Spectrum Computing

CJ's Elephant Antics
1st Division Manager

A reference to a non-existent Crash review on page 65 of issue 91 has appeared on both these pages.

Centi-Bugs (DK'Tronics):

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=96&id=865

It's got 'Centibug' as alternate name ('Also known as'). But according to the loading screen, couldn't be also known as 'Centipede'?

Night Gunner (Spectrum Version)

- 1982 Sinclair User review is for a 16K Spectrum version, rather than the 48k, and means the original release year should be 1982
- there should be a link to the ZX81 version
- the Silverbird release is in the wrong position and the Byte Back date of 1983 is incorrect. The order should be:

Original: Digital Integration 1982 (16K version), price £4.95 according to SU review
#1 Digital Integration 1983 (48K version)
#1 ABC 1983
#2 Zafi Chip 1986
#3 Z-Cobra 1987
#4 Silverbird 1989
#5 Byte Back 1991 (©1991 Byte Back is printed on the cassette: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/HOkAAOSw ... -l1600.jpg)

Night Gunner (ZX81 16K)

- there should be a link to the Spectrum version
- the author of this version is David K Marshall according to this Retro Gamer Interview

Fighter Pilot (ZX81 16K) - needs a new entry

- the same page as the 16K Night Gunner review also has a review of the ZX81 version of Fighter Pilot
- released by Digital Integration in 1982 with a price of £5.95 (from the Sinclair User review)
- author is David K Marshall again (from the Retro Gamer interview)
- should have a link to the Spectrum version.

Zzzz
Chiller

Cover art is by John Smyth according to John Smyth in the Facebook Mastertronic Collectors Group.

An interesting case, I think:

Kentilla, by Micromega. Coded by Derek Brewster. The instructions refers to Velnor's Lair (also by the same author):

"[...] As the world rejoiced, other sinister plans were afoot. VELNOR - the
evil sorcerer long-since vanquished for the black arts he practised
(see VELNOR'S LAIR from Quicksilva) - was planning revenge. [...]"

Can we considered Kentilla as the sequel to Velnor's Lair (and create a series with both games)?

Penetrator

Release date is 1982, not 1983. Advertised in the Popular Computing Weekly classifieds in the first week of December 1982, and also in the December 1982 issue of Sinclair User.

Some time ago I've sent by e-mail some corrections to the database and then I was sent the link to this topic as it would be the best place to talk about these small changes.
I've since forgotten about it, but now that I've opened an account here, I thought maybe now we could take care of that.

So, I'll be giving some more details about games I was directly involved with:

Varina - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=34618
André Leão - Beta Tester, Promoter, Manager (don't know if these last two can be accepted on the database)
Filipe Veiga - Graphics, Code
Mário Viegas - Game Design, Screen Art
Pedro Pimenta - Music

Droid Buster - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=34679
Ariel Endaraues - Game Design, Code
Juan Antonio Fernandez - Screen Art
Pedro Pimenta- Music

Moritz Strikes Back - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=34680
Andy Green (2) - Screen Art
Pedro Pimenta - Music
Sebastian Braunert - Game design
Uwe Geiken - Art, Code


Also, how can a new game be added to the database? I'd like to add "The Hair-Raising Adventures of Mr. Hair" that you can find here: https://chopz.itch.io/the-hair-raising- ... of-mr-hair

If you decide to add it, I can already give the credits:
Andy Green (2) - Screen Art
Lee Stevenson - Game Design, Code
Pedro Pimenta - Music

jumperror wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 5:30 pm Also, how can a new game be added to the database? I'd like to add "The Hair-Raising Adventures of Mr. Hair" that you can find here: https://chopz.itch.io/the-hair-raising- ... of-mr-hair

If you decide to add it, I can already give the credits:
Andy Green (2) - Screen Art
Lee Stevenson - Game Design, Code
Pedro Pimenta - Music

Cheers. I've already got this in the queue to add as part of the next update. They happen every couple of weeks, more or less.

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:46 am Penetrator

Release date is 1982, not 1983. Advertised in the Popular Computing Weekly classifieds in the first week of December 1982, and also in the December 1982 issue of Sinclair User.

Interesting finding, and I was thinking that this might be one of the first games to include an ingame editor?

druellan wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 10:59 am Interesting finding, and I was thinking that this might be one of the first games to include an ingame editor?

Melbourne House must have thought so as the adverts describe it as a "unique customizing feature". I can only find one earlier example and that's Munchkin from 1981 - but that was for the Magnavox Odyssey.



Time Gate

Was released in 1982, not 1983. It's at No. 1 in the Spectrum charts in the last week of 1982.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=9809
Mikhail, Russia
Current nickname: Kael (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=7858)
Other nicknames: M!KAEL, amok, MIKAEL, M.I.KAEL
Was part of Bitmunchers group, now part of Mayhem group.

Joe Blob (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=35146) was developed by Filipe Veiga of Espectroteam, not P. Veiga.
Just confirmed by [mention]Andre Leao[/mention]

moroz1999 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:43 pm https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=12779 Grepan (Russia), author of Color Lines, are actually three people:
Vadim Grepan
Sergey Grepan
Svetlana Kolganova
All three are from Moscow, Russia.

Hi [mention]moroz1999[/mention] This means that "Grepan" as a group does not exists, right?

druellan wrote: ↑Wed Dec 25, 2019 1:28 am Hi @moroz1999 This means that "Grepan" as a group does not exists, right?

Seems like this! I don't see any mentions of "Grepan" as a group in the game, only as last names of authors.

Valley of Rains should have machine type 48K/128K, rather than 48K, as the 48K and 128K versions are different.

Could author Shiny be marked as another nickname for Dmitri Krapivin.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=16709

Correct title: Clovek, nehnevaj sa (not Clovek)
Genre: Game: Board
Maximum Players: 4

Poradce
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=3837

Author: Martin Maly
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=9315

'Martin Malg' label can be removed (typing error only)
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=9313

Redshift (34714) was released in 2019, not 2018.

[mention]Ivanzx[/mention] bugfixes are ZXDB, not website, and should go in this thread.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2019 10:51 am Redshift (34714) was released in 2019, not 2018.

@Ivanzx bugfixes are ZXDB, not website, and should go in this thread.

Oooops on my defence I will say that it was way too early

Mezi Věžemi
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=15216

Original Release Year: 1999
(confirms by the authror himself)

Judging by the dates on Twitter, Chase The Ace, Computalk, Pangolin, Dog Walk, and Space 1999 were released in 2019, not 2018.

Sent to me via email from Graham Richards:

Spectrum Computing erroneously states the original release of Balachor's Revenge as being by Lasasoft.
Lasasoft are the programming team. Original release for this sequel was by Monument Microgames and was not distributed by Lasasoft until the physical release had been out a while. It has not yet been re-released but will be.

Ooh, and can you credit Sophie Ann Fretter for the music on Monument's release of Castle Capers? Thank you.

I have been quite intrigued by La Abadía del Crimen and noticed there were several mentions of an unofficial English translation including this full playthrough on YouTube but no obvious download links for an English version. After a lot of dead-end searches I discovered that MAME supports it (well, the English Beta at least), and from that I got the "ROM name" which led me to a serviceable TZX image here at TZXVault. It doesn't use a turbo loader so it converted fine to a TAP which works with my DIVMMC Future (having used tapeconv from fuse-utils).

Please can this file be added to the ZXDB entry to save someone else the hassle in future?

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=3470

this should be transliterated as:

Nu, pogodi!

please correct this entry in the database.