Godzilla Balls is an inventive puzzle/exploration/action homebrew for MSX computers (MSX1/2/2+/TR) that teams up two legendary kaiju.
Trapped by the evil Dr. Shorizawa, Godzilla and Gamera must cooperate to retrieve all the balls, restore their size, and escape. The game fits into just 64KB of ROM and uses 16KB of RAM, so it runs comfortably even on entry-level MSX machines.
The core twist is dual-character cooperation: you control both monsters, using their distinct abilities to solve puzzles and navigate obstacles. The action is spiced with exploration and careful planning, making each stage a satisfying little brain teaser. The base game is now accompanied by a LevelPack file containing 16 new extra levels, roughly doubling the content and adding plenty of replay value. Visually, it’s a charming, retro-style tribute to the golden age of kaiju films, released to celebrate Godzilla’s 70th anniversary. A physical edition with box, manual, and cartridge is being considered by Paxanga Soft (watch out for unofficial repros). If you enjoy quirky cooperative puzzles and giant monsters, Godzilla Balls is a delightful oddity worth.
Sam.Pr Explorer is an Egyptian-themed maze adventure for MSX2 (64KB RAM, 256KB ASCII16 ROM) by Fausto Pracek, released in the 2024 MSXdev contest. The ever-curious penguin Sam.Pr once again finds himself trapped — this time inside a pyramid full of traps, enemies, and ticking clocks.
Gameplay is classic room-by-room exploration. You must navigate each chamber, dodge or outsmart guardians, and find the exit within a time limit. Difficulty settings change the number of rooms you need to clear, adding replay value and accommodating both casual and experienced players. The maze layouts and enemy patterns keep the challenge fresh, demanding observation and quick reflexes.
The Egyptian setting is charmingly rendered in MSX2-style pixel art, with hieroglyphic touches and a suitably adventurous atmosphere. Sam.Pr’s animation carries the series’ trademark personality, you genuinely want to help the little penguin escape. A short digital manual is included. For fans of tight, accessible maze games with a lovable mascot, *Sam.Pr Explorer* is a delightful bite-sized expedition.
This isn’t a remake, it’s a technical love letter to the original 1986 Konami classic. Using a custom compiler, the developers have injected a complete audio overhaul into the MSX1 game, replacing all music and sound effects with sampled audio straight from the film. The catch? It runs on unmodified hardware: a 3.57MHz Z80 CPU mixing real-time 6kHz samples through the aging AY-3-8910 sound chip. The result is a staggering 12 minutes of digitized music, voices, and effects crammed into a cartridge that the original hardware should never have been able to play. Expect the iconic “Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” and movie dialogue where there were once simple bleeps and bloops. Gameplay remains untouched, you still guide Sloth and the gang through the Fratelli hideout, but the audio transformation turns a familiar 8-bit side-scroller into a living movie scene.
A cheat (F2 for invincibility) is included for those who just want to soak in the audio. This is, by the creators’ own admission, a technical challenge first and foremost: a proof that sampled playback on a stock MSX is possible. For retro computing enthusiasts, it’s an absolute marvel. For casual players, it’s a curiosity worth firing up just to hear what a Z80 can really do.
Three Weeks In Paradise finally brings a missing Wally Week classic to the MSX, courtesy of developer fregarni. Originally released on the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, this quirky action-puzzle adventure shockingly skipped the MSX back in the day — now it’s been lovingly ported, completing the trilogy started by Pyjamarama and Everyone’s a Wally.
Wally’s tropical family holiday takes a dark turn when cannibal natives, the “Clan Nibbles,” capture his wife and son. Naturally, it’s up to you to rescue them. The island is a colorful, interconnected world filled with objects to collect, combine, and use. The gameplay is pure 80s exploratory puzzling: find keys, dodge dangers, figure out what item goes where, and slowly unravel the route to freedom. There’s no hand-holding, just good old-fashioned trial, error, and that satisfying “aha!” moment.
The package includes both ROM (128KB) and disk (720KB) versions, plus manuals in English and Spanish. It runs on any MSX1 with 64KB RAM (and an FDD for the disk version). Fans of the original will appreciate how faithfully the bright graphics and weird humor have been translated. For newcomers, it’s a charming, slightly bizarre time capsule that shows exactly why Wally Week still has fans after all these years. A must-play for MSX adventurers.
