Vlak 64

Vlak 64 is a homebrew port by The_Kovic of the classic 1993 game, released on 9 Spetember 2024. It’s a snake-like game, where the objective is to collect all the objects on the screen and then head over to the exit.

You can get the ROM from its download page by using the password choochootrain, or from the official release on Github, where you can also see its Libdragon source code.

About Vlak 64

Vlak 64 is made to be a 1-to-1 replica of the original game for DOS by Miroslav Němeček, on the Nintendo 64. The objective of each stage is to collect all the various items and make your way to the exit. What makes it interesting is that every object you collect gets added to the end of your train, so the more items you have, the harder it is to navigate.

The game is very reminiscent of the classic Snake genre which has its roots all the way back in the 1976 arcade game Blockade, but adds its own unique twist on it by having fixed puzzles with many collectables rather than one apple at a time.

There are 51 levels in total: 50 from the original game and an extra one that I believe is exclusive to Vlak 64. Some of the levels allow for plenty of leeway on the path that you take, but others force you to take a very specific defined path with very little room for error.

Review and conclusion

I must admit that I never played the original Vlak for the MS DOS, but from what I’ve seen, Vlak 64 does seem like a faithful recreation. The graphics, sound and level design seems to me to be a flawless recreation.

The only thing that I can’t really confirm is that the controls do feel kind of delayed in that you have to press the directional pad with a strange timing in relation to when the train moves. It’s kind of hard to explain unless you’ve played it yourself.

There are two glitches I found. The major one occurs when you try to load stage 52 or stage 0, the game just crashes. The minor one is that when you complete the level, the train keeps ‘moving’ until it collides with a wall (the level still completes though).

Do give this game a look. It’s simple, won’t take much of your time and is a lot more challenging than it looks.