Little bugs in the database 4

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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by R-Tape »

Author benkid77 is none other than [mention]Digital Prawn[/mention] (via personal correspondence).

So can these be linked: person "Digital Prawn" (id 3801) is the owner of nickname "benkid77" (id 19198).
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by StooB »

Marble Madness Deluxe Edition (1986)

The only review for this specific release is Your Sinclair's review in May 1987.

All the other magazine reviews and references should be moved to the original Marble Madness entry.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Turrican »

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... ctrum/Vera

It is listed here for 48K Speccy but in the game's site it is for 128K as minimum.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Links to Atari games are slightly broken -- should be a straightfoward fix, they just need 'html' in the url replaced with 'php'. For example, for Rescue on Fractalus, the urls are as follows:

Code: Select all

Atari 5200: http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=658
Atari 7800: http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=2693
They need to be changed to the following:

Code: Select all

Atari 5200: http://www.atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=658
Atari 7800: http://www.atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=2693
The same applies to Atari 2600 links too, eg. Beamrider needs to be changed from:

Code: Select all

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=23
To:

Code: Select all

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=23
Atari 8-bit links also seem to be broken but it looks like these need to be individually fixed. The link for Rescue on Fractalus is currently:

Code: Select all

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?MENU=8&VERSION_ID=5983
This would need to be changed to:

Code: Select all

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-rescue-on-fractalus_5983.html
EDIT: Actually after looking at the file that atarimania.com serves up for Atari 8-bit links and some experimentation, it looks like Atari 8-bit links could be replaced with

Code: Select all

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe_VERSION_ID.html
(where VERSION_ID is taken from the existing url) eg. for Rescue at Fractalus:

Code: Select all

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe_5983.html
However the problem does seem to be on their side -- it looks like they're serving up a PHP script that should redirect you to the correct page, but it gets downloaded instead. So if they fixed that then I guess Atari 8-bit links would work again. However I don't know how long it's been broken, whether they're aware of the issue, how quickly they'd get it fixed etc. so I guess it's up to you whether you'd rather wait for them to fix it, or update the ZXDB links so they work without waiting for their fix.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Repton is listed as having a C64 version but according to gamesthatwerent.com no C64 version was ever released.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by PeterJ »

Compac for the ZX81 does not have the authors or the release information.

Authors are JD Rogers and C Hogg. It appears on page 100 of ZX Computing October / November 84 issue.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 1&page=100
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Audionautas »

PeterJ wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 8:53 pm Compac for the ZX81 does not have the authors or the release information.

Authors are JD Rogers and C Hogg. It appears on page 100 of ZX Computing October / November 84 issue.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 1&page=100
And we can't forget that JD Rogers is the same guy who did a lot of music for Hewson games on the Amstrad, Spectrum and Atari ST. So this ZX81 game should be linked to his softography too. He along with his mate Colin Hogg started coding games for the ZX81 (they published several 'type-ins' in magazines), later on they worked together in three titles for the Amstrad CPC (The Scout Steps Out, Biospheres, Radzone), after they parted ways, Dave went on to compose music for Hewson as a freelance.

All the best!
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by PeterJ »

The article is a really good read [mention]Audionautas[/mention]. Especially interesting was the way they stored the screen area. Looking at the photos of them both, you would not put them as working together.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Audionautas »

PeterJ wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:09 am Looking at the photos of them both, you would not put them as working together.
Hahaha, absolutely! Dave seems like a serious guy in his glasses, beard and tie. It even looks way older. Instead Colin has the look of the perfect teenage bedroom coder from the 80s.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Pengwyn doesn't have a publisher listed -- it should be Postern https://archive.org/stream/02-big-k-mag ... 1/mode/1up
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Zut Alors! is by Brian Asbury -- he isn't credited in-game as far as I can see but the readme for the Amiga version mentions that he wrote it (I've pasted the relevant bit here).

