In development since 2017, Silver Valley has been finally completed in 2025 and got a beautiful edition for collectors' shelves at home. That deserves an article!

Facts

Developer/Publisher: MIKGames, Master System Passion
Platform: Sega Master System
Release: December 31st, 2017 (ROM), December 31st, 2023 (physical first batch)
Genres: Platformer, RPG, Shoot'em Up
Number of players: 1

Development

Enrique Ruiz is a hobby programmer from Málaga, Spain and has been a member of the SMS Power! forum since the beginning of 2017. In September of the same year, he presented his game Silver Valley, which received several updates since until Benji de Almeida, aka Fixoid, spoke to Enrique back in 2022 about a possible physical edition for the game, which led to a collaboration. The game was very well received at its launch and received a lot of encouragement and help from the SMS Power! community, including Kagesan, Sverx, Alvin Albrecht and Centrale. Enrique Ruiz called his game a mix of Castlevania, Wonder Boy and Shinobi with a touch of RPG in the style of Y's 3. In the credits of the game, Enrique calls himself Mike Ruiz, which is an allusion to the name MIKGames, under which he published Silver Valley as a developer. In fact, his friends are calling him Mike for more than 30 years, but he doesn't even know why. Therefore, Silver Valley is a one-man project and the development, graphic design and music & sound have been completely done by Enrique Ruiz, who, in his own words, has fulfilled a dream. For the graphics, Enrique used some elements from Lanea “Sharm” Zimmerman, Carl “Surt” Olsson and Jetrel, who are part of the opengameart.org website. The player sprites have been influenced by the graphic art that can be found at a website called cvrpg.com. Other programs used for the design of Silver Valley were SDCC, Z88DK, SMSLIB, Graphicsgale, MOD2PSG2, Mappy, Tiled, BMP2TILE, KiddEd and Emulicious. The graphics were created with psgcompr and a lot was compressed with zx7. In the end, Silver Valley ended up with over 80 sections in the game, including some shoot'em up segments. Over time, more enemies were added to the game and the story was given additional depth, thankfully to the support and suggestions from the SMS Power! community. Since its release, many repros of Silver Valley have surfaced, offered and sold on the internet by various people without Enrique Ruiz's permission.

Silver Valley by Eruiz & Fixoid for the Sega Master System

On May 23rd, 2025, Benji de Almeida aka Fixoid presented the second batch of Silver Valley at SMS Power! - both batches were produced with the approval of Enrique Ruiz. Benji founded his own project called Master System Passion, under which he released Silver Valley. He put a lot of heart and soul into this project and coordinated a lot to get the best people from the Master System community on board. For example, Yeti Bomar and a lady called KorriGwai were on board for the artwork, with Yeti Bomar contributing the cover artwork and a very impressive map of Silver Valley and KorriGwai helped to design the poster of the black dragon with an outstanding illustration. The PCBs were produced to the highest possible quality, thanks to the help of Fabrice Dumas aka IchigoBankai, whose extensive knowledge was especially valuable for the project. Enrique Ruiz noted that this version of Silver Valley was more up-to-date than the ROM version that has been previously released on SMS Power!. The new version, which was only available on the game carts of this physical edition at the time, contained performance improvements, new graphical elements and a new font in the game. There is even a secret version in the works, which is yet to be completed, and which contains 6 more stages, weapons for the player and graphical revisions of specific designs and is compiled with the latest sdcc compiler. Fixoid added some extras to the physical edition, such as pin buttons, postcards, stickers and a small game catalogue, just like the ones that came with the games at the peak of the Master System. Together with the stylish instruction manual and the impressive map, Silver Valley was really packed with numerous goodies. One of the copies from this second batch went to me and I am very proud to be able to add Silver Valley to my Master System collection, which contains over 300 games.

