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C64, Amiga and genuine retro hardware meet AI, code and modern tools. Welcome between the raster line and the future.
Deep Dive & trailer / C64 & Amiga
New / Deep Dive / complete workflow
The Deep Dive shows FABULA without shortcuts: import the room image, define the walkable area and characters, add hotspots and waypoints, animations, music and sound, build a conversation and puzzle – then play the result on real C64 hardware.
Watch the Deep Dive on YouTube ↗
1:43Release trailer × C64 × real hardware
The release trailer was recorded live from a Commodore 64 Ultimate: three games made with FABULA, and the workshop you build them in – until one click on Build turns it into a cartridge.
Community / Forum
The Retro-Modern forum is the place for everyone building adventures with FABULA, programming for MERIDIAN or talking about the videos: ask questions, report bugs, show your own games and programs – in English or German. And of course we are still around at Forum64.
Workshop log / FABULA
As of today there is FABULA C64 1.5 – a free update for everyone who bought FABULA, downloaded from itch.io as before. Projects open and build with it unchanged. One thing for finished games: rooms are now stored packed on the cartridge, and a cartridge rebuilt with 1.5 no longer offers saved games from an old one – anyone in the middle of a game is best off finishing it on the old cartridge.
New are over 100 rooms instead of around 45, twelve verbs or a bar with only the inventory, questions with answers, narrator voices, hires characters, the MIDI import, a GIF export and a workshop with a new look, a start page, templates and a game’s connections as a graph – all in detail in the workshop log entry of 29 October. With that, every wish from the forum and from Forum64 is done; new ones are collected in the wish thread in the forum.
A room that doesn’t scroll may now be a multicolour bitmap by the Koala rule or a real hires bitmap with 320 pixels and two colours per cell – one click in the toolbar above the canvas switches it, from what is already painted. Koala pictures go onto the title screen pixel for pixel, packed Koala and Doodle files import, and the template stays in the project, so a picture can be converted again later with other settings.
In the game, wide rooms now scroll smoothly, pixel by pixel, RESTORE or F1 opens a small menu with music, saved games and keys, and standard sentences may have several versions. Much of it came from the forum and Forum64: the same name for several doors, walk-to points as numbers, your own colours for the bar, a joystick with momentum and a magnet. Plus an emergency backup and a crash log. Projects open and build unchanged; 1.2 is free for everyone who bought FABULA.
While we were building SCHATTENFELS, one corner of the C64's memory ran full: the area from $8000 that holds the credits and the scripts of the objects you carry. In the end there were 32 bytes left, and a credits roll with the full cast no longer fit. In 1.1 the credits have a bank of their own on the cartridge and are fetched line by line while they scroll – up to 204 lines, without a single byte of the computer's memory. What the scripts of carried objects say now lives on the cartridge as well, and the tables behind them only list objects that actually have such a script. In SCHATTENFELS the free space there went from 32 bytes to about 2.6 KB.
On top of that, the image import has two new settings: a colour plan that decides which C64 colour wood, stone, flames or sky become, and scaling down without mixed colours, where every pixel takes the most common colour around it. Fixed: a mouse click on port 1 could pause the game, and “Now you are playing …” can now be translated. Projects open and build unchanged; 1.1 is free for everyone who bought FABULA.
To see how far FABULA goes, we built a whole game with it: SCHATTENFELS, Chapter 1 – nine rooms, two playable characters you switch with W, three puzzle threads side by side, its own SID music, a hires title screen, flickering candles and a fire in the hearth. Built with the workshop as everyone has it, in English and German from one project.
The build showed where it gets tight – the memory from $8000, which then became 1.1 – and two small bugs that were fixed for everyone with 1.1. The trailer was recorded live from a Commodore 64 Ultimate; the game comes out free on 23 October.
Archive / Projects
FABULA / Version 1.5
Professor Fledermann skips 1.3 and 1.4: everything new in 1.5, spoken in German, with English subtitles.
FABULA / SCHATTENFELS
Chapter 1 of a Halloween adventure built with FABULA C64 1.1 – out free since 23 October.
FABULA / Release
Live from a Commodore 64 Ultimate: three games made with FABULA, and the workshop behind them.
MERIDIAN / HORIZONT
The MERIDIAN's graphical desktop: the ATLAS file manager, internet radio, SID JAM for listening together and TAKTSTOCK in the net jam.
FABULA / Teaser
A time-travel teaser built entirely with FABULA – with speech through the FunMP3 player.
MERIDIAN / Introduction
The chips, the tracker TAKTSTOCK with its light-show column, FABULA on the MERIDIAN – and finally the demo FIRST816 (in German).
FABULA / Release update
The professor and his assistant from the Deep Dive go through the package and what you need to get started (in German).
FABULA / Short
From an empty project to a playable room: 47 minutes in the workshop as a time-lapse, set to SID music.
FABULA / Short
A spooky adventure built with FABULA – a taste of the Deep Dive.
C64 / SID / vinyl
C64 techno on vinyl – LMan's SID sound on the turntable.
FABULA / Workshop update
Speech, icon bar, character sets and more – explained by Ron himself (in German).
FABULA / C64 / Ultimate 64
An internal feasibility test showing the editor, animations and the result on the Ultimate 64 – not a download project.
C64 / SID / AI
8580 and 6581, Claude AI and Ultimate 64 E2 in a C64 demo.
C64 / Assembler
Mathematics, raster effects and demoscene atmosphere directly on the C64.
C64 / NES / Amiga
Retro legends on genuine Apollo-V4SA and 68080 hardware.
AI / Amiga / 68080
What happens when modern AI meets genuine Amiga hardware?
Channel Teaser
A brief look at the world between yesterday and tomorrow.
To be continued
New experiments, demos and stories land directly on the channel.
To the channel ↗The Workshop
Old systems are not just demonstrated here. They are given new tasks, new tools and sometimes quite unusual partners.
C64, Ultimate 64, Turbo Chameleon 64, Amiga and Apollo 68080 – whenever possible, the result runs on the actual device.
Assembler, small tools, custom demos and experiments instead of mere nostalgia.
AI, Python and today's development environments help bring new ideas to old machines.
About Retro-Modern
Retro-Modern is a channel for everyone who loves technology. It's about Commodore, Amiga and C64 – but just as much about modern games, gadgets, AI and the question of what happens when you combine both.
Whether you're a retro fan, a curious gamer or a tech nerd: the channel tells stories, shows projects and tries things out. No high-gloss lab. Instead, genuine hardware, personal curiosity and the joy of building.
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