Which ZX Spectrum game has the highest amount of simultaneous players?

[PeteProdge]

There are lots of two-player (simultaneous play) games on the Speccy, but has there ever been a three-player game? Or something higher than that?

Obviously, I'm not talking turn-based games (like the best game ever on any system letting eight people play), it has to be simultaneous play.

Oh, for an authentic Gauntlet or Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (based on coin-op). And yes, that would bring in issues like a very cramped keyboard and the taking up of two joystick ports. Oh and the inevitable CPU slowdown...

[SteveSmith]

Apparently Stock Car Championship allows up to 4 players. https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4 ... ampionship . I assume its sequel does too. There's bound to be more. As for how good they were with 4 players, I'm sure I heard recently that the Speccy sometimes had trouble reading multiple keys on the keyboard depending on the combinations pressed.

[Mcoder2]

that would bring in issues like a very cramped keyboard and the taking up of two joystick ports. Oh and the inevitable CPU slowdown...

That will inevitably be the trouble with Arcade games with lots of players.
Slower board games may be more suitable for many players: "Go to Jail" (Automata's Monopoly-clone in BASIC) for example features 2 to 5 of them.

[SteveSmith]

I've queried zxdb, and there are 133 games with 5+ players:-

Spoiler

Code: Select all

+----------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| title                                              | max_players |
+----------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| Ruleta Parlante                                    |          40 |
| Multiplayer Premier League                         |          16 |
| Battle of Britain                                  |          12 |
| Planetfall                                         |          12 |
| Marcador                                           |          11 |
| A Question of Scruples                             |          10 |
| Uno                                                |          10 |
| Winter Olympiad '88                                |           9 |
| Tron                                               |           9 |
| Amaze                                              |           9 |
| Donkey Kong Jr.                                    |           9 |
| Get Lost!                                          |           9 |
| Pferderennen                                       |           9 |
| Little Boxes                                       |           9 |
| Star Trader's Luck                                 |           9 |
| Sales                                              |           9 |
| Ascot                                              |           9 |
| ZX Striker                                         |           9 |
| Red Attack                                         |           9 |
| Pexeso                                             |           9 |
| Bingo                                              |           9 |
| Adivina Adivinanza                                 |           9 |
| Superspell                                         |           9 |
| Autorennen                                         |           9 |
| S.H.A.K.E.R.                                       |           9 |
| World Cup Football                                 |           9 |
| Good Luck!                                         |           9 |
| Show Jumping                                       |           8 |
| Soccer 7                                           |           8 |
| Square Eyes                                        |           8 |
| Attactics                                          |           8 |
| Subbuteo                                           |           8 |
| Super Cup Football                                 |           8 |
| Super Soccer                                       |           8 |
| Bryan Robson's Super League                        |           8 |
| Wacky Darts                                        |           8 |
| World Cup Carnival                                 |           8 |
| Up for Grabs                                       |           8 |
| Skirmish                                           |           8 |
| Ihor                                               |           8 |
| Advanced Soccer Simulator                          |           8 |
| Grand Prix                                         |           8 |
| Space Chaos: Battle in Future                      |           8 |
| F.A. Cup Football                                  |           8 |
| Chaos                                              |           8 |
| Championship 6-a-side Soccer                       |           8 |
| Toptrainer                                         |           8 |
| Psymon                                             |           8 |
| Hra o koláč                                        |           8 |
| Jack Charlton's Match Fishing                      |           8 |
| Block War 3000 AD                                  |           8 |
| Championship Soccer                                |           8 |
| Kniffel                                            |           8 |
| Tank War                                           |           7 |
| The Scorched Earth                                 |           7 |
| Risico                                             |           6 |
| Zombie Island                                      |           6 |
| Pexeso                                             |           6 |
| Adivinar el Refran                                 |           6 |
| Roulette                                           |           6 |
| Ruleta                                             |           6 |
| Der Sagenhafte Schatz des Drachen Mordor           |           6 |
