Game of the day...

[PeterJ]

With the recent discussions on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) thread, I thought this would be a good one to get playing:

Toilet Trouble from Automata UK Ltd (UK)

https://youtu.be/QQ9GhBs0m-c

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=5311



I love the title of the first screen.. You can't beat the Cistern

[Firefox]

Escape by New Generation

An old, cute gem from 1982. Find an axe in a 3D labyrinth and escape!

Spoiler

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko-SnYrjS2E[/media]

[Juan F. Ramirez]

WTF???

[Juan F. Ramirez]

The Colditz Story by Atlantis Software.



A funny game made up of mini-games. Some of them are rather difficult. The screen in the pic is probably the furthest I've ever gone.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Aquarius by Bug Byte



A crappy but funny idea behind this game: turn Scuba Dive into an horizontal shooter. Not bad.

[Morkin]

Aquarius by Bug Byte



A crappy but funny idea behind this game: turn Scuba Dive into an horizontal shooter. Not bad.

Used to quite like it, one of those first early games I played I think. Used to find I'd keep forgetting the code sequence when I got to the end.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Used to find I'd keep forgetting the code sequence when I got to the end.

Yeah, that's weird. A code is shown at the beginning of the game but I still haven't reached the moment in which I'm asked for it.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Xenon by Melbourne House



Great shooter.

[R-Tape]

Xenon by Melbourne House



Great shooter.

Indeed. Best played on a 128K, with the AY. When I played it on real hardware, I thought the framerate was faster too (I assumed paging had something to do with it), but I've just re-checked in an emulator and the 48 and 128 seem to be the same.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's a damn shame they didn't have the "sector 1" guy zoom in and out. The 128K would have had memory for digitised speech too.

I got to know this on the Amiga, and I'm afraid nothing's going to beat that. AY's going to struggle to reproduce that guitar riff.

[Ast A. Moore]

By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

[R-Tape]

By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Whaaaaattt?!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Me too. I realized it when I had to watch the YT walkthrough as I hadn't been able to pass zone 1

[Ast A. Moore]

By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Whaaaaattt?!

I know, right?

[R-Tape]

[Morkin]

Code: Select all

KEYBOARD

Q - Up          A - Down
O - Left        P - Right
SPACE - Fire    M - Switch Craft
SHIFT - Pause/Continue

JOYSTICK: M - SWITCH CRAFT

JOYSTICK ONLY: SPACE BAR - Switch Craft

We really are so bad at reading instructions

Our excuse back in the day was presumably that we'd (ahem) 'mislaid our inlay card'...

[R-Tape]

Hopefully this cartoon from Desert Island SCREEN$ will make a bit more sense now then!

Our excuse back in the day was presumably that we'd (ahem) 'mislaid our inlay card'...

Those instructions must be hooky. They don't mention the 'n' key for the third subaqueous craft.

(I should have waited 9 days for that...)

[druellan]

By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Oh, this is me all the time!

— You know you can use the pools for life regeneration, right?
— Of course, I'm playing the hard way!
Inside: WHAAAAT?

[PeterJ]

I'm doing the screens for Crap Games 2000 at the moment, and there are some real corkers in that year. These include Nazomi Quest from Andrew Owen:



https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=30680

If you want to help out the website then helping with the missing years is a great way of doing it. Its really easy and very enjoyable!

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=542&start=60#p32945

[+3code]

Amusement Park

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=30144

A really nice game.

[Pegaz]

I played "International Tennis" from Zeppelin Games today and I can say it's great.
Fast and smooth animation, computer is a tough opponent even at the easy level, it's interesting and addictive.
The only downside is that we cant redefine keys, QAOPM combination is not enjoyable, so the joystick is a must.
Overall, the game looks like a real tennis simulation, with fast action and realistic shots.
Perhaps the best Spectrum tennis, but he came too late to threaten legendary Match Point.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=10537

[Juan F. Ramirez]

The only problem I see in that game is the use of white over a green background... far better black over green, IMO.

[RWAC]

I used to love International Tennis.
I think it plays better than Match Point although as Juan pointed out, the colour scheme is not ideal.

[Pegaz]

I agree that the color scheme is not ideal, though I would prefer to have configurable keys because I am used to playing Spectrum games on the keyboard.
My guess is, that the authors wanted the players to be fully painted in white gear and to keep the court in white too.
Black sprites would probably have to be transparent and just outlined, as I doubt they would look good if they were completely filled in some of the darker colors.
This also means, that court lines would also have to change from white to black (or some other color), to avoid color clash, so they probably chose this solution as a compromise.

[R-Tape]

Just played Octukitty through without cheats. Good fun. When I played it a while back, I used infy lives, but this game isn't that difficult or long. The map is well designed, especially with the extra life 'hooks' where you have to gamble on whether it's worth trying to collect it or not.

Spoiler

Don't forget to 'drop a kitty' on the last screen!

[moroz1999]

I'm playing an improved/bugfixed Hero Quest 1,2, unnofficial release by Mayhem (1997), using my ZX Evolution. The game is adapted for beta-disk with numerous of improvements:
Hero movement speed is improved
Arrow movement speed is improved
Original Holy water bug is fixed, it now works
Some usability fixes
Weapons can now be sold
And some other minor changes.