Spectrum Computing

My mate at school, Neil Anderson, recorded for me 4 full tapes of his copies which were the 1st games I ever got for my Spectrum. Here, in an excerpt from my memoirs 'Load Dij Dij', I describe going round his house to have a proper go on a Spectrum for the 1st time. The games I talk about were in th...

Roger Kean and Oliver Frey told me she was real and that they didn't really get on with her.

I think it's shame Paul stopped developing games for the Spectrum after Dragonninja, which was was his last title. He worked at Ocean for a good few years after but concentrated on developing the ST to Spectrum coding software so that Spectrum programmers didn't have to use Tatung Einstein's to writ...

Some screen grabs in the Ocean FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 454&type=3

You can't really include Wizball. The bulk of was written by Steve Watson. He stopped coming to work one day. Paul just tidied up the loose ends.

Nice to see 'Gryzor' given a mention for it's rather low score, which horrified my 17 year old self at the time. I think I know the reason though!
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970/stat ... 6700822532

They were just being BITCHES!

You also get the feeling that Ocean signed up certain arcade publishers, like SNK, and just took any old crap from them and subsequently outsourced the development to randoms with no real quality control. It made the Imagine label very hit and miss at times. Were you getting an Arkanoid or where yo...

Did Mathew Smith actually write Andre’s Night Off? Or was it made out he did to improve magazine sales? It’s extremely poor, even for a basic game and wouldn’t have thought submitting this to a magazine would have been a wise move considering the quality of his other titles.

Mine showed no interest whatsoever in even having a try of a Spectrum game.

My mum did get addicted to 'Tetris' on the Gameboy though around 1990. She said that some nights, when she went to bed, all she saw when she closed her eyes were falling blocks!

Just don’t mention the Next version of ‘Head Over Heels’ to him! Eeeekk!

DIdn't he fall out with Crash and leave because they gave his then current game a crappy review?

I've wondered what happened to this too. No reason appears to have been given for it's non-appearance though the studio still seems active https://www.elerbystudios.co.uk/

Spitfire? https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoImage.php?SCR=pub/sinclair/screens/load/s/scr/Spitfire.scr&border=0 https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4762/ZX-Spectrum/Spitfire Chain Reaction? https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoImage.php?SCR=pub/sinclair/screens/load/c/scr/ChainReaction.scr&...

Wizball is another one that comes to mind. I'm told you can get a power up almost immediately that makes the controls vaguely sane and the game, therefore, playable. But it is so utterly impenetrable I never got more than a half a screen in. Again just terrible game design that seems to be geared a...

Thanks for the explanation, Pete. When I first read it I did wonder if it had something to do with the relationship Roger and Oli had and/or the artwork Oli produced outside of Crash. But then I thought we're more enlightened now and then realised that interview was in 1997. There was still a hango...

I would say probably Dingo . I was my first game for the Speccy and I really enjoyed re-learning Z80 and slowly (but surely) getting things working better and better. Back in the day it would obviously have to be released under the Ultimate brand and around the time of their 16K games ... and I'm s...

blucey wrote: ↑Mon May 22, 2023 4:00 pm
People like Target Renegade's AY music but I found it at odds with the gameplay. Too sweet and sombre.

AH! I so agree! I thought it was just me being too fussy! Doesn't go with the game does it? Sorry Gari / Jon !

I remember their offices seemed like some old school building or something, not your regular offices anyway. I do recall lots of Einsteins and the chaps there were really friendly and welcoming. I've often wondered if their offices are still standing. Fancy having a look around here and see if you ...

1983 and 1984 I wouldn't say they were massively ahead of everyone else but an Ultimate game was always something to look forward to. I still think of Knight Lore as one of the most important games ever released. Not just on the Speccy, videogaming as a whole. And to appreciate Knight Lore properly...

I forgot about that! It's just brought back a long-forgotten memory: Had a couple of mates with Speccy's and that particular month one of them purchased Nodes whilst the other purchased Frankie Goes To Hollywood. That particular month in Crash they gave Nodes 93% and Frankie 94% Overall. Nodes chap...

Vampyre wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 2:13 pm Fully agree with Pete's original list and I'd add Nodes Of Yesod to the mix.

I'm sure I read somewhere, probably in one of those internet interviews in the mid-to-late 90's, that they were trying to replicate Ultimate as much as possible with Nodes.

Including the box it came in!

Worrabout Dimbo?
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... trum/Dingo

If you didn't know any different could it pass as one? We tried to do it in their style.

'Dinky Digger' needs fixing as it's UNPLAYABLE because the baddies run faster than you!
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... nky_Digger

Cheers!

Here's the tzx of the finished version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/188kows ... share_link