Everybody was Kang-Fu fighting

Kang Fu is a fantasy world platform game in which you play as Klont the kangaroo, collecting things, killing others with weapons, and so on. So far, so predictable. What sets Kang Fu apart is that it was released a couple of years after Commodore's demise, following a plethora of technological advances, and yet looks absolutely awful thanks to its jarring union of digitised and pixel art graphics. Whilst its accompanying manual heralds the games' technical specifications, there's no evidence onscreen that they contribute to making it anything other than unplayable. Kang Fu is also notable for inciting the wrath of the Angry Video Game Nerd who included a ranting assessment of the game in his CD32-bashing episode.

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In the process of ebooking this article, some interesting insight emanating from the comments section courtesy of former Amiga journalist, Andy Maddock, was lost. Like a phoenix from the flames allow me to present...

Andy: Enjoyed reading this. Thanks! I do remember Kang Fu. I'm sure my review kept the Amiga market going for perhaps one or two days more.

No way, it's you! You're very welcome. :D

Were they your honest feelings about the game, or did someone have a gun held up against your head? It's hard to argue with the comment about it being one of the best platformers to be released in the last six months... but only because almost no-one was still developing commercial Amiga games at that point. :D

Andy: Those particular days were rough times for the Amiga. We were never pressured into giving anything an abnormally high score - however, we genuinely loved the Amiga and we did everything we could in terms of "extra positivity". My last gasp attempt was to "review" Chaos Engine 2 after seeing it for 5 minutes at a show. I got done for that because it was promised to another magazine as an exclusive. But I didn't care. It was sad to see the decline, but good to see you are bringing the joy back. For that, I thank you.

That's understandable. This late, criticising the work of the last few commercial Amiga developers making an effort to keep the platform alive would have felt like kicking a puppy. I can see why you'd go out of your way to highlight the positives. I should probably have taken a leaf out of your book! Hopefully, the passage of time has dulled the developers' pain.

Crazy! Promising exclusive access to anything at that stage seems like a strange decision given that new software needed all the promotion it could get. All credit to you for putting yourself on the line to push the cause.

Chaos Engine 2 might have sold very well a few years earlier. Today plenty of casual retro gamers aren't even aware it exists. There's a fascinating interview online with Mike Montgomery (conducted by Dan Wood of the Retro Hour) who talks about his experiences re: publishing the game. Sad to hear how many copies ended up gathering dust in his loft before he finally flogged them for peanuts on eBay, long before the retro resurgence that sent prices of unopened software spiralling.