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Michael Cranford is a true legend of the video game industry. He's most famous for designing and programming 1985's The Bard's Tale and its 1986 sequel The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight, and his other credits include Maze Master, Dark Seed and the home ports of Super Zaxxon (C64) and Donkey Kong (Apple II).
Cranford left the games industry in the '90s to pursue an academic career, but has now returned to finish one of his lost projects – a venture he first announced all the way back in 1983.
"At the end of Maze Master in 1983, I announced Adventure 2: Shadow Snare," Cranford tells us via email. "I never made it. Forty-three years later, I'm back in 6502 assembly language, developing Shadow Snare as a native Commodore 64 role-playing game."
Cranford is very clear on the fact that this isn't really about rebuilding previous work, "because there was no completed Shadow Snare to reconstruct. I'm returning to the original promise with four decades of different experience behind me and working inside the real C64's limits—its memory, color, sound, and storage."
A playable demo is available now, and it's exciting to see how a true veteran is able to push the C64 to its limits – the only disappointment is that Cranford has leaned pretty heavily into GenAI for the game's website and 'cinematic trailer' – the latter of which is sloppy as hell and even has slowdown in it.
Nonetheless, the idea of playing a 'new' C64 CRPG in 2026 is still interesting, especially as it comes from one of the best to ever do it – so I'm hopeful that the horrible GenAI hasn't infected the final product and is strictly limited to its promotional material.
Cranford will be presenting Shadow Snare at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, which takes place between October 9th and 11th.