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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

The comment for The Pettigrew Chronicles could probably do with some expansion; as per https://archive.org/stream/computer-vid ... 6/mode/1up the game is "a 2-cassette pack containing the best of Pettigrew's Diary and Operation Safras" -- two BBC/Dragon 32 games which are made up of multiple parts, so Pettigrew Chronicles seems to be a grab-bag of bits from those two games.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Doctor Who and the Warlords should be "Doctor Who and the Warlord" (singular) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Wh ... he_Warlord
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by StooB »

They Stole A Million (1986)

wasn't released until mid-1987; "Ariolasoft have finally gotten their Christmas '86 release, They Stole A Million ready to into the shops." - ZX Computing 6/87

Edgar Belka is the programmer, not the creator. The designer is Chris Palmer of Tigress Marketing. Sources: here and here
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

CD-Player was included with Powerplay as well as Crime Busters.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by 8BitAG »

Stu wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 11:46 am The Price of Magik is missing its Atari 8-bit link: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-40 ... _4125.html
Text adventures in the database, in general, are missing a huge number of other platforms mentions & links. There are hundreds... if not over a thousand additions that could be made in this area. It may be better if an automated tool/system is produced to help with that.

To illustrate the huge amount of work that would be involved...

Colossal Adventure from Level 9, for example, only lists four non-Spectrum platforms...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... _Adventure
...when that game was available for another fourteen additional systems.
8-bit Text Adventure Gamer - games - research.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

The Dragonstar Trilogy is by Fergus McNeill (the individual entries for the games on the tape are credited to him but the collected Dragonstar Trilogy isn't).
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by 8BitAG »

EINAR/DRU: DAVE IS LOOKING AT THIS ONE AS PART OF AN MIA FIND
Stu wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:30 pm The Dragonstar Trilogy is by Fergus McNeill (the individual entries for the games on the tape are credited to him but the collected Dragonstar Trilogy isn't).
That entry needs a bit of extra work too because, as the magazine references/reviews on that page state, The Dragonstar Trilogy "compilation" was actually released originally by Delta 4 in 1984; the GI Games release wasn't the first time that the three parts appeared together on one tape.

The date of the GI Games re-release is wrong too. I'm fairly sure that I've already submitted a correction for that, though. GI Games didn't republish the Delta 4 stuff until the early 1990s.

Edit: The inlay shown on that entry is *not* the GI Games one.,, it is the one from the original Delta 4 release... http://delta4.co.uk/delta4/delta4/2005games.htm

Edit2: A quick not about timelines... The earliest advert linked to shows that the three games in the series originally were sold separately...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 08&page=48
That's in May 1984.

The later reviews (July 1984 and October 1984) all refer to the three games/parts in the Trilogy being sold on one tape. That matches the inlay and notes on the Delta 4 site. Probably a case of Fergus rethinking the release and bundling them together for a fiver rather than trying to ask for £15 for a Quilled adventure.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 15&page=38
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 652&page=9
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

8BitAG wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:55 pm The later reviews (July 1984 and October 1984) all refer to the three games/parts in the Trilogy being sold on one tape. That matches the inlay and notes on the Delta 4 site. Probably a case of Fergus rethinking the release and bundling them together for a fiver rather than trying to ask for £15 for a Quilled adventure.
Having seen how short the solutions are I'm not surprised he reconsidered!
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Superman - The Man of Steel has author roles in the loading screen that could be added:

Sarah Day - Art
Richard Cheek - Art
Paul Drummond - Art
Mike Talbot - Code
Tim McCarthy - Code
Doug Thrower - Design
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by 8BitAG »

The Z80 snapshot of Cuddles...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... um/Cuddles

is labelled as being from 1984. It is not the version from 1984; it is one of the later re-releases. (The original 1984 version, contained in the TZX, is a different version of the game with a standard Spectrum font)
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by 8BitAG »

The page for In Search of Angels will probably need a bit of work too, at some point...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... _of_Angels

...as it also has lots of versions with the wrong dates attached; one of the issues inherited from the original WOS database sadly... it's harder to retrospectively match a date to the files for games released multiple times.

Some obvious fixes, though...

Date of release should be 1984... the page links to two 1984 reviews.

The Z80 version on the page is *not* a 1984 (or even 1985) version. It has a custom font rather than the standard Spectrum font of the first release.


Similarly....
Faerie
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... rum/Faerie

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

Quann Tulla
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... uann_Tulla

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

Ice Station Zero
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... ation_Zero

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

Four Minutes to Midnight
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... o_Midnight

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

i.e. All six of those 8th Day, Games without Frontiers titles, were released in 1984 *not* 1985.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by StooB »

Monster Mine by Gem Software (1982)

The Richard Shepherd version is the original version first advertised in November 1982. The Gem version isn't advertised until May 1983.

The Spectrum version should also be in the multi machine medium group like the ZX81 version already is because they are on the same tape.

The blank "Original publisher" and "Original release" fields on the ZX81 version should also be Richard Shepherd Software.
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