Little bugs in the database 4

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Stu
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Zut Alors! is by Brian Asbury -- he isn't credited in-game as far as I can see but the readme for the Amiga version mentions that he wrote it (I've pasted the relevant bit here).

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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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The comment for The Pettigrew Chronicles could probably do with some expansion; as per https://archive.org/stream/computer-vid ... 6/mode/1up the game is "a 2-cassette pack containing the best of Pettigrew's Diary and Operation Safras" -- two BBC/Dragon 32 games which are made up of multiple parts, so Pettigrew Chronicles seems to be a grab-bag of bits from those two games.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Doctor Who and the Warlords should be "Doctor Who and the Warlord" (singular) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Wh ... he_Warlord
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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They Stole A Million (1986)

wasn't released until mid-1987; "Ariolasoft have finally gotten their Christmas '86 release, They Stole A Million ready to into the shops." - ZX Computing 6/87

Edgar Belka is the programmer, not the creator. The designer is Chris Palmer of Tigress Marketing. Sources: here and here
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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CD-Player was included with Powerplay as well as Crime Busters.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Stu wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 11:46 am The Price of Magik is missing its Atari 8-bit link: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-40 ... _4125.html
Text adventures in the database, in general, are missing a huge number of other platforms mentions & links. There are hundreds... if not over a thousand additions that could be made in this area. It may be better if an automated tool/system is produced to help with that.

To illustrate the huge amount of work that would be involved...

Colossal Adventure from Level 9, for example, only lists four non-Spectrum platforms...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... _Adventure
...when that game was available for another fourteen additional systems.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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The Dragonstar Trilogy is by Fergus McNeill (the individual entries for the games on the tape are credited to him but the collected Dragonstar Trilogy isn't).
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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EINAR/DRU: DAVE IS LOOKING AT THIS ONE AS PART OF AN MIA FIND
Stu wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:30 pm The Dragonstar Trilogy is by Fergus McNeill (the individual entries for the games on the tape are credited to him but the collected Dragonstar Trilogy isn't).
That entry needs a bit of extra work too because, as the magazine references/reviews on that page state, The Dragonstar Trilogy "compilation" was actually released originally by Delta 4 in 1984; the GI Games release wasn't the first time that the three parts appeared together on one tape.

The date of the GI Games re-release is wrong too. I'm fairly sure that I've already submitted a correction for that, though. GI Games didn't republish the Delta 4 stuff until the early 1990s.

Edit: The inlay shown on that entry is *not* the GI Games one.,, it is the one from the original Delta 4 release... http://delta4.co.uk/delta4/delta4/2005games.htm

Edit2: A quick not about timelines... The earliest advert linked to shows that the three games in the series originally were sold separately...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 08&page=48
That's in May 1984.

The later reviews (July 1984 and October 1984) all refer to the three games/parts in the Trilogy being sold on one tape. That matches the inlay and notes on the Delta 4 site. Probably a case of Fergus rethinking the release and bundling them together for a fiver rather than trying to ask for £15 for a Quilled adventure.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 15&page=38
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 652&page=9
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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8BitAG wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:55 pm The later reviews (July 1984 and October 1984) all refer to the three games/parts in the Trilogy being sold on one tape. That matches the inlay and notes on the Delta 4 site. Probably a case of Fergus rethinking the release and bundling them together for a fiver rather than trying to ask for £15 for a Quilled adventure.
Having seen how short the solutions are I'm not surprised he reconsidered!
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

Superman - The Man of Steel has author roles in the loading screen that could be added:

Sarah Day - Art
Richard Cheek - Art
Paul Drummond - Art
Mike Talbot - Code
Tim McCarthy - Code
Doug Thrower - Design
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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The Z80 snapshot of Cuddles...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... um/Cuddles

is labelled as being from 1984. It is not the version from 1984; it is one of the later re-releases. (The original 1984 version, contained in the TZX, is a different version of the game with a standard Spectrum font)
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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The page for In Search of Angels will probably need a bit of work too, at some point...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... _of_Angels

...as it also has lots of versions with the wrong dates attached; one of the issues inherited from the original WOS database sadly... it's harder to retrospectively match a date to the files for games released multiple times.

Some obvious fixes, though...

Date of release should be 1984... the page links to two 1984 reviews.

The Z80 version on the page is *not* a 1984 (or even 1985) version. It has a custom font rather than the standard Spectrum font of the first release.


Similarly....
Faerie
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... rum/Faerie

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

Quann Tulla
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... uann_Tulla

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

Ice Station Zero
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... ation_Zero

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

Four Minutes to Midnight
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6 ... o_Midnight

Listed as 1985, is reviewed in 1984.

i.e. All six of those 8th Day, Games without Frontiers titles, were released in 1984 *not* 1985.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Monster Mine by Gem Software (1982)

The Richard Shepherd version is the original version first advertised in November 1982. The Gem version isn't advertised until May 1983.

The Spectrum version should also be in the multi machine medium group like the ZX81 version already is because they are on the same tape.

The blank "Original publisher" and "Original release" fields on the ZX81 version should also be Richard Shepherd Software.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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At present there are two versions of System 15000 listed in ZXDB:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/5 ... stem_15000
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... nd_Edition

These are linked in a series:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... up_id=3498

However there is little difference between the two -- only 10 bytes are different between the TZX files. Would it be better to combine the two into a single entry and count the 2nd edition as a re-release?
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Bored of the Rings:

The loading screen is from the CRL/Silversoft version, not the original Delta 4 release -- does this need to be replaced?

There's a TAP file for the original release but not the CRL/Silversoft releases -- would this be worth uploading?

I don't know if it's worth adding to the description but the TAP file currently uploaded is taken from the "v2" TZX. This can be checked by loading part 3, starting the game (the passphrase is "Work for money, spend money, spend for love, love for money") then typing JUDITH -- v2 responds differently to v1 and v3.

