Toaplan is famous for its shmups, but the Japanese company also produced games in other genres, with 1987's Wardner being one of the most well-known.
Now, indie developer RetroRic is leveraging Earok's Scorpion Engine to bring this side-scrolling cult classic to "stock" AGA and OCS Commodore Amiga computers.
As you can see from the screenshots and footage shown below, it's already very close to the coin-op original.
Speaking to Indie Retro News, RetroRic said:
My current work on bringing Toaplan's Wardner to the humble Amiga platform. Work started just 1 month ago and I have been learning a lot during this foray into game development. I hope to have a working prototype of Level 1 by the end of April, and maybe a demo if there's interest from anyone wanting to give it a try and even playtest. I'd say level 1 is about 65% complete at this point, just have a few enemies and the background layer to add. The plan is to release the game for stock AGA and OCS Amigas.
Also known as Forest of Wardner in Japan and Pyros in North America, Wardner would be ported to the Famicom Disk System in 1988. A version for the NES was planned under the title Pyross, but it never materialised. A PC Engine port was also mooted, but that too was cancelled.
The best home port is arguably Wardner no Mori Special for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, released in 1991. This was not a direct conversion but instead rejigged elements of the arcade original.
This version has recently been re-released in Japan by Columbus Circle. Meanwhile, both the coin-op and FDS versions were featured on 2022's Hishou Same! Same! Same! for Switch and PS4.