For those of you who have had the unfortunate experience of playing the original Outrun port on the Amiga, you’ll know what a disappointment it was. Scoring just 5% in Amiga Power review (1994) the port goes down as one of the most poorly executed Amiga “conversions” of all time. (scroll to the bottom to read the review in full).

Thankfully, agermose has taken it upon himself to right the wrongs of the past and re-release Outrun for our beloved Amiga with the love and skill such an iconic game deserves.

We’re certainly not the first to cover this new but we are the first to release the screenshots below of the work in progress showing passenger and other vehicle sprites in place for the first time. As you can see, it’s all ready looking very promising and with all those AGA colors on tap we expect this to be an absolutely storming port just like the epic 1942 we’ve had the pleasure of helping beta test for.

Passenger sprites in place

We’ve had the honour of a little Q&A with agermose, let’s see what he has to say…

Q: How come you chose such an iconic game for your latest port?
A: Outrun was my favourite arcade game, and the Amiga version was such a huge disappointment. At some point, I saw Cannonball and got inspired to start my own port.

Q: Did you have to re-create any assets or artwork?
A: I’m working with arcade assets, using System16 sprite viewer. The biggest challenge is the colour palette.

Q: Will you add any extra features or improvements to the game?
A: No plans to add anything extra. I’m stretched to get as much as possible in there.

Q: What was your first experience with Outrun?
A: I played it a lot in the arcades when it came out in ’86, and was able to complete it. I have fond memories of playing it, with the whole arcade looking on.

Q: How long do you expect the port will take?
A: I’m doing it in my spare time, and expect it to take me at least another year.

Q: What system are you targeting?
A: Base AGA configuration, no accelerators. I may end up needing a bit of Fast RAM. I want it to run on my old unexpanded A1200. The current codebase will not run on OCS/ECS, so don’t expect and OCS/ECS version later.

Q: What’s your development history on the Amiga. What was before 1942?
A: I didn’t really know any other Amiga developers, in the late 80’s when I switched from C64 assembler to 68k. I bought the hardware manual and then converted the Atarisoft C64 version of Mario Bros. It was not fully completed, but playable. Later I graduated from University, got a job, family, and didn’t code on my Amiga until I picked it up again in 2019, when I bought an Armiga, and dumped my old floppies. I saw what McGeezer was doing and then decided on doing arcade conversions because I could do them without an artist.