Guitar Hero on the Commodore64?!

Playing Guitar Hero on the Commodore64 isn’t just a wacky dream, someone’s making it work!

Welcome to The Shredz64 Project. Toni Westbrook, a software developer who runs Synthetic Dreams, has been working in his spare time to make a Guitar Hero like game for the Commodore64 that is tentatively titled Shredz64.

Right now he is using a Guitar Hero Gibson SG controller, with a custom built interface piece called the PSX64, to control the gameplay. Toni got an idea at a Commodore convention he attended in Toronto where he saw “hundreds of people still very much interested in the Commodore 64 and expanding its capabilities, even today”. Very much interested in ”hacking around with software and hardware” Toni figured ”this would be the perfect project”.

Shredz64 has come a long way since the idea was first conceived but there is still plenty of work to be done. Toni has mapped out the Guitar Hero controller to work with the Commodore64, created a pretty cool graphic interface, developed the code to make it work, and has included plenty of ”non-gameplay” elements as well(intro and menu screens, save score and game progress for example), and is working hard to finish this game. Judging from the early screenshots Toni has provided, detailing his progress, Shredz64 looks like it will be the coolest game released for the Commodore64 in quite some time.

Given that the Commodore64, at 25 plus years of age, would be considered an ancient computer and likely not the first choice of consoles for gamers, why do it? Toni sums it up by saying “come on, hooking a playstation guitar up to a Commodore 64 is just damn cool”.

Truer words are rarely spoken

Links

Shredz64 Project: http://freedomirc.net/~megaboz/shredz64/

Synthetic Dreams: http://www.synthdreams.com