Spectrum Computing

Pobulous wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 11:30 am For that reason, I treat the passwords as an extra experience on the tape.

They're almost always mentioned in the ZXDB entry for the game on this site!

(Not that it excuses the utterly reprehensible grifting behaviour of Sinclair User against what little readership it had left at this time.)

Was this an earlier writer or someone under a pseudonym? I don’t recognise the names, although Adam Waring sounds slightly familiar. Couldn’t remember what they contributed though! It is Adam Waring, a writer for Future's Your Sinclair and Amstrad Action. He coded the Speccy version of Ninja Massac...

Hi Pete - any reason the proportional results do not include the votes that were not given with a top 3? If I'm analysing the results correctly, you are granting three points to #1, two points to #2 and one point to #3? I say it should only be fair to add the three points for anonymous non-proporti...

Well, Gunship's got this, with 13 votes, to be an outright winner. In second place is Airborne Ranger, with 8 votes. A distant third is Project Stealth Fighter, with 2 votes. Joint fourth, 1 vote each: F-15 Strike Eagle and MicroProse Soccer. Proportional results: Gunship 8 Airborne Ranger 5 MicroPr...

I feel a bit rotten pointing this out but I think only Nodes of Yesod and Robin of the Wood are pure Odin games. Heartland and Hypaball both have Telecomsoft branding on the packaging. Ah, in that case, I'll still go along with the four games anyway, as Odin Computer Graphics was at least still a p...

The table for the 24 herbs you're looking for is at 44019, the format is y coord, x coord, herb id. It doesn't seem to like having herbs placed at any x or y coord less than 2 (ie. don't place at 0 or 1) but I've not looked into detail as to why $02,$02,$59 -> sticks the burdock in the hedge next t...

Seven days to pick yer fave... Oriental Games https://www.spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoImage.php?SCR=pub/sinclair/screens/load/o/scr/OrientalGames.scr&border=0 https://www.spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoImage.php?SCR=/conv_scr/o/OrientalGames.scr&border=0 Rick Dangerous 2 https://www.spectrumc...

Okay, wringing out the very last of the Telecomsoft-adjacent brands, and this is one developer-publisher who eventually got bought up by Busby's outfit. We'll concentrate on their pre-Telecom life as a publisher and I reckon it's these four games... Heartland Hypaball Nodes Of Yesod Robin Of The Woo...

Your Sinclair 80: Magnificent Seven 17 Sinclair User 126: Great Eight 15 I'll assume YS will win the Jul 1992 poll (which seems pretty likely), in which case the running total is: YS: 20/49 (41%) SU: 14/49 (29%) CRASH: 15/39 (38%) https://www.reheatedpixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/YourSinclai...

I want to suggest Sensible Soccer, but that negates the "80s" in the subject line as it was out in 1992. However, I'll still ramble on about it... The only 8-bit systems it touched were the Sega Master System and Nintendo Game Boy, which are Z80-based (well, Z80- ish for the Game Boy), so ...

You could use Spectrum Aanalyser to tell you which code puts the herbs in their spots. Do you know the memory location of the herbs? I could try and look here. Wow, that's an awesome tool! I've spent the past two hours using it. Anyway, through all that, I got the memory locations! 88 Herb: Telepor...

Super Mario Bros (unless you count the unauthorised 2019 homebrew effort).

Ocean did try for this, Nintendo granted them the so-so 'prequel' Mario Bros, but wouldn't let them at their crown jewel.

Incidentally, these are my notes on the values of the map data - specifically my descriptions of map tiles that make up the village... 00 EMPTY 01 Gravestone (RIP) 02 Gravestone (Arm) 03 Gravestone (Cross) 04 Hedge (horizontal) 05 Hedge (horizontal east end) 06 Hedge (horizontal west end) 07 Hieke H...

As a programmer, I'd guess there is a separate table of data somewhere that is used to initialise the map. That way the code can easily reset the map after a game over. If you can find the code that runs at startup (or after game over) it might help. Yeah, after POKEing the 4,264 tiles (82 width x ...

Congratulations on starting your first disassembly...! ;) I guess you could run the skool2asm.py command and share the resulting asm file here that Skoolkit generates, someone may be spot something? Certainly! I've done that and uploaded it to my Google Drive here for all to see: https://drive.goog...

Last weekend I dug through the code of Mastertronic's Feud as I reckoned I could find the graphics and the map data, with an eye to making an editor in the future. ...and I succeeded at finding all of that. Got all the scenery tiles, sprite frames, compass/book illustrations and the font (EmuZWin wa...

Who would you put at the top of the hardest end-of-level bosses found in ZX Spectrum gaming history?

catmeows wrote: ↑Sun Jan 15, 2023 1:28 pm Oh, where Is Silent Service?

Originally released by US Gold in 1986, rereleased by MicroProse in 1987, according to the ZXDB listing on this site.

And now over to MicroProse's 'other' label. I make it these four tangible ZX Spectrum games.

Oriental Games
Rick Dangerous 2
Stunt Car Racer
Xenophobe

Hopefully I've got it right. I'll start the poll around this time next week.

Thanks to toot_toot for trying to untangle the ambiguity of some US Gold/MicroProse releases, I'm not sure we'll ever get to the end of that, so I'm going with the ZXDB take and hoping it's all cool... Airborne Ranger https://www.spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoImage.php?SCR=pub/sinclair/screens/load/a...

Journey's End has got this, with 5 votes.

Second place goes to Black Crystal, with 3 votes.

Volcanic Dungeon and The Wrath Of Magra are joint third with 1 vote each.

Proportional results:

Journey's End 6
Wrath Of Magra, The 5
Black Crystal 4
Volcanic Dungeon 3

Your Sinclair 79: Magnificent Seven 16 Sinclair User 125: Great Eight 14 The running total now has YS out in the lead!: YS: 19/48 (40%) SU: 14/48 (29%) CRASH: 15/39 (38%) https://www.reheatedpixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/YourSinclair079_Jul92-1.jpg https://www.reheatedpixels.com/wp-content/u...

Erm, well, YS won that one by a whis... er... ahem. 18 votes for it and utterly ZERO for the so-called competition! I think that's the first time something like this has happened in the covertape polls. Anyway, another win for YS, I'll get posting up the Jul 1992 poll in a moment.

spider wrote: ↑Sat Jan 14, 2023 12:25 pm I'm not confident in this at all, but was not "Sinbad Golden Ship" part of Mastervision release ? It may of not been a re-release, sorry.

It's not a rerelease, but an original on Mastervision. It won the original releases poll.

Well, YS got this with 9 votes, to SU's 5.