Little bugs in the database 4

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Cargador Universal de Código Máquina was an utility published in several Microhobby issues as basic list. It helped readers to input M/C routines that appeared often in the magazine. So MH decided to include it in some of tape issues.

The question is it appears as MIA, but if you look at the several 'compilations featuring this title' we see it included in every file, so I don't think it should be considered as MIA as it was never released as a single program.

✓ Reviewed

[PeterJ]

The Rings of Merlin has two CASA links. The first link is for a completely different game.

Thanks to Paul Collins

✓ Reviewed

[Audionautas]

Hi!

Two fixes on Black and White


1) Release Year. It reads "unknown", but it was released in 2020. You can check it here. https://greenwebsevilla.itch.io/black-and-white This link also includes full credits for the game that also could be included on the ZXDB.

2) On Releases section. It reads Re-release #1 Matra Computer Automations (Spain) €8.75. This game was first released as a download in March 2020, but soon after it was released by Matra and its price it was not €8,75 but €21.45 because it was a deluxe edition on a limited batch, as you can see in the following link: http://www.matranet.net/boutique/zx/bla ... kwhite.php

Matra usually releases standard editions for some of their games, but for Black and White as well as Ninjakul 2: The Last Ninja they only released a short batch in cardboard boxes.

Thank you!

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

Two fixes on Black and White

Thanks! GreenWeb already contacted me about this, and fixes are ready for the next ZXDB deploy, but I'm going to double-check the prices, etc.

[PeterJ]

I seem to be finding a lot of titles marked as MiA when they are not. Another example here:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... tmas_Cards

Scroll down to compilations including this title, and its there:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... _issue_148

✓ Reviewed

[Audionautas]

Thanks! GreenWeb already contacted me about this, and fixes are ready for the next ZXDB deploy, but I'm going to double-check the prices, etc.

Hi @druellan

Some covers and editions for homebrew games that are missing on ZXDB.

1). Car Wars. Previous to the Matra edition for this game, Play on Retro released a deluxe edition in a cardboard box with some extras: http://www.retromaniac.es/2017/05/sorte ... e-car.html

2). Red Planet (Planeta Rojo). The same goes for this game. Previous to the Matra edition, Play on Retro released a deluxe edition in a cardboard box with some extras as you can see in the link above. I don't have neither of these editions, so I can't remember their price and I couldn't find it. Take into account that these two games are included in the upcoming Play On Retro's Power Up! compilation on dandanator format (60 copies only): http://www.retromaniac.es/2020/07/beyke ... tucho.html Also I think "Planeta Rojo" should be included on ZXDB as an alternate name for Red Planet.

3). Aliens: Neoplasma. As you can see in the like above, along with the Power Up! compilation, Play on Retro is releasing a deluxe edition for Aliens: Neoplasma (60 copies only). Both should be out by Christmas. I will have my copy of Aliens: Neoplasma by then, but I don't have a quality scanner to digitize the artwork and instructions. By PM I can send you the contact email of Felipe Monge, the guy behind these wonderful editions, so maybe he could share some high quality scans for the ZXDB.

4). The Prayer of the Warrior. As you probably know, this was an unreleased game by Zigurat that was released by its authors in 2004 or so as a downloadable game. Several years later "1985 Alternativo" did a crowdfunding to release a proper version that I missed at the time. In the meantime a lot of people in Spain had done their own private covers and inlays for this game (you can see three or four different covers searching on Google), but the "official one" that was sold is the one you can see in this interview with the publishers: https://retroinvaders.com/es/73851/entr ... x-spectrum. Felipe Monge, they guy behind Play On Retro is the same behind this deluxe edition by 1985 Alternativo.

Thank you!

✓ Reviewed

[pavero]

[mention]Audionautas[/mention] Is it possible to buy these releases anywhere?

[Audionautas]

@Audionautas Is it possible to buy these releases anywhere?

