Unknown discovered games from Romania

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Ralf
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Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Ralf »

Another news from Spectrum games world that some of you maybe missed.

Some weeks ago a very interesting post on Facebook appeared but as I know it went unnoticed on old WOS and we didn't have Spectrum Computing yet.

Out of the blue some helpful man (sorry, I forgot your name, friend) uploaded 3 full casettes of previously unknown games from Romania

Some screenshots:

Image

and the download:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/z4fsb6

The look really decent. Play much worse unfortunately (try them). But if I was the author then I would be still very proud :)

Admins, would you be interested in adding them to the database?
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Einar Saukas
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Einar Saukas »

Certainly. Thank you!!!
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R-Tape
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by R-Tape »

Sendspace is getting worse, when it finally lets me download my PC blocks it.

^^I'll look forward to seeing these on the site then. They do look great, I'm guessing they all have character based movement?
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PeterJ
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by PeterJ »

I have taken the liberty of putting the download onto my Dropbox. This should be easier to access than Sendspace until we can get them on the site.

Thanks to [mention]Ralf[/mention] for letting us know about these.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/katdli01tenh ... cvI-a?dl=0
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Ivanzx
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Ivanzx »

Oh those are the games I mentioned in a post in WoS some weeks ago! I know the guy in Facebook, and he said months ago that he had recovered some games from his country, Romania, but since WoS was sooo out, I had lost my interest then.

Thanks for recovering them, Ralf!
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PeterJ
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by PeterJ »

I have just done a Google translate of one of the titles and I'm not sure it's appropriate....

Post edited..
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PeterJ
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by PeterJ »

Einar Saukas wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:46 pm Certainly. Thank you!!!
I will get the screens to you over the weekend [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention]
Ralf
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Ralf »

Certainly. Thank you!!!
Great!

If you check the download they are on 3 cassettes. So in the database they would be compilations. Does ZXDB already support compilations?

I could actually volunteer to create proper info with titles, years, genres and so on. But what structure should it have? Do we have some template for enterning new games data?
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Ralf »

I'm not quite sure what the chap is doing in Futai (Tape One)
And I'm afraid I'm sure :lol:
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R-Tape
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by R-Tape »

I'm picking my way through these and while some of them are howlers, all show promise and are great to browse through. There's some great beeper music, I think from bespoke code.

I'd like to see Robotank with the playability issues removed (keypresses, unfair reaction times).
Ralf wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:19 pm And I'm afraid I'm sure :lol:
I couldn't get it to load but it did manage to fill the screen with a giant yellow penis! :o
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Morkin
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Morkin »

Nice find.

What era are these games from?
My Speccy site: thirdharmoniser.com
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R-Tape
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by R-Tape »

Most show a date of '96.
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Morkin
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Morkin »

Ah OK cool - should have probably guessed 90s...
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4thRock
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by 4thRock »

Not that I know any Romanian, but I get some words:

Vieti » Lifes
Viata » Life
Jucator » Player
Viteza » Speed
Timp » Time
Validare » Validate / OK

Relatively obvious if you speak Latin languages, but since this is an english language forum, it may be helpful for playing.
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R-Tape
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by R-Tape »

Ralf wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:19 pm
I'm not quite sure what the chap is doing in Futai (Tape One)
And I'm afraid I'm sure :lol:
Hmm.

We need a new genre for a Solo beat em up in which you run around with a bonk on trying to club a little bald guy that kills you with his deadly urine stream.

Einar, make it so.
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Einar Saukas
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Einar Saukas »

Sorry for the late reply, I missed your question before :(

Ralf wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:19 pm If you check the download they are on 3 cassettes. So in the database they would be compilations. Does ZXDB already support compilations?
Yes. ZXDB supports absolutely everything supported by old WoS archive (and more).

The question is, are they "official" compilations? In the sense that they were either released as compilation with proper author approval and/or these compilations were well known in the country.

I'm asking because, if it just happened that someone took these games from different sources, saved them on the same tape at home, and copied to a couple friends, then these games probably shouldn't be stored as compilation. Just as individual titles.

Ralf wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:19 pm I could actually volunteer to create proper info with titles, years, genres and so on. But what structure should it have? Do we have some template for enterning new games data?
There's no template yet. R-Tape is currently handling this work so I will leave this question for him :)
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Einar Saukas
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Einar Saukas »

R-Tape wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2017 10:08 amI couldn't get it to load but it did manage to fill the screen with a giant yellow penis! :o
Please also add this game to ZXDB, but properly marked as x-rated. This way, it will be blocked from appearing at Spectrum Computing (according to this site policy) but it will be still preserved at ZXDB, in case other ZXDB-based sites decide later to adopt different filtering.
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Kweepa
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Kweepa »

Check out that UDG tractor in, err, Tractor!
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R-Tape
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by R-Tape »

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] Yep I will add it, I was just funning. Only one of them is adult.

[mention]Ralf[/mention] This thread is a bit old now and considered asking you without realising you'd already offered!

I've already made a start on this one but if you're willing to collate these I would be grateful as you may understand more of the details than me. I'm a bit unsure about some of the author's names.

If you're still willing I'll get the template to you tomorrow.
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Nomad »

My first thought was that this scene must have placed a lot of focus on graphics. There is some really nice work. I guess if you have a lot of time on your hands and motivation graphics is a good place to put your energy. Hard to say but my guess is there had to have been some sharing of information about graphics programming locally. What is weird is there seems to have been a huge amount of skill/effort put into the graphics but not the controls. :lol:

Just goes to show what you can do under very difficult circumstances. Crap controls aside I would have been ecstatic if I could have gotten the types of graphics on my games :lol: What makes it even more impressive is this was probably all developed on the actual machine itself.
Ralf
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by Ralf »

Well, yes I'm offering to help. The template could be useful.

I don't know Romanian but suppose will be able to get author's names, years, genres and so on correctly.

I suppose these compilations are released by the authors. They are realeased very unprofessionally without any fancy cassette inlays but I suppose that's how it was. The authors were probably 18 years old or so and they sold about 50 copies of their game by giving ad in some newspaper and sending casssetes by post.

Of course if anybody knows more, I'll be glad to learn. Do we have any members from Romania here? ;)
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utz
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Re: Unknown discovered games from Romania

Post by utz »

Perhaps someone could get in touch with the folks at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Rom ... meComputer to find out more.
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