| Chicago                                            |           6 |
| C.A.R.S, the Computer Animated Racetrack Simulator |           6 |
| Das Jagdspiel                                      |           6 |
| Milenio: El Juego del Ano 2000                     |           6 |
| Racing                                             |           6 |
| Monopoly 2                                         |           6 |
| Horse Race                                         |           6 |
| Top Notch                                          |           6 |
| Yahtzee                                            |           6 |
| Whippets                                           |           6 |
| The Ultimate Quiz                                  |           6 |
| Arbatax                                            |           6 |
| Kosci Rzucone                                      |           6 |
| Memory                                             |           6 |
| Meteoroids                                         |           6 |
| Monopoly                                           |           6 |
| Oligopoly                                          |           6 |
| Quincy                                             |           6 |
| Roulette                                           |           6 |
| Sagenhafte Schatz des Minotaurus                   |           6 |
| It's a Knockout                                    |           6 |
| Hellfall                                           |           6 |
| Ataque a la Flota                                  |           6 |
| Boxing                                             |           6 |
| Brum-Brum                                          |           6 |
| Detective                                          |           6 |
| Alaska                                             |           6 |
| Dix Mille                                          |           6 |
| Do Not Pass Go                                     |           6 |
| Formula One                                        |           6 |
| Santa Paravia en Fiumaccio                         |           6 |
| Slippery Sam                                       |           6 |
| Lynchmob                                           |           6 |
| Odds on                                            |           6 |
| Ascot                                              |           6 |
| Yahtzi                                             |           6 |
| Tycoon, The Crossword Business Game                |           6 |
| Trivial Pursuit                                    |           6 |
| Dark Century                                       |           6 |
| 3D-Tanx                                            |           6 |
| Super Scramble Simulator                           |           6 |
| Das Boersenspiel                                   |           6 |
| Roulette                                           |           6 |
| Poker                                              |           5 |
| Automonopoli                                       |           5 |
| Drop Out                                           |           5 |
| Cactuar Racing 3                                   |           5 |
| Interstellar Intrigue                              |           5 |
| Derby Day                                          |           5 |
| Fechas                                             |           5 |
| Cock Attack                                        |           5 |
| Darts                                              |           5 |
| Brian Clough's Football Fortunes                   |           5 |
| Kamerun                                            |           5 |
| Endurance                                          |           5 |
| Salte la Banca                                     |           5 |
| Gwiezdne Imperium                                  |           5 |
| Tabla                                              |           5 |
| Sport of Kings                                     |           5 |
| Rider                                              |           5 |
| ZX Cluedo                                          |           5 |
| Carreras de Caballos                               |           5 |
| Party Worms                                        |           5 |
| Dados                                              |           5 |
| Tren 8                                             |           5 |
| Password                                           |           5 |
| Columbus                                           |           5 |
| Go to Jail                                         |           5 |
| Computer Darts                                     |           5 |
| Fiendish Freddy's Big Top o'Fun                    |           5 |
| Sea Fight                                          |           5 |
+----------------------------------------------------+-------------+

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which are simultaneous multiplayer.

[PeteProdge]

That will inevitably be the trouble with Arcade games with lots of players.

What got me thinking about this, was the idea that a simple one-button game such as Chrome's Dinosaur Game could be ported over to the Spectrum with multiple simultaneous players. How many? Well, if we go for a stupid amount, like literally every technically unique key on the keyboard (40, I think), that'd very likely be way too slow to play anything like the source material and it's also be stupidly cramped for that amount of people. But cut it down to a sensible number, like 8, and there could be some fun there.

[Morkin]

Noticed Jack Charlton's Match Fishing in that list.

I wonder if anyone's played it with 8 people clustered round the Speccy keyboard, ready to smash the key responding to their position to catch their fish

Would imagine quite a few dead arms resulting from that melee...

