards at a bunch of alien ships. They’re a bit daft, flying around in oddball patterns, so you’ll need to dodge them while banging on the mouse button (you can use the keyboard, but the mouse is miles better). As is real hardware, Hatari would often freeze up, and was painfully slow just to load the game - my Atari STe (4MB/TOS 1.62) ran it flawlessly.

AstroPanic '94 is a no-frills shooter, but loads of fun. Perfect for a quick blast and highly recommended!

• Atarimania has all the floppies https://www.atarimania.com/astropanic94
• Dan's other programs are listed on AtariUpToDate https://atariuptodate.de/en/dan-ackerman/
• Including Santa Run, which I love https://ataricrypt.blogspot.com/2024/12/merry-christmas.html
• There are lots more enhanced games for the Atari STe.
• Don't forget to play Charles Brannon's AstroPanic! https://www.atarimania.com/astropanic.html

Operation Garfield

Wolves eat cats

I've been browsing through the Floppyshop archives and stumbled upon a game called Operating Garfield by Dave Brankin. It’s inspired by Operation Wolf, but what caught my eye is that it’s made for the Atari STe. The Blitter handles the 8-way scrolling and sprites, while the audio makes use of the DMA stereo.

So, how’s it different from Operation Wolf? Well, it’s not - it’s a blatant ripoff and another mouse-controlled crosshair shooter. The story, though, is nuts! This time, aliens invade Earth, but they’ve decided to disguise themselves as Garfield - that lazy orange cat from TV. Safe to say, they’ve severely misjudged us!

The action plays out over a scrolling city skyline, with massive Garfield heads firing rockets from the rooftops. Using the mouse, you shoot down both rockets and heads. It’s that simple. While you're frantically blasting away in this pseudo-3D missile command, keep an eye out for smart bombs and ammo caches. There’s also a Defender-style radar at the top-left, but honestly, I found that too small, so almost useless.

Unfortunately, the difficulty is off the scale, so I rarely got to see the later levels. The scrolling could’ve been smoother, especially given the STe hardware. It’s better on a real machine, but nowhere near Asteroidia levels. Worst of all are the T2-style samples - good, but they’ll grate quickly. Gimme chip fx any day!

Operation Garfield isn’t meant to be taken seriously - it offers a few minutes of stress-busting fun. Think of it as a cheap Op. Wolf ripoff with lots of pointless yet satisfying Garfield-killing. Not great, but worth a play.

- DOWNLOAD -

Tomtar

Tom...what?

Tomtar is a shooter released in 1993 for the Atari STe by UTEN (NewCore, XiA, Toxic Twins & Unit 17). A "tomtar" is a gnome, and they breed like bacteria, so they will eventually take over the world unless something is done! We asked the Grim Reaper for help, but there are too many for him to handle, so we needed divine intervention - in the form of a machine gun!! Yep, we all know where this is going, so let's lock and load to help the mythical Reaper destroy the Tomtars in what I can only describe as the craziest 5 minutes of your life.

In the right corner of the screen is an Orch - kill it to advance to the next level. Use the mouse to shoot, but beware, this isn't going to be easy, because these little critters can walk, run, bounce, and fly across the screen. Controls work well with the mouse, but I would have preferred the right button to perform another function like throwing a grenade; this would have been superb... The gameplay becomes frantic and chaotic the further you progress, but I must admit that it's a shame the spooky backdrop doesn't change.

A stupid game that offers nothing more than a maddening few minutes blasting Tomtars. It's brilliant (esp using real hardware) for a few plays. Grab it from Demozoo (which also has a cut-down FM version).

My high scores are:

78,250 (under emulation)

94,740 (using my Atari STe).

What are yours? Can you beat me?? Didn't think so...