Some Italians uMIA

[Raoh_hokuto_shinken]

5 italians uMIA

Slot Machine:


Spectropoli :

Saturno :

Poc Man:

Labirinto :


Added in ZXDB
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sp3wl7ulj2sw ... 8JdZa?dl=0

[zup]

- Pocman seems a hacked/modified Gobble a Ghost.
- Saturno is a copy of Fast Lander.

[Raoh_hokuto_shinken]

- Pocman seems a hacked/modified Gobble a Ghost.
- Saturno is a copy of Fast Lander.

Yes maybe... but it’s still variants (see game screen below and compare with the originals)
Poc Man:

Saturno:

[wallyweek]

- Pocman seems a hacked/modified Gobble a Ghost.
- Saturno is a copy of Fast Lander.

Yes maybe... but it’s still variants (see game screen below and compare with the originals)

I guess the right word may be "hack".

There was a lot of pirated software in the 8bit era in Italy, mainly available through dozens of so-called "magazines" offering covertapes full of hacked games re-christened with (funny!) italian titles. See here for a brief example:
https://www.edicola8bit.com/giochi.php? ... al_program

Less popular were a few labels (e.g. Mantra Games, Bear Games) which sold in Computer Shops unauthorized translations of english software.

Not all italian (re-)releases were illegal though, e.g. Jackson Soft was properly licensed by Mikro-Gen for the first 4 games in the Wally series.

Where are these dumps taken from? Do you own the "original" tapes or they come from "backup" compilations?

[Raoh_hokuto_shinken]

Yes maybe... but it’s still variants (see game screen below and compare with the originals)

Where are these dumps taken from? Do you own the "original" tapes or they come from "backup" compilations?

More info here:
https://zxspectrum.hal.varese.it/

Some games are original, others hacked, variants... Lots of sorting to do between them.

[R-Tape]

Yep we'll need to be careful here:

Cracks/hacks = minor tweaks to graphics etc (we do not add these)
Mods = substantial or noteworthy changes (we do add these)

As wallyweek says, a lot of the Italian MIA are cracks. Best to not rush and add these to the DB yet.

[Ralf]

We had a discussion several times about cracks and mods.

And yes, the distinction is not clear. A mod is a good quality, elaborated crack that gives you something more/different than the original.
We also assume that the original author cannot crack himself so any modification made by the author isn't a crack but well, a modified version.

The policy here is that we host mods but not cracks.

These titles seem to be cracks, and crack not good enough to be called mods