[Joefish]

Bomb Munchies and Gnash-Man Party can have four players on four joysticks. The former has more control options. But both can use an adapted Kempston joystick interface; you swap address lines A3 and A5 to make it respond to IN-55 instead of IN-33. I've modified and re-sold a few for people to be able to play these games.

I'm reminded of certain versions of Micro Machines, where two players could hold each end of a joypad. The cars would automatically accelerate, and you used either the D-pad or two of the buttons to steer. I know someone who cracked open some controllers and wired in controls of their own, so at one point we had eight people playing (can't remember which console), each with their own simple steering controller of two mini switches on a piece of wood (looking not entirely like everyone was holding mousetraps). You could make a similar adapter to connect two joysticks to one port, one operating UP/DOWN and the other connected to LEFT/RIGHT. I've considered doing something similar for connecting two sticks to one port for Battlezone style tank-track controls.

For a quiz or reaction game you could easily wire five separate big arcade buttons into each joystick port.

[C.Born]

Noticed Jack Charlton's Match Fishing in that list.

I wonder if anyone's played it with 8 people clustered round the Speccy keyboard, ready to smash the key responding to their position to catch their fish

Would imagine quite a few dead arms resulting from that melee...

but then with wires !!

[PeteProdge]

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which are simultaneous multiplayer.

Challenge accepted.

Ruleta Parlante (40)

Oh dear, my Spanish is 'malo' at the best of times, but I've got to make a go of it. Just add to the difficulty, this is a casino gambling game (not exactly my favourite genre), entirely written in BASIC, with masses of screens of instructions. It's quite frustrating to get a grip on this. Anyway, I get to play the game and I can see that this is certainly not giving simultaneous play to forty people - which would have been amusing to test.

Multiplayer Premier League (16)

Well, on loading, I'm delighted to feel like I am the author of this game, but that's a nominative coincidence. This is another BASIC effort and there's no simultaneous play here.

Battle of Britain (12)

Another BASIC game, this is strategy and there's no simultaneous play here, unsurprisingly.

Planetfall (12)

You've guessed it, it's another BASIC game. And it's strategy again. No simultaneous play.[/quote]

Marcador (11)

Aaand yet another in BASIC. Although this one has a nice 'guess the logo' premise, it's very primitive indeed, players need to keep score on a piece of paper. It has no replay value for anyone who has played it before.

More importantly, it is NOT for eleven players, it's for two, so ZXDB is wrong on this! Maybe someone has seen some paper instructions that state "II"? I'm not really sure how this got to be cited as 11. Anyway, no simultaneous play either.

A Question of Scruples (10)

At last, something that isn't in BASIC! And it's a proper game that's been on shop shelves! It is a computer conversion of a board game. so it's unlikely that it has simultaneous play. I've checked and it's turn-based.

Uno (10)

My .tzx and .tap of this fail at loading it, but this site's page about the game declares it to be turn-based. Looks pretty BASIC too.

[PeteProdge]

Winter Olympiad '88 (9)

Also turn-based.

Tron (9)

Alternating play.

Amaze (9)

Turn-based.

Donkey Kong Jr. (9)

Alternating.

Get Lost! (9)

MIA? Oh no! But the page clarifies that it is turn-based.

Pferderennen (9)

Turn-based.

[PeteProdge]

Little Boxes (9)

Turn-based.

Star Trader's Luck (9)

Turn-based.

Sales (9)

MIA, but still, it's alternativing.

Ascot (9)

Turn-based.

ZX Striker (9)

Alternating.

Red Attack (9)

Alternating.

Pexeso (9)

I had to actually play this one because this site didn't show details for the playing style. It's turn-based, and is one of a zillion Mahjong clones.

Bingo (9)

Turn-based.

Adivina Adivinanza (9)

Turn-based.

Superspell (9)

Turn-based.

Autorennen (9)

Alternating.

S.H.A.K.E.R. (9)

Another one I had to play - it's turn-based.

World Cup Football (9)

Ick! It's also turn-based.

