The Sentinel

The Sentinel is an original strategy-puzzle game, one of the most distinctive and unconventional on the whole platform, made by British programmer Geoff Crammond and released in 1986 by Firebird for the Commodore 64. The player moves through a series of three-dimensional landscapes rendered in solid color surfaces, and the goal is to absorb the surrounding objects, convert them into energy, and use that energy to climb higher and higher, until finally taking the place of the watching Sentinel at the top of the landscape and ultimately absorbing it as well, thereby completing the level and moving on to the next, harder landscape.

At the time, the game was completely unconventional - it combined no action or reflexes at all, relying instead purely on spatial reasoning, careful forward planning of moves, and judging the field of view of enemy guardians, who turn the player back into a harmless rock upon detection and force them to start over. It placed non-trivial demands on the hardware of the time with its pseudo-3D rendering of tens of thousands of uniquely, algorithmically generated landscapes that varied in difficulty, size, and the number of objects available to absorb and convert into valuable energy. As a result, progressing through the game never looked quite the same twice, and the player had to rely on their own judgment rather than on learned patterns.

The Sentinel is still regarded today as one of the most original and influential games of the 8-bit era - it inspired later creators in their approach to spatial puzzles and procedurally generated worlds, and it received highly favorable reviews in the contemporary press for its originality. Its abstract, meditative atmosphere, underscored by sparse electronic sound, makes it a title that fundamentally differs from most of the C64's action output, and it is still sought out today precisely for its uniqueness and the unrepeatable, almost contemplative feel of playing it, something few other games on the 8-bit platform ever offered.

Why play it: For a meditative, entirely unhurried puzzle game with no equal on the C64 - an ideal choice for players seeking originality and atmosphere over action.