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Okay, here we go - Blerk's official "Top Ten Best Spectrum Games of 2012". All of these are brand new and released last year. A full list is available here, but these are (in my opinion) the cream of the crop. All of them run on an unmodified Spectrum so you don't need any fancy Russian clone or anything to get them going, and most will be playable in World of Spectrum's Java emulator direct from your browser should the mood take you. So, in no particular order (apart from alphabetical, if you want to be pedantic): Antiquity Jones A lovely, colourful platformer. Not too hard, fun to play. Not at all inspired by Indiana Jones. No, sir. Bouncing Bomb: Redux Bouncy platformer. Brutal. You will hate this. You will love it too. But you will hate it. Earthraid Not much to look at, but a super-addictive quick-fire strategy title. Save the world (or at least as much of it as you can). LumASCII An entirely ASCII-art-based side-scrolling shooter? Indeed, and amazingly realised at that. The only game here that's not free, but there is a decent demo. Majikazo An excellent single-screen arcade-'em-up with gorgeous graphics. Maritrini, Freelance Monster Slayer Gauntlet-style with Buffy undertones. Big levels, colourful graphics, great tunes. More Tea, Vicar? A classic side-scrolling shoot-'em-up with eye-meltingly difficult bosses. 128k music will blow your mind. Speccy Bros A home-produced Spectrum conversion of Snow Bros? Don't mind if I do! Great use of the beeper for the title tune. Shuttlebug Classic early 80s arcade-style game that's sort of like a shrunk-down Rally X. With guns. Yumiko in the Haunted Mansion Excellent use of colour for this maze-based light-'em-up, made all the more amazing by the fact that it's written in compiled BASIC. |
ZX Spectrum: lets talk about some actual RETRO gaming. • Page 21
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Murbs 25,151 posts
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Registered 17 years agoEarthraid looks ace! -
Earthraid's (whisper) a conversion of an old C64 game. .gif)
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Murbs 25,151 posts
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Registered 17 years agoJust go and f***ing spoil it why don't you 
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quadfather 39,069 posts
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Registered 11 years agoI'm going for Antiquity Jones - that's well up my street -
Murbs 25,151 posts
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Registered 17 years agoNo 2012 Sir Fred reboot then? -
mrpon 37,366 posts
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Registered 15 years agoWhat are (ahem) people playing these on? Never did get around to CFWing my PSP.
I've got the PC emulators ofc.
Edited by mrpon at 12:46:05 09-01-2013 -
We're all using real Spectrums, of course! 
Spin or SpecEmu for Windows (Spectaculator if you don't mind paying money), Fuse for Mac/Unix/PSP, ZXDS for DS, Marvin for Android (although touch-screen Speccy controls are evil). And JSpeccy is Java-based and runs on pretty much anything. -
Murbs 25,151 posts
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Registered 17 years agoBlerk wrote:
Which is the main reason why I'm slightly envious of Retroid's Experia Play
Marvin for Android (although touch-screen Speccy controls are evil) -
mrpon 37,366 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoAh Marvin totally forgot about that. I seem to recall getting the Wiimote working with that quite successfully.
Quite jealous of jonsaan and his DSXL setup.
Edited by mrpon at 14:07:54 09-01-2013 -
I've tried to use Spectaculator on the iPhone as well and that's just as evil. Virtual joysticks are bad enough on modern games, on pixel-perfect retro stuff you may as well just stick your phone up your nose. -
Krappers 42 posts
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Registered 9 years agoFound someone has remade ELITE on the 360 indie games. Its called Odessey 3011. -
Looks sort of interesting, might give the trial a whirl. It's not a straight remake, though - more of an 'inspired by'. -
Krappers 42 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 9 years agoBlerk wrote:
Your right. Having played this now for 6 hours+, i dont recall seeing ships in Elite from Space 1999, Star Wars, an original BSG Viper, & the escape ship from Alien.
Looks sort of interesting, might give the trial a whirl. It's not a straight remake, though - more of an 'inspired by'.
This is a awsome love letter to the original Elite. -
teamHAM 3,847 posts
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Registered 14 years agoThey are still making games for the Spectrum? Christ. -
Dizzy 3,716 posts
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Registered 20 years agoAnybody know what dev tools people are using nowadays? Cross compilers stuff? -
Dirtbox 92,595 posts
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The tools these days are rather good.
If you're writing in assembler then there are a number of good cross-assemblers - Pasmo is a nice, neat solution. Many of the emulators (like ZX-Spin) also have an assembler, monitor and debugger built in.
If you're not up for a bit of Z80 then z88dk is a C cross-compiler with a very decent set of libraries for the Spectrum (and other Z80-based machines) including a sprite library. Many of the 'new' games like the ones above are produced with this - see Maritrini above for an example.
If all that's still a bit too much like hard work there's ZXBasic which is a full BASIC cross-compiler which is not only Sinclair-compatible but also includes many features of modern BASIC implementations like procedures, functions, etc. Excellent support for that and the produced code is actually damned good - Earthraid and Yumiko in the list above were both created with this.
And finally if you can't code for toffee there are a number of new "game creator" utilities, mainly produced by Jonathan Cauldwell. Arcade Game Designer is free and Spectrum-based, take a look at Antiquity Jones in the list above for an example of what it can do.
Edit: added links.
Edited by Blerk at 10:33:58 21-01-2013 -
New release today, incidentally:
Intergalactic Space Rescue, for the 16K Spectrum and above.
See? Even 48k's too much now. -
Another new release, Ramiro, el Vampiro (or Ramire, the Vampire for the English version) by the Mojon Twins - an adventurey platformy thing.
Lovely graphics, very clean and a nice use of colour. -
Murbs 25,151 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoBlerk wrote:
Ah. The days when a magazine review had a summary on the 'use of colour'
Lovely graphics, very clean and a nice use of colour..gif)
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They should bring it back! Too much brown and grey these days, it's like the C64 all over again! -
quadfather 39,069 posts
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Registered 11 years agoUse of colour. Awesome
Wasn't there a Playability score too? -
Murbs 25,151 posts
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Registered 17 years agoAn example
The Alien8 (but I never played the first 7!) summary from Crash online:
Control keys: alternate bottom row keys left/right, A,S,D,F to move forward, Q, W,E,R to jump, top row to pick up/drop
Now you don't see anything like *that* anymore!
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair 2, Cursor type
Keyboard play: the various key options are easy to use and response is very finely tuned
Use of colour: the single colour per room allows for good line graphics
Graphics: excellent, varied, characterful and very smooth
Sound: good
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 5
Screens: 129
General rating: agreement that this is a slightly better game in most respects than Knight Lore, and therefore generally excellent.
Use of computer 93%
Graphics 98%
Playability 96%
Getting started 91%
Addictive qualities 97%
Value for money 93%
Overall 95% -
The good old days!
Bonus points if you can identify the game from that picture. -
Murbs 25,151 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoDavid Jones makes me think Spellbound or something. Definitely a Magic Knight game!
edit: Finders Keepers, then Spellbound... Was there a 3rd?
Edited by Murbal at 11:59:57 08-02-2013 -
There were actually four in the series. -
mrpon 37,366 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoKnight Tyme? -
Well done, sir!
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