Arcade classic P.O.W. is making its way to the Amiga 1200

SNK’s 1988 arcade brawler P.O.W.: Prisoners of War is heading to the Commodore Amiga, with a new AGA conversion in development for the Amiga 1200. This isn’t a remake built around a modern engine or a reworking of an old home-computer port. The project starts with the arcade original and aims to move its maps, enemy behaviour and combat onto Commodore’s AGA machine with the character of the coin-op version intact. Developer ESKAY has spent around four months on the project so far. A substantial part of the opening stage is already running on a standard Motorola 68020-based Amiga 1200 with 1 MB of Fast RAM. There’s plenty left to finish, but this has moved past the stage of a simple graphics test. The core game engine works, the Amiga rendering code works, and much of the first level is playable.

Starting with the arcade code

The interesting part sits under the bonnet. ESKAY isn’t recreating P.O.W. scene by scene from screenshots. Machine code from the arcade ROM has been converted into C, with custom tools pulling map data and sprite behaviour from the game through MAME.

This gives the conversion a firm technical base. Movement, stage layouts and enemy routines can be carried across from the arcade program rather than recreated from memory or approximated by eye.

The engine has been kept separate from much of the machine-specific code. Experimental builds have already been compiled for the Atari STE, Sega Mega Drive, Sharp X68000 and PC. For now, the Amiga 1200 version remains the main project and the one furthest along.

It’s an unusual route for an Amiga conversion, and one centred heavily on how the original arcade software behaves. Instead of starting with the graphics and building a new game around them, the project works from the internal logic outwards.

The Amiga 1200 gets a native AGA version

This isn’t treating the A1200 like a generic 68020 box. The conversion uses Amiga hardware features directly, including triple buffering and hardware scrolling. The on-screen status display uses hardware sprites, leaving more CPU time for enemies, collision work and game logic.

Running on a regular Amiga 1200 with 1 MB of Fast RAM gives the project a fairly modest hardware target for AGA owners. It isn’t being built around an accelerator-equipped machine or a large memory expansion.

Audio remains under construction. Around 100 KB of memory has been set aside for music, with an Amiga MOD planned for the opening stage. Work remains across later stages, sound and general polish.

The current build already shows how the arcade material is being adapted to Commodore hardware rather than dropped into a generic framework. Scrolling, status graphics and screen buffering have been written around features found in the AGA machines.

P.O.W. arrived in arcades in 1988

P.O.W.: Prisoners of War came from SNK in 1988, during a period when side-scrolling brawlers had become a common sight in arcades. Players control escaped prisoners Snake and Bart, fighting through enemy territory on the way to an extraction point.

The arcade release supports two players at once and gives each player separate punch, kick and jump buttons. Button combinations trigger extra attacks such as a headbutt, reverse strike and jumping kick. Enemies can drop knives and firearms, so fights aren’t limited to fists and boots.

Its campaign runs through four main areas: a POW camp, warehouse, jungle and enemy base. Soldiers make up most of the opposition, joined by tougher enemies and vehicles such as motorcycles, trucks and a helicopter. Each stage moves the pair closer to their escape.

SNK produced a Famicom and NES version in 1989. The home conversion changed several parts of the arcade game and removed simultaneous two-player play. Later releases brought the arcade edition to newer systems through SNK collections and the Arcade Archives series.

The Amiga conversion is still taking shape

There’s no finished release yet. Audio needs more work, later game content still has to be completed, and the current build represents an ongoing conversion rather than a launch candidate.

What’s running already gives a clear picture of the project. This is a native AGA production built around the Amiga 1200’s own graphics features, with the arcade version supplying the technical foundation.

The first stage has supplied a working base. From here, development centres on carrying the same approach across the remaining levels, enemies, audio and gameplay systems needed to turn the current build into a complete Amiga edition of SNK’s four-stage brawler.