Hi [mention]pavero[/mention]

It is not possible, I'm afraid, they are sold out in most cases. Car Wars and Red Planet were released in 2017 in a short run. I only know one person that owns at least Car Wars in that deluxe edition, probably Red Planet too and that guy is Javier Ortiz from El Mundo del Spectrum, a great homebrew games' collector. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSaVwN ... s6aZqEVQqA

The Prayer of the Warrior was released through a crowdfunding in 2016 including some other games (https://www.verkami.com/projects/14731- ... mega-drive). I don't know for sure how many copies of this game are out there. Felipe Monge of Play on Retro/1985 Alternativo commented in a podcast (if I recall correctly), that he wants to do a re-issue of The Prayer of The Warrior in a new edition in cardboard box with a new cover, booklet and more extras, but it looks like a long term project. Prior to that he wants to release deluxe editions of all SaNchez Crew games: Survivisection, Mighty Final Fight, Delta's Shadow, etc.

Regarding Aliens: Neoplasma and Power Up! compilation, both are almost ready to ship, but I remember Felipe Monge said somewhere that he had made a few more copies, apart from those already sold, so maybe he has some copies left. Here you can see a video for Power Up! compilation. They both look great!:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1324822787790376965
Here is another short video for the Aliens: Neoplasma edition and another one of Beyker's Legacy, a 25 BASIC games' compliation by Beykersoft (Sergio Vaquer):
https://twitter.com/i/status/1322880365489491970


All the best!

[pavero]

Thanks for these informations [mention]Audionautas[/mention]

Do you think you can contact Javier, if he could provide scans of both boxes (front+reverse side) in 300dpi at least?

And can you please give me (via PM) Felipe's e-mail or any other contact?

[Audionautas]

Thanks for these informations @Audionautas

Do you think you can contact Javier, if he could provide scans of both boxes (front+reverse side) in 300dpi at least?

And can you please give me (via PM) Felipe's e-mail or any other contact?

Hi @pavero

PM already sent!

All the best!

[R-Tape]

Lost (18780) and Jamie Bradbury (36271) are the same author. Can they be linked pleez.

Confirmed by chatting with the author.

(sorry to add to the pile)

✓ Reviewed

[R-Tape]

Alexander Konstantinov needs to be linked as owner of the nickname ALKO, and his country changed to Ukraine.

Absolutely so. Both labels are the same person:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... bel_id=278
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... bel_id=160
Alexander Konstantinov. He is marked as from Russia, but as far as I see on zx.pk.ru on his profile, he is from Ukraine, Odessa.

[PeterJ]

Another one from Phil Collins

The RZX Link (both the Video and URL) from Talisman of Lost Souls

Go to a different game 'A Tangled Tale'

✓ Reviewed

[PeterJ]

Another one from Paul Collins, and maybe one for our resident adventure expert?

Hi,

I have noticed that these two games appear to be the same, or at least
very substantially the same:

Magic Circle [unknown author]
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... gic_Circle

Monster (Haggisoft)
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... um/Monster

It's particularly clear when you look at the walkthrough solutions on
Tipshop.

✓ Reviewed

[8BitAG]

Another one from Paul Collins, and maybe one for our resident adventure expert?

Hi,

I have noticed that these two games appear to be the same, or at least
very substantially the same:

Magic Circle [unknown author]
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... gic_Circle

Monster (Haggisoft)
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... um/Monster

It's particularly clear when you look at the walkthrough solutions on
Tipshop.

Interesting... I'll look into that further. It certainly appears, from a quick glance, that the Monster is a later PAWed version of the Quilled game Magic Circle. They would still have separate entries in the ZXDB but it would be nice to make the link to David's other games.

Will do a bit more digging... and verify some of the information already in the database... the Magic Circle entry, for example, currently lists "Spectrum 128K" as the platform... which won't be correct if it is actually a Quilled game.

Edit: I'll post more later, but my first observation is that Magic Circle is not Quilled, it's PAWed. So it is probably 128K only and also be far more closely related to Monster in terms of code.

Edit2: I'm guessing that "Magic Circle" is just a miscategorised snapshot of Monster. It's been mistakenly entered into the database as a separate game. I'll double check by comparing the database from the two games. We've currently got them listed separately at CASA too (as most of the original Spectrum data there was pulled from WOS back in the day).

✓ Reviewed

[8BitAG]

Yes, the databases are identical, so...

Magic Circle
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... gic_Circle

is actually just a misfiled/mislabelled snapshot of

Monster
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... um/Monster

So the Magic Circle entry should be deleted from the ZXDB; although it would be worth adding a note that the game is sometimes mislabelled "The Magic Circle" elsewhere.