Good Luck! (9)

Turn-based.

Well, I'll leave it there for now. What I can say is that's the Speccy does have a game for nine or simultaneous players. Maybe there is one for eight, I'll resume checking at some point.

[R-Tape]

You can search for simultaneous under 'Turn Mode' on the advanced search here.

Even better, @SteveSmith, you can SQL refine your query further by filtering the members of tag 8002 (simultaneous) by max_players in entries. I'm on mobile so can't atm.

That will find all games, classed (hopefully correctly) simultaneous, with # players.

Here's one 5 player game. Each player has 1 key to jump their horse:

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

[firelord]

A quick search in my SGD ARCADE.DAT for simultaneous more than 2 players :

https://pastebin.com/raw/4fgqJmXs
(first column is the number of players)

[5MinuteRetro]

… but has there ever been a three-player game?

I’m late to this simultaneous-play party but… has no-one mentioned Rampage? Pretty sure that was three players even on the Speccy.

[Oloturia]

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

Party Worms has 5 players simultaneously.

[firelord]

I’m late to this simultaneous-play party but… has no-one mentioned Rampage? Pretty sure that was three players even on the Speccy.

Rampage and FIST + are on the pastebin list I posted. I remember I tried one time to play Rampage. I haven't played FIST + with more that two players.

[Guesser]

How many? Well, if we go for a stupid amount, like literally every technically unique key on the keyboard (40, I think)

You'd very quickly come up against the issue of phantom keypresses where the right (wrong?) combination of players jumping at the same time makes other players jump when they shouldn't. Though in the chaos of that many hands fighting for space it might be hard to tell

[PeteProdge]

You'd very quickly come up against the issue of phantom keypresses where the right (wrong?) combination of players jumping at the same time makes other players jump when they shouldn't. Though in the chaos of that many hands fighting for space it might be hard to tell

Yeah, I suspect that'd be a terrible playability issue. So, hypothetically, what's the largest number of simultaneous players we could have where there wouldn't be any 'phantom' interaction?

[Guesser]

More than eight. Twelve maybe?
(that is to say, anything above eight can cause phantom keypresses, but that's ok so provided you can ignore them)

[R-Tape]

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which are simultaneous multiplayer.

With this query you can pick ones classes as Simultaneous:

Code: Select all

SELECT * FROM entries 
WHERE id in (SELECT entry_id FROM members WHERE tag_id = 8002);

Unfortunately it's not great as some look wrongly classified as simultaneous. Here's the full list:

8 players Attactics
8 players Toptrainer turn based?
6 players Brum-Brum No user input during race
6 players Horse Race turn based?
5 players Carreras de Caballos
5 players Party Worms
4 players Gladiator
4 players 3D Grand Prix
4 players Piggy Punks
4 players 3D Stock Car Championship
4 players BMX Simulator 2
4 players Professional BMX Simulator
4 players 3D Stock Cars II
4 players Zampabolas
4 players Brutal Worms
4 players Dicey Duck Race
4 players Bomb Munchies
4 players QuizTron 48000 series
3 players Rampage
3 players Triple Comando
3 players Exploding Fist +
3 players Grand Prix Simulator 2
3 players Tron 0xF

From those, the top two most interesting simulataneous with the most players are:

• 8 players Attactics - but it uses the trick stick.

Leaving this as having the most players on the keyboard with simultaneous keyboard play:

• 5 players Carreras de Caballos

[Morkin]

Jack Charlton isn't in that list, seems to be categorised as turn-based. Maybe because it's only the grabby-bitey* phase that's simultaneous, the reely-fishy* part is only done by one person at a time.

Also Gladiator - 4-player simultaneous? I don't ever recall seeing 4 gladiators fighting each other in that game, it's only 2 innit?

* these are technical fishing terms in case anyone was wondering

[voxeltower]

Speccy Soccer, 4 players simultaneous

[Sol_HSA]

Dammit, I should have put more than 4 players in quiztron =)