Best (Homebrew) game from 2015

Ivanzx · Post by **Ivanzx** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:45 pm

As there was no poll in WoS, or at least not a good one, I would like to give some visibility to the previous years´ productions.
Everybody can select 3 games in total.
Good luck! It was a good year with a lot of productions and super games in there:

MatGubbins · Post by **MatGubbins** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 5:40 pm

Is it possible to show in-game pictures to jog the old memory please?

Joefish · Post by **Joefish** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:24 pm

With download links?

Rorthron · Post by **Rorthron** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:34 pm

Short reviews would also be nice.

(Actually R-Tape did this for the 2014 poll. Any chance of a repeat?)

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 7:54 pm

Rorthron wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:34 pm Short reviews would also be nice.

(Actually R-Tape did this for the 2014 poll. Any chance of a repeat?)

Happy to, probably no time until Sat or Sun though. There's still a few I haven't played yet.

Juan F. Ramirez · Post by **Juan F. Ramirez** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 10:31 pm

Voted for Castlevania (stands out the others) and Jaws (originality).

hikoki · Post by **hikoki** » Fri Nov 24, 2017 12:16 am

Joefish wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:24 pm With download links?

This will do : https://awesome-table.com/-KTJLy2xX7_E1 ... lterD=2015

By the way, there is a phpbb extension called "advanced polls"

Joefish · Post by **Joefish** » Fri Nov 24, 2017 8:51 am

Good point. I did a search on this site, but it didn't give me a link I could share!

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:58 pm

Rorthron wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:34 pm Short reviews would also be nice.
(Actually R-Tape did this for the 2014 poll. Any chance of a repeat?)

Erewgo:

Pnoid - Penguin churrera
Pengo Quest - delicious character sprites from Gabam
Christmas Gift Hunt - It's 1982 again! Oldschool AGD collect em up.
Chrimblast! - Vertical shooter, aliens, socks and sprouts, potential cover tape B-side material
Amnesia - 3D game maker. Not played
The Adventures of Bouncing Bob - Lurching Dead - Bouncy AGD platformer
Save the Trees! - Deciduous puzzle from Russia.
Stars (Gumi) - Innovative AGD game. Manipulate the star.
Cosmic Commerce - BASIC Elite wannabe from a complete no hoper
Escape from the sewers - Churrera, it's those bloody spiders again!
Perry Pumpkin - Recovered BASIC horror from BITD.
Stakeout! - Similar to above.
The Infeasible game - Very decent port of 'The Impossible Game'
Rabbit in Nightmareland - Churrera with a very eery rabbit.
Jumpcollision - Innovative AGD game, bouncing and rockets.
The Order of mazes - Very competent maze adventure. Contender in the 2015 ZXDEV.
Knightmare 2 ZX - Whatever the MSX can do, the Speccy can do better. Fantastic Arcade conversion.
The Adventure of Bouncing Bob : Bustin GHosts - Bob's still bouncing but it's a pacman clone, and a very good one at that. AGD.
El Cetro del sol - Spanish text adventure. The ignorant Englishman that I am can only say that it looks good.
Ishido: The Way of Stones - Polished conversion
Rabbit in Wonderland - Rabbit churrera, with that spooky Rabbit again
Pixel Quest - addictive complete the sprite logic puzzle.
The Adventures of Bouncing Bob, Summer breeze - AGD flip screener, plays much better than it looks, and it looks alright.
Shoggot Halls - Simple graphics, Cellular automation fun.
Aquanoids - Quality underwater flip screen, one of the best churros of the year.
Cap N Rescue 2 - Oldschool AGD platformer.
Bathyscape - Quality underwater suffocate 'em up.
Red Planet - Decent churro, pretty hard
Bubble Monkey Bros - one of my faves from Gabam this year.
Hop N Frog - Channelised frogger with a Humphrey style jump.
Lirus - Original attributue based game, high quality.
Mazegame - You are a pixel trapped in an ENORMOUS hidden maze.
3Amok - Good looking Pentagon board type game. Not played
Strange Kitchen - Fun BASIC game, shoot the fruit, or not, as instructed.
Gertrudis, el soldado - ZXDev churro, based on a film I think
Anima - A churro with blood. Short and enjoyable.
The Legend of Bocatapuesto - not the prettiest churro but I remember thinking it played okay
Mice Vs Scientists - a serviceable churro
Zombo - Based on the 2000AD comic character, buggy but easy and fun. Excuse me can I compleat you?
Godkiller 2 Exile - Very polished churro
The Return of Traxtor - Very respectable space based hopper sequel
Black Star - One of the best Space Invaders clones for the speccy
Complica DX - Multicolour puzzler and probably the best attempt at AI in the modern era.
Journey to Another World - JBV's usual humorous oldschool game, more to it than just a platform game
Rabid Mower - A lawnmowing game that you'll want to complete, and no it's not April 1st.
Euphoria 2D - War/colonisation game. Looks good, sorry not had time to play
Explorer - blocky vertical character scroller, based on Caverns of Mars. I remember playing this for quite a while
Falling Blocks - Tetrissy
Oceano - Submarine caverns, simple graphics but playable enough in this port from the author's own CPC game
Weird Island - Text adventure set on an... Island. My usual text adventure skills meant I ran out of ideas and wandered aimlessly
Zen II - Best beeper music ever on this mindful puzzle sequel.
Stormfinch - Bicolour shootemup. Meh.
Dead Flesh Boy - Brilliant AGD conversion, with a better name than the game it's based on.
Baldy ZX - Fun AGD remake of Paul Jenkinson's original Amiga game.
Super 48K Box - Playable and addictive AGD remake from the author of dead flesh boy.
Jaws The Text Adventure - amusing BASIC conversion of the web game
Flype - A wall huggy flippy kind of affair
Vade Retro (Retroworks) - Quality action/adventure, I can see glimpses that might have inspired Retroworks to make Sword of IANNA
Bumber - Ignore the name kids, rudimentary maths plus platform games equals fun! Far too hard.
Rays Reprisal - Amusingly renamed remake of Yar's Revenge
Baffo Jones - more attractive visuals and character based movement. Playable.
Pets Vs Aliens Prologue - An Othello clone with lots of lipstick. High quality multicolour visuals, the original release put too much emphasis on animation and was headache inducing
Pentacorn Quest - One of the best churros of the year, doesn't feel 'samey'
Rescue Lander - Challenging 'don't touch the sides' game, very good, I spent ages playing this
Jet Set Luis: Rumbo a la costa Blanca
Little Dragon 2 - fun platformer in Gab's style. Good enough to make me put it on tape and play it through
The Tales of Grupp - Brilliant adventure with turn based fighting.
Castlevania: Spectral Interlude - The developers made no mistakes in this flawless conversion. Not my style of game so I never gave it the chance it deserved, sorree
A prelude to Chaos - didn't really play this sorry
Page and the curse of the pharaoh - Serviceable AGD flip screener
Uroboros - The best snake game on the Spectrum. Hands down.
Ice Slider Z - Good action/puzzle game. Once you choose a direction you're commited to it.
Lava - Best BASIC sprite ever, and a loading screen with a very supple young lady
Xorka - simple presentation but fun XOR challenge
Jucha - didn't play sorry
Sixteen Skirmish - UDGs and BASIC turn based fighting.
Popeye - Look nice, didn't draw me in
Diamond Digger - A very accomplished BASIC game that didn't get the credit it deserved.
When Alex didnt do it - Good text adventure with a few glitches, one involving underpants if memory serves

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Fri Nov 24, 2017 4:00 pm

I'm still deciding between Tales of Grupp, Vade Retro, Rescue Lander and Uroboros. There are some very, very accomplished games here that I feel I should vote for, but I'm letting my choice be lead by the ones that captured my attention and made me play them most.

Ivanzx · Post by **Ivanzx** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 2:41 pm

Come on people! Only 10 people voted!! The effort by Dave with that table describing all the games deserve at least 30 more votes

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 3:51 pm

These were my stand out releases of that year:

The Infeasible game
The Order of mazes
Knightmare 2 ZX
Pixel Quest
Aquanoids
Lirus
Complica DX
Stormfinch
Dead Flesh Boy
Baldy ZX
Super 48K Box
Flype
Vade Retro (Retroworks)
Pentacorn Quest
Rescue Lander
The Tales of Grupp
Castlevania: Spectral Interlude
Uroboros
Ice Slider Z

Balancing quality and the amount of time they made me want to play I voted for these. Bit cheeky but one of them is mine...