Good spot from Paul,

✓ Reviewed

[PeterJ]

Sharpshooter from Kobrahsoft (UK) is listed as being released in 1987, but there is an advertisement for it in Your Computer in 1985:

https://www.spectrumcomputing.co.uk/pag ... 4&page=116

The software also shows 1984 (although I appreciate it may not have been released in that year)

Also J.K Cope needs adding as the author:

✓ Reviewed

[Einar Saukas]

Are Andromeda Software (Hungary) and Andromeda Software Ltd (UK) really different companies?

If so, are their credits correct?

✓ Reviewed

[Einar Saukas]

The Dragon's Lair page currently shows a "loading screen". AFAIK the ZX81 is not capable of displaying screens while loading.

I assume this is actually an "opening screen", that appears immediately after the game finishes loading.

Correct?

[StooB]

William Wobbler

1 - there's no Ricochet re-release of this

2 - the Micro Gold re-release is actually a uniMicro re-release and the inlay WilliamWobbler(MicroGold).jpg should be renamed WilliamWobbler(uniMicro).jpg

✓ Reviewed

[StooB]

Are Andromeda Software (Hungary) and Andromeda Software Ltd (UK) really different companies?

If so, are their credits correct?

Both Andromeda's should be one UK company. The confusion is because their developers were Novotrade Rt of Hungary.

(also this Novotrade is the same as Novotrade Rt)

✓ Reviewed

[Audionautas]

Are Andromeda Software (Hungary) and Andromeda Software Ltd (UK) really different companies?

If so, are their credits correct?

Both Andromeda's should be one UK company. The confusion is because their developers were Novotrade Rt of Hungary.

(also this Novotrade is the same as Novotrade Rt)

Hi

During the lockdown, I did some research on Hungarian ZX Spectrum games and obviously Andromeda/Novotrade, company over which gravitates almost every Hungarian game of that time period. Maybe some of this text might help to clarify things a bit. Some months ago I also contributed with some information on this thread (viewtopic.php?t=3110).

As [mention]StooB[/mention] commented Novotrade was the Hungarian developer settled in Budapest and Andromeda Software was mainly its parent marketing company settled in London and led by a Hungarian expatriate called Robert Stein, who would become the perfect intermediary between the main companies of the nascent British software industry and the development team of Novotrade in his native country. Stein would make frequent visits to Budapest in order to find new software to export to the UK and he would be the one to discover Tetris on a Budapest University PC and then license it to Mirrorsoft (he was one of the main actors of the 'soap opera' in what would become the fight for the rights of Alexei Pajitnov's game).

In 1984 Novotrade had a small in-house development team in Budapest led by Donat Kiss to which should be added another 150 freelancers scattered around the Hungarian capital city. These teams were made up mainly of university students with technical studies who took the initiative to program games since the salary was between four and six times higher than the salary they earned in their own jobs, according to a report in the British magazine Big K.





C&VG also did a report about them a couple of years later.





The emergence of Novotrade at such an early stage in the popularization of microcomputers as 1983-84 and the fact of having Andromeda Software based in London, opened them the doors to the British software market and many games from large companies in the UK were developed by the Novotrade team. A key event for Novotrade to become known in the West was the software presentation organized by the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce in London between November 14 and 16, 1983 in which the British public had the opportunity to know about some programs and games. The English business press praised the shows, highlighting their peaceful nature and praising the original ideas of the Hungarian developers. By the way, on the following website there is a list of games developed in Hungary from the 80s to the present that I highly recommend: https://hungame.blog/az-osszes-magyar-f ... k-listaja/

Thus, a few months after this presentation we find the first Hungarian titles published as "full price" games in the United Kingdom, as was the case of the educational titles Story House (Creative Sparks, 1984) and Caesar The Cat (Mirrorsoft, 1984), the latter a C64 original, which would get good reviews from the British press. Other games include Boiler House (Front Runner, 1984) and Chinese Juggler, a game published by Ocean Software. However, some Novotrade games such as the arcade Catastrophes (1984), the educational title A Maci Szamol (1985) and the arcade Futár-Posta (1986) would not be exported, although they would have cassette editions in their home country. Hungaroring (1986), an original C64 Formula 1 simulator also had its Spectrum version comissioned to the Kerzsi group, which was titled on Spectrum as 'Home Hungaroring'. However, it was another of those games that remained for the domestic market. Domark would contact Andromeda Soft to take over a major production; convert the Eureka! book (1984) by Ian Livingstone to our microcomputers. The game was officially released on October 31, 1984, scripted by Livingstone himself and programmed by Andras Csaszar for C64 and Donat Kiss on ZX Spectrum.

