Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.
Way back when, I discovered a piece of software called SEUCK, or Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit. My face doubtless lit up when I saw it in a magazine, and I spent countless trips to the shops to find a copy for my C64.
Several years later, I did. And I even made a couple of games with it. But while I found SEUCK (originally by the pre-Sensible Soccer Sensible Software) to be the best “construction kit” software I had thus far discovered, it had its limitations.
In 2025, that isn’t an issue.
SEUCK to the future
With the original construction kit, you could move your sprite up the screen, either with automatic or joystick controlled scrolling. You could also stick to a static screen, if my memory serves me right.
These days, however, you can do a ton of crazy new stuff with SEUCK, not least construct side scrolling beat-em ups like this one:
The game above is an entry into the SEUCK Compo 2025, for which entries are now closed (April 30th deadline). Various enhanced versions of SEUCK are now available, such as the SEUCK Title Maker, and the useful Sideways SEUCK by developer Jon Wells.
As if that wasn’t enough to give you a flavour of what can be achieved with this title, you should have a look at the SEUCK School.
What did I do with SEUCK?
That’s a good question. Given it was 30+ years ago, it’s difficult to say, What I do know is that I still have the Commodore 64 disk of save files, awaiting patient transfer to my PC. From memory, there was a space shooter and a tank-based shooter, for which I created a large (well, as large as you could get) level boss.
I hope to be able to dig these out one day and look at them properly, and take advantage of the SEUCK tools that are now available. Not sure if I’ll use the VICE emulator or my C64 Mini. In the meantime, if the SEUCK Compo 2025 is closed, that means you’ve got plenty of time to work on something ahead of next year’s challenge!
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Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.
