People are still making stuff for the Sinclair related machines. Tell us about new games and other software that runs on the Spectrum, ZX80/ZX81, Pentagon and Next.
There are a handful of words that Dave and I agreed to censor via the features already built into phpBB (The forum software). It just makes moderation easier.
Commodore
I never bought into the whole Spectrum vs. Commodore thing. Some of my mates had Spectrums, some had 64s, so I got to play pretty much everything. Some games were better on the Spectrum, some were better on the 64. Both machines had their pros and cons.
Whilst my first love will always be the Spectrum, I actually bought a second-hand C64 for £40 from a very dodgy-looking shop in the Metro Centre in 1989, just so that I could play games on it. So I guess I swing both ways.
This thread's gone in some interesting directions, hasn't it?
I still remember when I was at school my best friends family were rather affluent and he had a Commodore 64, the official monitor and 1541 disk drives. I remember the first time I heard the sound in Raid Over Moscow, it was just amazing! At the time I had a 1K ZX81!
I prefer the graphics on the Spectrum, but not much beats the 64 for sound.
PeterJ wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 8:09 pmI prefer the graphics on the Spectrum, but not much beats the 64 for sound.
Heartily concur with that. The Spectrum colours, although limited, are just so much more attractive than the colour palette of the C64. And a lot of graphics on the 64 could look blocky next to the Spectrum version of the same thing.
But yeah, the SID chip was something else. It has a unique sound, even today. I remember buying a couple of budget titles (Mastertronic, I think) purely because Rob Hubbard did the music. I saw a compilation cassette of some of his Commodore themes in a computer shop about 30 years ago and I wish I'd bought it now (I know that they're all available on the internet but it would have been a nice artefact of the time).
Fahnn wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 8:30 pm
Heartily concur with that. The Spectrum colours, although limited, are just so much more attractive than the colour palette of the C64. And a lot of graphics on the 64 could look blocky next to the Spectrum version of the same thing.
Careful with that, I said something almost identical not so long back and was accused, on here of all places, of being a spectrum fanboy!
Okay, I'm going to regret this. I know that I'm going to regret this but I'm doing it anyway. You only live once.
It's not quite done, I have a couple more things to add, and incorporating the loader and screen seems to have broken a couple of things in the main game (nothing serious, just presentation details which sort themselves out quite quickly anyway) but it is playable. It's not intuitive, because I pretty much didn't expect anyone else would ever be playing it, and there's little error-trapping for the same reason, but I think it's work-out-able.
I cannot stress strongly enough that this is not a game for everyone. Or anyone. If you are offended by anything, don't go near this. It's absolutely ridiculously over-the-top in terms of attempting to be offensive. There's stuff in there that even I think "hmm, maybe that's going a bit too far". Also, it's not actually as good as I wanted it to be. It's OK, but not quite the game I envisaged when I started. I've had to cut a lot because there wasn't enough memory to do everything I wanted.
But it's been a lot of fun to write, and I've certainly kept myself entertained writing all the various dialogues and situations. I'd be absolutely made up if anyone else enjoys it (or even wants it), but I'm not sure that's very likely.
However, I promised that I wouldn't link it from here for obvious reasons. It's on my site (see footer), but quite well-hidden (in fact, probably not findable). I can send the link to anyone interested enough, but you'll have to send me a private message for that. I'm kind of hoping that nobody does; I'm really not sure that I should be writing about this at all, but I know that if I don't do it now, I'll probably post a more cack-handed version of this message tomorrow, or the next day, or the next time I get drunk. So now is probably best if I'm going to do it at all.
I really didn't want keep going on about this, but I've finally finished the porn game ("Trine Michelson's Hot Parts") and - no word of a lie - I'm really pleased with it. It's absolutely disgusting, of course, and I really wouldn't want anyone of a nervous or easily-offended disposition to go near it, I've already traumatised at least one person with this. But I'm happy with how it's turned out. It was only written for me to play, after all, and if anyone else can get anything out of it, that's a bonus.
It's very difficult, so there's a cheat mode now, which effectively allows control over all the important parts of being successful in the game, it really makes things easier. But you can cheat as much or as little as you want, it's quite a nice dynamic.
djnzx48 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:33 am
Seems a bit unrealistic. Selling videotapes in 2019?
Trust me, that's not the most unrealistic thing in this game. Not by some distance
It's kind of deliberately set in a vague time period, anyway. Some of the actors are (real porn performers) from the 1970s, but the minor celebrities that sometimes appear are mainly from the last 20 years. And the list of magazines that review the films would suggest the 1990s. It's all a bit of a mish-mash, really.
When I first posted a link on here to the finished game (still available folks!) there weren't a lot of immediate downloads. I found this completely understandable; I think I made it quite clear that it wasn't going to be something that everyone would enjoy. But a few days later it seemed to go a bit crazy, going from less than 5 downloads to 73 within a few days at the end of last month, plus another 13 this month and I couldn't figure out why. I've only ever mentioned it on this forum, nowhere else, so where was this new interest coming from?
I've figured it out now from my website stats, all the hits are coming from planetasinclair, because it actually got a review there! I really wish I'd known. Here it is:
I can only read it in translation, of course, but I think it's a very fair review and the score is about right. I'm so pleased that the reviewer got into the spirit of the game and found it funny. I'm hoping that whoever did the review is a member of this forum, because I'd really like to thank them personally. I can't overstate how excited this made me when I found it. Definitely makes me want to do some more games in the future.
Edit: Got it, thank you Andre Leao! You are a gentleman and a scholar!
I've been asked to remove the link to the game from my earlier post, which I'm absolutely happy to do, but I can't figure out a way to do it. All I can do is quote the post or report it. Am I missing something obvious? I'm sure there used to be an option to edit the post but that's not there any more.
[edit] I can edit this one, though. Does the edit facility disappear after a certain amount of time? That would kind of make sense. But it doesn't really help.