Spectrum Computing

Difficult to rate when every single one is something you regretted bothering to load the one time you did. Yeah, I'd love to do a thread on Things You Only Ever Loaded In Once and covertapes do rate highly. Especially EVERYTHING in this list. And this is the poll I didn't want to do, but here it is...

I have derived this software label name from picking up the first edition of ZX Computing, a Spectrum magazine I've never really considered as it died months before I became a Speccy owner. That first edition came out in June 1982, just as the Speccy itself was picking up traction but the Sinclair s...

Right then, I've wrung it all out of Your Sinclair issue 19, a mid-1987 choice of mine. This is Future Stars, the 'L plate' section of Dinamic Software and you have only three games to judge... Ali-Bebe https://www.spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoImage.php?SCR=pub/sinclair/screens/load/a/scr/Ali-Bebe.s...

For 26th May 2024: Magazine-commissioned exclusive games Exclusive games because they came from within the magazine or the magazine commissioned them from a dev team. I've come up with a shortlist of eight items: Go Bear Go! by ODE Bear A Grudge by Sinclair User Electro Bingo by Sinclair User Electr...

'Look, but don't touch' is the mantra behind the most appalling type of covertape item - the 'rolling demo', or as I call it, an unplayable demo. Ugh. Still, we have to pick the least worst of these teasers. Barbarian II: The Dungeon Of Drax (rolling demo) by Palace https://www.spectrumcomputing.co....

There's a bit of history about all of this, although it's a bit fuzzy so it might not be 100%. Matthew Smith joined up with Elite to relaunch Jet Set Willy on iOS back in 2011, there was some agreement between Mathew Smith and Elite in selling the games. However, in 2019 Elite claimed they owned th...

Those trademarks are useless. You'd have to be an idiot to actually use those as they appear as they're a complete mess, and using something that looks like a fragment of a trademark isn't a violation. Deliberately so. Those are not the real sprites and it's not enforceable. I was in this situation...

Earth Shaker for me. For those interested I interviewed the author Michael Batty for my fanzine back in 1999: https://archive.org/details/desert-island-disks/DID4/ Wow! Only £100 payment and he had to haggle for that!? Gah! Plus, its debut appearance as part of Crap Game Corner, it sits alongside a...

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 9:03 pm Um, no, that’d still be Zythum (by Mirrorsoft).

I'm going to track down the tape duplicator who accidentally switched label sides on your copy of YS Smash Tape 34 and have serious words with him/her.

I'm not going through all the tapes again, but pretty sure "Street Cred Football" had a rolling demo too. You are correct, I've had it marked as a playable demo but yeah, just fired it up off a tape image and it's definitely not playable, thanks for pointing this out. It'll be now include...

Well, we've had similar discussions before. The main problem here is that we're not able to pick up your specific choices if you don't disclose them to us. It's always disclosed a week before every poll. I try to sum up the category as much as possible in the title. So the conclusion is that becaus...

Would The Bobby Yazz Show not be included in this list along with the other Cubadyne games? It was supposed to be originally published by Destiny, but they went bust so it ended up on a Crash cover tape after being submitted by Cybadyne. I feel that the game is one of those that had commercial back...

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 5:27 pm Zythum (by Mirrorsoft).

Sorry, what was the question?

But that's a rereleased game, not an exclusive, on the covertape of which the other side had the greatest game of all time on any system (which is also a rerelease and not exclusive).

8BitAG wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 12:38 pm Just a note to say that Spot/Spex are talking nonsense; Church of Death should not have any credits for Larry Horsfield!

Oops! Well, I wouldn't have known about these things, but hey, a minor error that doesn't derail the poll. Thanks for the correction.

For 26th May 2024: Unplayable demos (AKA rolling demos) Yeah, probably my most loathed thing on a covertape. "Look, but don't touch!" is pretty much the ethos of these things. Okay, so they have the purpose of effectively being magazine screenshots on your equipment, with the advantage of ...

Okay, so I've got to the end of YS #19, with Dinamic having a full-page ad on the back cover, the poll for the best Dinamic game is running now and to wring the last drops out of this, I'm looking at all and any sub-brands connected to Dinamic. And there's only one - Future Stars. I don't know what ...

We have four 'top three' comments, yet only three votes in the phpBB poll (at time of writing), that's strange!

1) Earth Shaker . Oh, it's Boulderdash but oh-so good looking! Visually delicious. 2) Brain Sport . I didn't know what Sokoban was, but this was a great way to find out, it's genius. 3) Egg Head . Yeah, it's Manic Miner but so much smoother. Bubbling under: The Rex-like Ethnipod! A Whole New Ball Ga...

Yes, it's the reader games on the three major Speccy magazine covertapes. One common type was the Boulderdash 'inspiration' (and frankly, Earth Shaker is a very strong contender for this poll's winner), going where no commercial software house dared to tread, lest First Star's lawyers step in with a...

ParadigmShifter wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 8:19 pm Obviously the full price covertape poll will be rigged if Chaos wins and then Lords of Midnight supporters wearing Viking Utarg Helmets will descend on the Spectrum Computing headquarters and run amok.

DISBELIEVE

Didn't one magazine have Lords Of Midnight as a cover tape at some point? Well, two magazines had it on their covertapes at various points - Crash and Sinclair User. But it's not an exclusive game from a recognised brand, as it had been released commercially prior to a covertape appearance. ...it's...

By a very long margin (were you expecting anything else?), it's Batty, the winner that was always obviously going to take this! Yay! 17 votes. Now over to the very distant second-placed game, which scored three votes - Hyper Active. In joint third, we have Flashpoint; Moley Christmas and Road Race -...

Kick Off Kick Off 2 Kick Off World Cup Edition Kingdom Of Krell, The Maria's Christmas Box Rally Cross Strip Poker II Plus The Kingdom Of Krell is the winner here! Three votes for that. In second place, we have Kick Off 2, with two votes. Joint third goes to Kick Off; Maria's Christmas Box; Rally Cr...

Wasn't there a game called Basket Master by them? Yes, it's actually Fernando Martin Basket Master and is definitely included here, although as 'Basket Master' we in the UK could be forgiven for assuming it to be an Imagine game. It was bought by them for the UK market and renamed (after all, we do...