The original Delta 4 release has a different version of Sceptical to the CRL/Silversoft release (mostly the same text but some pages are different, and the pages are displayed differently) -- does this need a separate entry or can it be listed under the existing entry? Either way, does it need a loading screen, running screen and TZX/TAP file to be uploaded?
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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As noted in this WOS thread, Chain Reaction has 128k music which is disabled but can be re-enabled by patching one byte. According to the source code it's by Rob Hubbard. I don't know if this should be added to ZXDB since it's technically in the final game, but not readily available?
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Invasion Force (Artic):

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=2535
The displayed loading screen is from Forward Software re-release edition; the original Artic first-release should be displayed instead.

Image
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Stu wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 4:32 pm Bored of the Rings:

The loading screen is from the CRL/Silversoft version, not the original Delta 4 release -- does this need to be replaced?

There's a TAP file for the original release but not the CRL/Silversoft releases -- would this be worth uploading?

I don't know if it's worth adding to the description but the TAP file currently uploaded is taken from the "v2" TZX. This can be checked by loading part 3, starting the game (the passphrase is "Work for money, spend money, spend for love, love for money") then typing JUDITH -- v2 responds differently to v1 and v3.

The original Delta 4 release has a different version of Sceptical to the CRL/Silversoft release (mostly the same text but some pages are different, and the pages are displayed differently) -- does this need a separate entry or can it be listed under the existing entry? Either way, does it need a loading screen, running screen and TZX/TAP file to be uploaded?
I can't edit this now (maybe because I accidentally quoted it first? :roll: ) but just to clarify, the existing Sceptical entry is the CRL/Silversoft release.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Audionautas wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:39 am Hi guys!

I'm doing some searching on ZXDB and I miss an interesting feature.

I'm doing an advanced search by "Language" in this case. My intention is to list all games in Serbian language, for example. Great!, I have a list of games in that particular language. But after reviewing that list I can't find any game from the most famous Serbian 8 bit programmer, Duško Dimitrijević, and that's is because he released all his games in the UK, so the language is English.

So, I miss the option of searching by "Nationality" (of the , not only by "Language". The same case goes for Homega Software, the Hungarian guys who coded Express Raider for U.S. Gold. They're Hungarian but you can't find it as a game made in Hungary because it's in English.

I think this feature of searching by "Nationality" would be very useful to have a real outlook of the software production made in a certain country, regardless the language in which was made.

Thank you!
Hi guys

The other day I made the suggestion above on the "advanced search" feature on SC that I think would be great to be added on ZXDB, but now I'm trying to do another kind of search that I think it could be useful to add to the ZXDB too. I'm trying to search by "film licence" or "arcade licence" in order to list all games based on films and arcade machines. The same would be great for "comic-book licence", "tv series licence" and so on. Perhaps it would be a great addition to the search engine. What do you think?
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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The David Shaw that is credited for Boxing is David A. Shaw of the Shaw Brothers, as mentioned on their website.
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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StooB wrote: Fri May 15, 2020 11:30 am Steve Blower

His role on ZZoom is presumably 'Inlay/Poster Art' as he did all the other Imagine covers. Mobygames agree.
Old Imagine software credits can be improved just looking at the instructions:

Zip-Zap (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/5 ... um/Zip-Zap)
GAME DESIGN & SOFTWARE by Ian Weatherburn
GRAPHIC DESIGN by Steve Blower.

Also, the Spanish instructions seems to be from a pirated version and marked as incomplete. Perhaps worth to remove them. https://archive.org/download/World_of_S ... plete).pdf

Arcadia (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... um/Arcadia)
Might be nice to credit David H. Lawson as D.H.L. as in the game, and to have those initials as an alternate nickname.

Ah Diddums (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... Ah_Diddums)
Spectres (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4 ... m/Spectres)
Also signed as D.H.L.

Jumping Jack (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... mping_Jack)
PROGRAM CODING by Albert Ball
GRAPHIC DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION by Steve Blower
Stuart C. Ball - Graphics

Pedro (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/3 ... trum/Pedro)
GAME IDEA, AND MANY THANKS to Stephen Knight.
PROGRAM by Frank Johnson.
GRAPHICS by Ally Noble & Dawn Jones.
MUSIC by Fred Gray & Abdul Ibrahim.
ILLUSTRATIONS by Brial Wall.
PHOTOGRAPHY by Bernard Rose.
COFFEE MADE by Lynn Livingstone.

B.C. Bill (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4 ... um/BC_Bill)
B.C.BILL (C) 1984 by Creative Technology Group Ltd. We know Abdul Ibrahim was part of Creative Technology, but I wonder who "Eric the Bear" was.

Cosmic Cruiser (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... ic_Cruiser)
Again, (C) Creative Technology Group Ltd

Dominoes (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... m/Dominoes)
** All programs written by D.G. Cross.

Something very odd about this game. D.H.L. is credited, but his name is not present on the game. But, if you inspect the code of the TAP version, you can find "1982 by IMAGINE SOFTWARÅCopyright: Program,Audio,VisuaìPresentóBY D.H.L?" This looks like a leftover on the tape image.

Anyway, confirmed label D.H.L. in the database is indeed David H. Lawson

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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

Post by Stu »

BLAM has a Tipshop page not currently linked to: https://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/info.pl?name=Blam
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Re: Little bugs in the database 4

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Unidentified covertape program Hacks Amazing is from Sinclair User 127.

As an aside, I've extracted all the SU, YS and Crash pokes programs (Poke City, Pokemania, Practical Pokes etc.) as TZXs -- if there's any interest in creating separate ZXDB entries for each of them then I'm happy to upload them somewhere and help create the entries.
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