ZX81 > ZX Spectrum

[PeteProdge]

This is a bit of an echo of my 48K > 128K thread where I asked for examples of 48K games being better than the 128K version.

So yeah, there aren't many games that came out on the ZX81 and the ZX Spectrum, and I guess there are very very few games regarded as being better on the ZX81 than the Spectrum version. Nevertheless, I'd like to hear what you think would fit that description, or at least something that comes close?

I have nothing to contribute 'cos I'm really not from the ZX81 era and have barely dabbled with it!

[TMD2003]

"There's never been a good version of Scramble for the Spectrum!"

There was for the ZX81. That should be a start, at least. Most of us didn't have the Characters board to add on so there'd be no redefined characters, but it didn't take away anything from the gameplay. About all that did was the ZX81's keyboard...

[Turtle_Quality]

The only games I played on the ZX81 were the very primitive ones I managed to write in 1k when borrowing one from a friend. But I would expect to see 3d Monster Maze prominently mentioned here

[Mpk]

Back when I had a website, I made a tenuous argument that Lunares Insaneum ( https://jonathan-cauldwell.itch.io/lunares-insaneum ) is better than Transversion

The rectangles move along their assigned edge, and fire the white squares at our protagonist, the dotty black and white square. (S)he has to collect the asterixs without getting hit. Points are scored as a result. It's a grand little design - the trick is to watch the 4 rectangles, and bait them into shooting along one line / column and then go get asterixs on another while they're reloading. With 4 of them to watch out for, all moving and firing independently, it's tough, but fair

This is a conversion of 1983's Spectrum title Transversion, which is the same thing, but has colours, and features a spaceship. The spaceship has a name, the Elimax, and has a mission to eliminate alien pods from the galactic grid by passing over them with its Raydon field. Instead of rectangles firing squares, there are Guardians, firing Lazers and Blasters.
Question is - does that plot make things better or worse? With Lunares Insaneum, you can make up your own story. Maybe the square is a contestant on a dystopian future game show, scooping up credits to feed their irradiated many-legged family while dodging deadly boulders. Or it's a fish, gobbling up tasty plankton while dodging sharks. Or, you know. Come up with your own example. You can even go with Galactic Grid and the Raydon field, if you like.

Essentially, my proposition is that all games from now on should have an abstract mode, where everything's just geometric shapes, to encourage creativity in the youth. I look forward to GTA 6.