Spectrum Computing

Right, fingers crossed all 30 entries here are valid!

You have seven days to pick the best playable demo of a budget game that was given away on a covertape on the front of one of the three major UK Speccy mags.

(The usual caveat about the links/screenshots being based on the full game, so you may see some depictions that won't be in the playable demo, but hey, I'm not going to go through thirty playable demos and make a specific screenshot from each of them. 'For illustration purposes' is the handy catchphrase from

Action Farce II: Special Crash Edition (playable demo) by Nutty Software


Biff (playable demo) by Beyond Belief


Captain Dynamo (playable demo) by Code Masters


Chevy Chase (playable demo) by Hi-Tec Software


Devastating Blow (playable demo) by Beyond Belief


Dizzy - Crash Special Edition by Code Masters


Double Dare (playable demo) by Alternative Software


F14 Tomcat (playable demo) by Players


More Tea, Vicar? (playable demo) by Cronosoft


Motorbike Madness (playable demo) by Mastertronic


Potsworth & Co (playable demo) by Hi-Tec


Pro Speedboat Simulator (playable demo) by SPS Designs


Road Runner and Wile E Coyote (playable demo) by Hi-Tec Software


Ruff And Reddy In The Space Adventure (playable demo) by Hi-Tec


Sensitive (playable demo) by Peter Gordon


Sergeant Seymour Robot Cop (playable demo) by Code Masters


Shark (playable demo) by Players Premier


Snare (playable demo) by Beyond Belief


Steg (playable demo) by Code Masters


Street Cred' Football (playable demo) by Players Premier


Tai Chi Tortoise (playable demo) by Zeppelin Games


Task Force (playable demo) by Players Premier


The Gordello Incident (part one) by Tartan Software


The Race (playable demo) by Players Premier


Tilt (playable demo) by Linel


Titanic Blinky (playable demo) by Zeppelin Games


Top Cat In Beverly Hills Cats (playable demo) by Hi-Tec Software


Treasure Island Dizzy - Crash Special Edition by Code Masters


Turbo The Tortoise (playable demo) by Hi-Tec

1) Dizzy - Crash Special Edition
I have a love/hate relationship with the pixelated ovoid. I did play the original game for weeks, no, months! And then it came back with a sequel. And again. And again. A cash cow that got milked with diminishing returns (although Kwik Snax and Fast Food were interesting diversions). Definitely an influential game that does stand out and deserves all its recognition but I did get egg fatigue when Crash would go fanatical about the twenty-sixth (or whatever) sequel.

2) Snare
I found this game an enjoyable cerebral challenge, truly underrated.

3) Captain Dynamo
Quite a gem from the Speccy's twilight years and this is not too bad in the Codies' phase of knocking out characters that would appeal to the younger crowd who loved Dizzy.

I loved Dizzy and his many sequels, so they'd easily take the top spot, except I'm applying my own arbitrary rules again that I actually have to remember the demo and not the full game so they're out of the running.

So with those completely nonsense rules in place:

1) Steg the slug - an underrated gem from far too late in the day to get the recognition it deserved.

2) Titanic Blinky - yeah one of those games I'd probably have bought and enjoyed, but never actually saw it. The demo made it seem fun anyway

3) Captain Dynamo - reminds me of old school arcade games like bomb jack. Probably incredibly shallow, but I did enjoy the demo nonetheless.

More Tea Vicar was a great game, but did it really demo on a covertape? It's a 2004 era game, so I can only assume it was some sort of revival magazine if it did.

AndyC wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 1:52 pm More Tea Vicar was a great game, but did it really demo on a covertape? It's a 2004 era game, so I can only assume it was some sort of revival magazine if it did.

It's from Your Sinclair issue 94 - which is canon or non-canon depending how you interpret its existence. Issue 94 is a Retro Gamer creation (albeit legally licensed), given free with Retro Gamer and although there is no physical covertape, I believe there were emulator-compatible files on Retro Gamer's cover CD-ROM, which I guess is like a surrogate 'Beaut Box 8'. Two of the four items were previously released on actual YS covertapes.

Your Sinclair issue 94 'covertape' contents

• Batty
• Moley Christmas
• More Tea, Vicar? (playable demo)
• Sensitive (playable demo)

1 Dizzy Crash Special Edition
2 Steg
3 Biff

This time I'll just based on mostly what I've played back then:

1) Task Force. A cheaper Cybernoid clone, but the demo is fine. I've played and disassembled it a bit. Not much though, but enough to see how the map was build from. Compared to the Shark demo, Task Force was had a lot more content.
2) Motorbike Madness. I remember that I've wanted to see how it was made, but back then I had no idea how isometric worked. (Probably still have no idea yet.) But it was also a nice demo.
3) The Gordello Incident. I actually haven't completed that one yet. But still on 3 because I remember in text adventure land, 4 pounds is already a full price game.

There were many others on the list that could have been on the top 3, if they had more content in the demo, or that I had played it back then.
For example, the Blinky demo I finished in 5 minutes, and therefore really isn't worth it as a demo.

1. Turbo The Tortoise
2. Dizzy Crash Edition
3. Double Dare

And the winner is, unsurprisingly, Dizzy - Crash Special Edition! A rare case of a playable demo being issued long after the actual game was released. That got six votes.

Another Code Masters effort is in second place - Steg gets three votes.

Hi-Tec's Turbo The Tortoise is in third place with two votes.

The demos with one vote each are jointly fourth: Captain Dynamo; Chevy Chase; F14 Tomcat; Street Cred Football and The Gordello Incident (part 1).

The proportional results tell a similar story:

Dizzy - Crash Special Edition by Code Masters 8
Steg (playable demo) by Code Masters 5
Task Force (playable demo) by Players Premier 3
Turbo The Tortoise (playable demo) by Hi-Tec 3
Captain Dynamo (playable demo) by Code Masters 2
Motorbike Madness (playable demo) by Mastertronic 2
Snare (playable demo) by Beyond Belief 2
Titanic Blinky (playable demo) by Zeppelin Games 2
Biff (playable demo) by Beyond Belief 1
Double Dare (playable demo) by Alternative Software 1
Gordello Incident, The (part one) by Tartan Software 1