Hungary most popular 8-bit machine was the Commodore 64 (being the ZX Spectrum the second most popular computer there), so western Commodore users enjoyed quite a few exclusive titles made in Hungary by Novotrade, such as the innovative Scarabeus (Ariolasoft, 1985), Wild West (Ariolasoft, 1985), Starship Andromeda (Ariolasoft, 1986), Water Polo (Gremlin Graphics, 1987), World Trophy Soccer (Melbourne House, 1989), California Pro Golf (Mastertronic, 1989), and several more developed by the Hungarian company for the American computer. This article shows part of the history of Novotrade and some of the games they released for the C64: https://commodoreformatarchive.com/traf ... ir-way-to- the-west-in-the-80s /

Anyway, the popularity of the Spectrum in Hungary was remarkable. The rock group KFT included a Spectrum listing to type-in on the cover of their 1984 album Bál Az Operában, developed precisely by the Novotrade team, in which fans could enjoy a little maze game while playing one of the tracks contained in the album titled “Rózsák Valériának” (https://www.discogs.com/KFT-B%C3%A1l-Az ... se/3544401).

Andromeda Software would also license titles to be made in the UK. This was the case of Pneumatic Hammers (1987), a budget title by Firebird that obtained a very poor 18% in Crash magazine, and the case of Tetris (Mirrorsoft, 1988), programmed by Peter Jones. A popular title from Mirrorsoft's catalog as Spitfire '40 (Mirrorsoft, 1985) was originally developed by Novotrade for the Commodore 64 and later converted to the ZX Spectrum in the UK.

Not only would Mirrorsoft maintain a close relationship with Andromeda Software/Novotrade, but also U.S. Gold, who would commission the development of the arcade conversion of Atari Crystal Castles (1986) to the programmers of the Hungarian company. In 1986, two of Novotrade's programmers, Imre Kovats and Laszlo Szenttornyai took part in the development of Acro Jet (MicroProse / U.S. Gold) for ZX Spectrum. These same authors were responsible in 1987 for another simulator, F-15 Strike Eagle, again for MicroProse / U.S. Gold. Perhaps the most successful game of this duo would be Impossible Mission II (U.S. Gold, 1988), license to Epyx' original title for C64. Imre Kovats also took part in the development of the Spectrum version of Welltris (1991) for Infogrames. In 1987, U.S. Gold commissioned to Homega Software (a group about which little is known but - and this is just speculation- probably was also linked to Novotrade/Andromeda Software), the conversion to Spectrum of the Data East Express Raider arcade (1987). Also Gremlin Graphics published Alternative World Games (Gremlin, 1988) developed by the Novotrade team.

Several of the games mentioned above remain uncredited to Novotrade/Andromeda on the ZXDB. In most cases only their coders are credited not mentioning Novotrade or Andromeda at all in the games itselves, hence it's quite difficult to check if Novotrade was involved on the Spectrum version or just the C64 one. Maybe there are more Hungarian games from that period that we don't know of released by British software houses. On the ZXDB is easy to search by "Language", however the majority of Hungarian coders developed games for the British market, so those games are in English not in Hungarian and to this day I couldn't find a way to search by "Nationality" (where the game was created originally) instead of "Language" on ZXDB. For example, if we are looking for every game developed in Hungary for the ZX Spectrum on ZXDB we will only find those in Hungarian, but we will be missing all the others coded in Hungary but published in the UK in English. So maybe [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] knows how to do it.

Thank you!

[moroz1999]

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=28332 - screenshots seem to be ss1 format, not ss4.

✓ Reviewed

[Einar Saukas]

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=28332 - screenshots seem to be ss1 format, not ss4.

Both files are 6928 bytes, therefore I suppose it should be renamed to SSX. Correct?

[pavero]

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=28332 - screenshots seem to be ss1 format, not ss4.

Both files are 6928 bytes, therefore I suppose it should be renamed to SSX. Correct?

I uploaded new ones two days ago, please check your mail.