Story & Gameplay

Silver City, the capital of Silver Valley, was a pleasant place to live. That was until one night... Out of nowhere, a large, ferocious black dragon appeared on top of the city, destroying everything and killing everyone in its path. The king sent his army to destroy the dragon, but they were powerless against it... The king consulted with the elders and they found stories in the Scrolls of Vandor about a brave knight who, when all hope seems lost, will save Silver City from a terrible fate with the help of 6 enchanted crystals. Now the king turns to you, his bravest knight, to fulfill the prophecy and bring peace to Silver City! But beware, you´re not alone on your quest. The scrolls also speak of a powerful robot army from the future that wants the crystals for themslves and they will leave no stone unturned to prevent you from getting them.
Silver Valley is very easy to play, as the hero only has one weapon at his disposal throughout the entire game: his sword. The hero swings his blade against the wild monsters with button 1 and jumps with button 2, while he can climb up and down ladders using the directional pad. The famous pause button naturally fulfills its legendary function. The game is divided into 81 sections, which vary in length and lead through all regions of Silver Valley. Not all of these sections are combat areas, but also villages and other locations such as the entrance to a church, where you can talk to various people and pick up new clues about the game's story. The hero can be hit up to three times per section, whereby contact with water or spikes leads to an immediate end of the game. If the nameless hero - who apparently does have a name that no one is allowed to pronounce, because otherwise, according to a legend, the one will suffer an horrible death - is hit by an enemy, he can refill his life meter if an enemy drops a heart. You cannot have more than three hearts, which means that enemies will not drop hearts when the hero's life meter is full. There are no extra lives in this game. When the hero runs out of hearts, the game is over. However, the good thing about this is that you have an infinite number of attempts, but you should press button 1 very quickly as soon as the Game Over screen appears, otherwise the game is indeed over and it returns to the title screen. In the options, you can listen to the soundtrack and set the number of hearts at the start of the game. If you wish, you can also select the individual sections to play them individually or to start from there.

Silver Valley comprises a large world with various locations: Silver Castle and Silver City, the fields, Silver Lake, the magical mansion on Silver Island, a grot, a desert, the Silver Heights, an air castle, a deep forest, the underground cave of a church, the base of a robot army and its air station and the tower of Silver City. The main antagonist is a large dragon, who is supported by a whole horde of different enemies and bosses. In addition to ghosts, rats and water monsters, there are also robots, shooting eagles and wolves among the many enemies. In some levels,  there are laser projectiles on the ceilings and in other levels, there are rolling stones, known from Wonder Boy in Monster World. In general, I see hardly any similarities with Castlevania (to which, however, every game that contains castles and swords in any form must be consistently compared), but a lot of inspiration by Wonder Boy. Some levels and buildings, including Silver City, are clearly inspired by Wonder Boy in Monster Land. You can talk to people in various locations, but you cannot enter any buildings unless there are combat areas behind them, as in the case of the church. Some sections are pure shoot'em up levels in which the hero sits on a flying eagle and has to avoid other shooting eagles and larger flying monsters. The hero also travels on boats from time to time and has to compete with sea monsters. Overall, the levels vary a lot. If the screen becomes too crowded with enemies, the game slows down, which leads to a game over in the worst case. If too many enemies overlap at one point, they become invisible, which can also lead to problems. I didn´t discovered any other bugs.
The graphics are very detailed in many cases and generally manifold. Backgrounds and water are often animated, including waterfalls or lava falls, which breathes a lot of life into the game. It is interesting to note that, although the level of difficulty increases, it still varies in some sections. For example, certain areas in the early part of the game can be more difficult than later ones and vice versa. The soundtrack aims to tempt the player into hectic action and contributes a great deal to the atmosphere. Some of the tracks will linger in your ears for a while, regardless of whether they are fast, dramatic or quieter musical pieces. From time to time in the game, you will find an arcade machine called “Crap-Man”, which is of course not based on any particular classic game, and you can play a mini-game with several levels. The small RPG elements round off the game and give the player plenty of reasons to smile, because the NPCs sayings are simply hilarious.

