Fred's Back 2

Fred's Back 2 is a Commodore 64 platformer from 1993 by the Austrian team Cosmos Designs. The date alone tells you this is the late eight-bit era — and the game looks exactly like it: a title from the period when developers were squeezing feats out of a twelve-year-old machine that nobody would have believed possible at its launch.

Cosmos Designs was one of the smaller European studios that stayed loyal to the C64 even as sixteen-bit computers and consoles took over the market. Their output was known for technical care, and Fred's Back 2 continues that line as the sequel to an earlier platformer — you jump, collect and fight through hazard-filled levels again, this time with craft sharpened by the experience of the first game.

The context gives the game a particular charm. Doom shipped in 1993, and yet honest platformers were still being made for the C64, serving a community that had no intention of abandoning its computer. Games from this period tend to be more mature in design than early eight-bit titles: their authors knew every trick of the machine and every mistake of the genre.

For a modern player it is a fine chance to see what peak platforming craft looked like on eight bits — no nostalgia glasses required, just a carefully built jumper with clear rules and fair difficulty.

OldGame.cz has this one ready to go: the C64 emulator boots straight on the game's page in your browser.