Those games that you couldn't get...

[Juan F. Ramirez]

... till you came across internet.

I'm talking about those games you saw on magazine adverts and said 'wow! It must be a good game' but you couldn't play them back in the day.

Those games that, once you could access to Spectrum databases on internet at the end of the 90s (NVG, WoS, ...) were the first to download and try to see if they were really that good. Which ones disappointed you after so many years believing they were great and which ones confirmed that you had a good intuition for Spectrum games?

As to me, I remember reading rewiews a watching big adverts of Desolator. 'Spectacular' I said to myself. But when I first played it on a emulator some years after I was a bit disappointed.

Another was Shadow of the Unicorn. Too many monotone screens. Too expensive.

On the contrary, Into the Eagles Nest was great. It never disappoints to Gauntlet fans like me. A great adventure. Or Ant Attack, always cool to play. Or Dynamite Dan, for me, a graphically-improved Jet Set Willy.

Your turn!

[toot_toot]

I seemed to have a pretty good Spectrum network at school and with tape-to-tape much more standard by about 1986, from that year onward I could get my hands on most of the big releases (plus compilations always helped out!)

But some games do stand out, games that I wanted to play but just couldn't get a hold of until emulation made it easy in the 90s.

Contact Sam Cruise. I played Back to Skool first, but a friend had a copy of Skool Daze which I got later. Absolutely loved those games. Then Contact Sam Cruise was advertised (including an April fool take on the advert in Your Spectrum) and I really wanted to play it, but it wasn't anywhere to be seen. I remember playing it on the Spectrum emulator on the Amiga and thinking it was brilliant fun, albeit a bit cryptic to play!

Underwurlde seemed to be the evil step child by Ultimate, it never was re-released on budget, was only on a fairly obscure compilation called Unbelievable Ultimate 2. I remember being desperate to play that, after playing every single other Sabreman game up until then.

Some of the later Firebird releases (1988 onwards) seemed to be quite difficult to get a hold of originally, especially the Graftgold developed ones. I loved Quazatron but didn't play Magnetron until I could download the ROM and Intensity sounded interesting at the time (a kind of sequel to Uridium.. I think?) but again, couldn't see it anywhere in the shops (and by this time I had a paper round giving me £7.50 a week to spend, almost 1 full price game a week!)

I also remember games having a pretty short shelf life, maybe 2-3 months before they'd disappear off the shelves. Sometimes you'd come across a newsagents that had somehow managed to get some old full price games, but sold them cheap (I remember picking up Time Gate for 1.99, brilliant game), however there were many classic games that just disappeared. Lords of Midnight, Doomdark's Revenge both spring to mind.

I suppose if you stuck around with the Spectrum in the early 90s you'd get a lot of great, classic games on magazine cover tapes, but I moved on to the Amiga by 1991, so it wasn't until about 1995 when Spectrum emulation became feasible that you finally could play some of those classics (I remember getting the Speccy Sensations Vol 2 CD-ROM in about.. 1995? and it was absolutely amazing having what seemed like every Spectrum game! Still got the CD here!)

[Ralf]

In Poland where I live it was different. We didn't have original cassettes in the shops. All we had were pirate compilations.

So I owned a compilation which contained Target Renegade. I immediately felt a big love for that title. It was as similar to
arcade brawlers as it could be.

But it turned out that it contained first level only. I played it many times but always felt I wanted more.

Eventually at university we got web access around 1996 and one of first Spectrum games I downloaded from the web around 1996 was exactly Target Renegade. At last I could play it from the start to the end.

[DouglasReynholm]

Underwurlde seemed to be the evil step child by Ultimate, it never was re-released on budget, was only on a fairly obscure compilation called Unbelievable Ultimate 2. I remember being desperate to play that, after playing every single other Sabreman game up until then.

Underwurlde was also left off the official Ultimate compilation wasn't it? Does anyone know why?

The game I always wanted to try on the Speccy was Fairlight, amongst any others. I'm sure it was great on release but it seemed really clunky when I finally got round to emulating it.

[stupidget]

I always wanted Shadow of the Unicorn. I yearned to play this amazing adventure game that was so massive 48k was not enough memory.

A few years ago I finally purchased a copy and it's rather.....well.....it's just a bit 'meh'.

[toot_toot]

Underwurlde seemed to be the evil step child by Ultimate, it never was re-released on budget, was only on a fairly obscure compilation called Unbelievable Ultimate 2. I remember being desperate to play that, after playing every single other Sabreman game up until then.

