81-year-old game dev revives Head Over Heels sequel after 37 Years

Recently, an 81-year-old former game developer finally decided to release his abandoned puzzle game after seeing the retro gaming scene boom again. Colin Porch, now 81, released a sequel to an adored 1980s classic game that he started working on 37 years ago. The retro game is called Return to Blacktooth: A Head Over Heels Adventure, and it was released on May 4, 2026, allowing retro gamers to experience an isometric puzzle game in which an eccentric duo solves over 300 vibrant puzzle rooms spanning across five worlds.

The game is available on itch.io and has been published by Thalamus Digital Publishing for both the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga system lines. Given the labor of love that went into this game, the $12.99 price tag may feel justified to some gamers. You can fire up the game on original retro hardware or an emulator, and it runs impressively smoothly, given the amount of detail in the sprites.

However, that’s not the end of the story, as physical boxed editions of Return to Blacktooth: A Head Over Heels Adventure are already in the works and are planned for release later in 2026. After putting the game on ice for nearly four decades, Colin Porch felt a renewed personal connection to the project once he picked up where he left off. In an interview with Time Extension, he explained:

“You simply cannot believe how excited I am. Since working on the original game back in the ’80s, this sequel has been an enormous part of my life. The game is full of puzzles, and I had a lot of fun devising them. It’s my wits against the person who’s going to be playing it.”

The game is a love letter to retro home computers and video games, with its chiptune soundtrack, hilarious sound effects, and no sign of AI usage anywhere in its development. Still, it’s no walk in the park; reviewers say it’s quite challenging.

Colin Porch’s backstory and the journey to this sequel weren’t easy. He began the game’s development at Ocean Software right after wrapping up the ports of the first Head Over Heels, but the mid-1980s turbulence in the video game industry and the shift to home computers discouraged him and led him to put the project on pause.

Years later, he had a run-in with his old boss, Gary Bracey, who enlightened him about the resurgence of retro gaming and the appetite for new yet authentic retro experiences. So, Colin Porch went on a mission to secure permission from the new Atari we know today and partnered with Thalamus to finally complete Return to Blacktooth: A Head Over Heels Adventure.