Foreward
Beginnings
It all began in 1983 when I bought my first home computer — an Atari 800 (with 48K memory) — and taught myself to program in BASIC, and shortly thereafter 6502 Assembler...
In those days, it was common for software publishing houses (in the UK at least) to accept offerings from independent programmers, to manufacture and distribute games for the home computer market. English Software Company reviewed my prototype for a game — Diamonds — and agreed to publish it. It was a thrill to see something I had created become a published product.
A Sequel
Diamonds was a modest hit, and spurred me on to write a sequel — Dan Strikes Back — which was published the following year (1984). This too was well received, though not a "best seller". Still, the royalties from sales of the game helped pay for my first car.
Around this time, I jotted down some thoughts for a third game in the trilogy — Return of the Fungi...
A title sequence was prototyped (in 1986) for the third game, but then "life happened", development stalled, and the idea was relegated to a scrap book where it lay dormant for a few decades...
Roll forward 35 years
While browsing the Internet in early 2021, I stumbled across a couple of videos by Pete Davison where he reviewed Diamonds, and then later reviewed Dan Strikes Back. Some of his comments during the second video prompted me to send him a video response.
With more than three decades of professional software development experience behind me, I set about writing the final installment in the Digger Dan Trilogy. With a modern development environment (WUDSN IDE coupled with the Altirra emulator) it was a fun project to tackle in my spare time. Return of the Fungi was completed at the end of August 2021.
It is my sincere hope that you derive many hours of enjoyment playing these classic 8-bit games...
Simon Hunt
California, September 2021