1 - Knightmare 2 ZX
2 - The Tales of Grupp
3 - Stormfinch

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 3:55 pm

It didn't get my vote but Uroboros* is a landmark title as a snake game that doesn't look like a BASIC type in.

*argh! another TAP not in the archive yet. We'll get around to it Ralf!

Seven.FFF · Post by **Seven.FFF** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 6:16 pm

Joefish wrote: ↑Fri Nov 24, 2017 8:51 am Good point. I did a search on this site, but it didn't give me a link I could share!

That threw me too. Turns out if you click anywhere inside the search result it takes you to a linkable page:

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 7:20 pm

Ah, I didn't understand joe's original question, I think I do now.

- when you do a search it bring up a list, even if it's just one entry, you then click on that link and it takes you to a full page - screenshots, gamedownloads*, instructions, manuals, support material.

Every piece of software has its own page, based on the ZXDB ID number. Is that a surprise to most? Perhaps we need to make that clearer somehow.

The original list is a bit like screenshot browsing.

* (a growing list of)

Seven.FFF · Post by **Seven.FFF** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:17 pm

R-Tape wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2017 7:20 pm Is that a surprise to most?

I think it's only because the search result summary is so detailed it almost looks like it could be the full info!

Maybe just having a "more..." or "details..." link that also takes you to the linked entity would be enough to finesse it (so for title results it would take you to the title's page, etc).

Joefish · Post by **Joefish** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:03 am

No, I meant the search results page just has a generic URL. You can't cut and paste the URL into the forums to link people to the same search results.

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:20 am

Ah I see what you mean, if you search 'Year 2015' it would be nice to be able to copy the link to display the same listing.

hikoki · Post by **hikoki** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 1:17 pm

I played mostly Castlevania, Dead Flesh Boy, Rescue Lander, Bubble Monkey Bros, Chrimblast, Rabbit in Wonderland, Pnoid, Ice Slider Z, Uroboros, Christmas Gift Hunt, Hop N Frog, Super 48K Box, The Return of Traxtor.
Shame on me! There are quite a few good ones that I have barely played.

Rorthron · Post by **Rorthron** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 2:56 pm

I"ve gone with Stormfinch. Castlevania seems the obvious star game, but I really enjoyed Stormfinch. I think I'm a sucker for shoot-'em- ups and rainbow graphics. It still feels like it's breaking the laws of physics to have more than two colours per square.

Seven.FFF · Post by **Seven.FFF** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:11 pm

Joefish wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:03 am No, I meant the search results page just has a generic URL. You can't cut and paste the URL into the forums to link people to the same search results.

Doh! Soz

Yes, a search URL that takes search terms in the query string would be awesome.

Ersh · Post by **Ersh** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:29 pm

Stormfinch is great. The random attack waves keep the game fresh and add a lot of replay value. The enemy-direction-radar allows for more dynamic attack waves without being unfair to the player. The autofire spares your wrist and let you focus on the charge shot. Great bosses. Just a lot of polish. Then there's the graphics; great looking and inspired all in glorious multicolour. One of the best of 2015 for sure.

textvoyage · Post by **textvoyage** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:09 pm

Strange Kitchen shouldn't really be on this list, it was released in 2016. I did release a "Beta" version in 2015 to show what I'd done with Charade though, but it wasn't responsive enough to play properly and I didn't "officially" release it as such.
And what's wrong with Word Blaster eh?! That's a game I did release in 2015. OK, it's not a classic, & not really a contender for best homebrew game but I enjoyed making it !

R-Tape · Post by **R-Tape** » Fri Dec 01, 2017 3:20 pm

textvoyage wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:09 pm Strange Kitchen shouldn't really be on this list, it was released in 2016. I did release a "Beta" version in 2015 to show what I'd done with Charade though, but it wasn't responsive enough to play properly and I didn't "officially" release it as such.
And what's wrong with Word Blaster eh?! That's a game I did release in 2015. OK, it's not a classic, & not really a contender for best homebrew game but I enjoyed making it !

Ah I can relax now. It wouldn't be a game of the year poll without one or two things left out

Seven.FFF · Post by **Seven.FFF** » Fri Dec 01, 2017 3:44 pm

R-Tape wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2017 3:20 pm Ah I can relax now. It wouldn't be a game of the year poll without one or two things left out

Spectrum Computing