Underwurlde was also left off the official Ultimate compilation wasn't it? Does anyone know why?

The game I always wanted to try on the Speccy was Fairlight, amongst any others. I'm sure it was great on release but it seemed really clunky when I finally got round to emulating it.

That reminds me, it wasn’t until emulation that I managed to play Fairlight II, another of those releases that were highly praised but never saw in the shops.

Talking of Fairlight, there were a number of 128k only updates released close to when the original 128k was released- Fairlight, Sweevos Whirled, Technician Ted,Lode Runner, Rocky Horror Show, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Knight Tyme, Stormbringer etc that were impossible to find by the time I’d upgraded to a +2 at Xmas 87. Getting a hold of these later was, shall we say, interesting! Some made good use of the extra memory and sound, others (like Lode Runner and Sweevo’s Whurled) didn’t seem to do much more!

[Nick]

For me it was a lot of the games released via mail order only companies such as Zenobi, 8th Day, FSF, Astros etc. such as:

Dragonia
Solar Fire
Run, Bronwyn Run
Murder He Said
The Raven
Axe Of Kolt
The Beast
The Calling
Agatha's Folly

Back then, as a child, the idea of having to order a game and then wait a few days for it to be delivered rather than going to the shops wasn't something that appealed to me.

[toot_toot]

Re Underwurlde - yes it was also left off the Collected Works compilation, but no idea why. Pentagram was also left off (which was also only on one compilation - Gold Collection III and didn’t get a budget re-release)which is strange as it’s two of the Sabreman games, yet Gunfright and Nightshade are on it.

[Ralf]

I always wanted Shadow of the Unicorn. I yearned to play this amazing adventure game that was so massive 48k was not enough memory.
A few years ago I finally purchased a copy and it's rather.....well.....it's just a bit 'meh'.

Yes, it's a game that everybody mentions because it has this hardware interface. But the game itself is an disappointment. I haven't seen yet a person who would enjoy and be interested in the gameplay of Shodow of The Unicorn.

On the other hand it was a bit naive to expect that adding 16 kilobytes would give you some esctatic experience. Good games are good because they have good graphics, story and gameplay, not because they use some extra memory.

[djnzx48]

Dragonia

I only came across that game from your post in the 1988 thread, but I was stunned when I saw the graphics. It's a very colourful, very detailed game yet with no attribute clash problems whatsoever.

[Morkin]

I never knew of the existence of La Abadia del Crimen back then. It was one of the first games I tried when I later got back into the Speccy/retro scene. Didn't get very far with it but I guess if its equivalent had released in the UK it would have become more known.

Another one was Make a Chip. Seriously. I'm glad I never owned it... (Please nobody post me one..)

So I owned a compilation which contained Target Renegade. I immediately felt a big love for that title. It was as similar to
arcade brawlers as it could be.

But it turned out that it contained first level only. I played it many times but always felt I wanted more.

...Interesting, was that a demo then? Seems familiar somehow.

[Ralf]

...Interesting, was that a demo then? Seems familiar somehow.

Not any official demo at all. It was a pirate tape Some cracker copied main block + 1st level data but without the later levels.

That's how playing Spectrum games looked in Poland in 80s/early 90s. All you had were cracks, without inlays, instructions, sometimes even loading screens. It was great experience to see all these stuff finally after many years when it became available on internet.

[Ralf]

I never knew of the existence of La Abadia del Crimen back then. It was one of the first games I tried when I later got back into the Speccy/retro scene. Didn't get very far with it but I guess if its equivalent had released in the UK it would have become more known.

Abadia del Crimen seems to have some "cult" in Spain. There was once even some drama on World of Spectrum when someone downvoted other games so Abadia could have the highest score ( for example https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/ ... ion/22072/ )

But if you try it now, you may find it a bit overrated. It's climatic but it's slow, real time and a bit "open world" which actually may be not an advantage at all. It's very easy to miss all the plot completely. You may wonder aimlessly while important actions take place somewhere else.

But it's definitely very unique.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

It's 128K, so as a Spectrum Plus owner I couldn't play it till I could run an emulator and I think it's an interesting game once you know what to do but graphically is not as good as the Amstrad version.

The funny thing about that controversy was that in the spanish forums, by that time, someone claimed how unfair the low WoS rate was. That thread was hilarious.