Gordman's Opinion

Silver Valley is a very good but difficult game. The graphics are stunningly beautiful, especially many of the backgrounds like the stone walls in the underground cave under the church or the animated sky in the shoot'em up segments. When I noticed that there was a robot base, I was a bit skeptical at first. I rarely like mechanical levels in video games, but when I´ve seen the robot base in Silver Valley, I was excited. It made me think of the electric walls in the Sky Base from Sonic the Hedgehog, which I also think are incredibly well done. Enrique Ruiz has put all his heart and soul into the graphics. To be honest, my personal hero of the game is the eagle. That little guy is a showstealer, super adorable and enhances the shoot'em up levels with the accompanying music to such an extent that these levels are among the absolute highlights of the game. I especially like the mystical sections as well, such as the church with the clergy and the dark forest. I think it's a pity that you can't enter the houses in the villages. This might have given the story even more depth. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes the references to Wonder Boy, because if you think of knights, swords and shields on the Master System, then it can only be Wonder Boy. The sayings of the characters that the hero talks to are sometimes simply hilarious. A bunch of mages thank the hero for saving them, and they're just a bunch of high-class mages xD Couldn't they´ve handled it themselves? Oh no, I forgot: the good Wonder Boy was no different, he always had to do the work all by himself, too! :D Some people in Silver Valley say that they like to go swimming. If the hero jumps into the water, he drowns. How was I supposed to know that he can´t swim? xD Sorry for the smileys, but they just have to be here.

Unfortunately, it's not entirely without criticism, as some sections almost drove me crazy, such as section 78. At a few points in the game, you are forced to take inevitable hits in order to progress; these ceiling lasers are pretty intense. I was able to play through Silver Valley in one sitting thanks to the unlimited attempts, but it took me twice as long as the 75 minutes stated by Enrique Ruiz. However, I was really looking to complete it, even if the frustration was sometimes very high. I wholeheartedly congratulate him on fulfilling his dream with this game, because you have to achieve something like that first. As a writer, I felt the same way four years ago, when I was able to hold my first physical book in my hands: It's hard to put such an achievement into words. The edition that Enrique has put together with the help of Benji and the SMS Power! community is really impressive, considering that it's still a hobby project. I don't think it's good that people are selling repros without the developers' permissions and making money out of their work. Benji de Almeida, alias Fixoid, also deserves respect at this point. It's a shame that games like this can't be made accessible to a larger part of the video game community. In the heyday of the Master System, Silver Valley would certainly have been successful. So let's make it successful now! =) I recommend it to all Sega & Master System fans and fans of challenging 8-bit games. To conclude this article, I would like to mention that a second part is planned in which the player uses a whip as a weapon.

Spoiler

If you want to play blind through the game, you should skip this short section at this point.
Enrique Ruiz noted two things on SMS Power!: In the church, you should not destroy the cross, but pray at it for about ten seconds. After you leave the cave and talk to the soldiers at the exit, you will be given a clue to a secret hut. Tip: This location is in the cave. If you find it, it will make the end of the game easier to understand. Another tip from Gordman: The rolling rocks can be destroyed with a lot of hits by the sword, if you can attack them from a safe point.

Availability

You can get a copy from Benji Almeida via the SMS Power! forums, as long as the game is available. A suitable link can be found here in this article. If you missed it, you should keep your eyes open for more possible batches in the future.

Links:

- Silver Valley thread at SMS Power!: Upcoming Game: Silver Valley
- Silver Valley thread at SMS Power! (2): Silver Valley by Eruiz - Batch 2025 - Fixoid Prod
- Short trailer for the physical edition: New Batch Silver Valley - SEGA Master System. Rétro Gaming Sega
- Fixoid´s Youtube Channel: youtube.com/@fixoid
- Yeti Bomar´s Website: yeti-bomar.blogspot.com
- KorriGwai on Instagram: instagram.com/korrigwai

Early fanart by Releasethedogs

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All used pictures and screenshots in this article belong to their respective owners and have been taken for journalistic purposes only.