[djnzx48]

Hmm, is this the thread you mean?
https://foro.speccy.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=375

[hikoki]

mmm do you remember the russian who made these 3d game maker mods? http://gamergy.ru/3dgm.html
In your opinion what could be modified in La Abadia to change playability? Perhaps an interesting discussion for another thread.

[djnzx48]

If this is turning into a La Abadia thread... for me the most glaring issue is the colour scheme. It's not very pleasing and the choice of blue as a background colour makes it hard on the eyes.

Here's my lame attempt at a recolour:



After wasting time doing that I remembered someone had already done one that looks much better. So here's Sadako's version.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Hmm, is this the thread you mean?
https://foro.speccy.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=375

That's it. Epic.

At some time, someone beg the forum admin, in the name of the spanish scene, the 'moral obligation' (sic) to demand an explanation to WoS for blocking the vote. Logically, the admin closed the thread

[Juan F. Ramirez]

If this is turning into a La Abadia thread... for me the most glaring issue is the colour scheme. It's not very pleasing and the choice of blue as a background colour makes it hard on the eyes.

Here's my lame attempt at a recolour:

Visually is much better than the original. That's why the CPC version looks better.

[hikoki]

I found the beta translation here https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/ ... ent_428227
A few suggestions for a mod could be changing the keyboard control like in those 3d game maker mods, a bit of recolouring to increase contrast, alleviate the maze in the dark, enable ways to wander through the game without getting kicked out of the abbey, reduce changes in perspective..

[hikoki]

Did anyone try to Poke the Abbey? I mean, something to disable timers, the order in which things have to be picked up or the time in which events have to be accomplished, make the abbot less likely to apply strict rules (after all Connery is an important guest who's been called to investigate). I don't know.. Are there any Pokes to make the game easy to get into?
Besides Poking the game like a swarm of hornets, it'd be nice to add more text in the form of enigmatic clues and AY sound effects which are not intrusive but immersive like wind or rain.

[djnzx48]

That does sound interesting. I'm afraid I haven't played the game enough to know how most of the mechanics work. But there are a couple of POKEs on The Tipshop.

It would appear Bank 0 has about 4K unused, and Bank 1 is completely empty. That's assuming those blocks of memory aren't used for buffers and the like. So that's at least 20K spare for extra code and data, which sounds pretty good for adding potential new features. It would require disassembling the game first of course.

EDIT: There's already a disassembly for the Amstrad version.
http://www.abadiadelcrimen.com/vigasoco.html

[hikoki]

Oh Ralf made a rzx walkthrough. I know zx81, the author of zxbaremulator, is a big fan of this game and finally djnzx48. There you have a big team! would it be much work to add simple things to make the game easy while keeping it interesting? A few ay ingame effects, subtle recolouring, adding texts to make more characters talk, disable things that make the game unnecessarily difficult. All this may sound disrespectful but fun all the same.

[Ralf]

Oh Ralf made a rzx walkthrough

Yes I did a recording once. Actually I would never ever solve it myself but there was a Youtube video with walkthrough of this game on another platform so I followed it very closely, copied every move of it and this way I completed it

Hmm, is this the thread you mean?
https://foro.speccy.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=375

Great thread Even if some sense is lost through Google Translate, you are still able to get the ideas of some people quite well

Soem quote here. Isn't it beautiful? Feels like he talked about some religion

The Abbey is certainly more than a game, it is art, inspiration, sacredness, binary feeling, history. The Abbey is certainly an important part of the cultural history of this country. If you prefer, the Abbey is the product of a mystical chance that will hardly repeat itself in the field of information technology. Paco Menendez was the Maradona of the 8 bits and Juan Delcan the necessary piece in this cosmic puzzle that transcends in a lot the particular opinions of any of us.

And believe me dear friends, it is not my heart that speaks. If that were so, I would have had no choice but to put everyone in their place.

[Morkin]

I remember those discussions - didn't someone follow it up by creating that CSSCGC game called "Advanced Rampant Voting Abuse Simulator"?

When I tried it, it looked like an interesting game, but my Spanish was never great (though I can order beers well enough). And I got the impression your orders/timetable seemed to be quite tight compared to say, The Great Escape or Skool Rools (though I could be wrong) - so I didn't get too far and got told off pretty quickly.. I've deliberately not watched a walkthrough because I thought I might give it another try at some point.