Spectrum Computing

Three lads from Russia bringing joy to the retrogaming world by continuing to make games for commercially dead platforms since, ooh, 2011 I think!

And over on the ZX Spectrum they really do push the boundaries on what people think is possible. Here are 16 games made by @DenisGrachev and his RetroSouls colleagues. It's a tough question to ask - what is your favourite out of all of these? There's an immense amount of quality here, but I'm giving you seven days to pick your favourite.

I can't answer it right now, so yeah, I'll do a Twitch stream later in the week to give a properly informed opinion...

Alter Ego


Dreamwalker: Alter Ego 2


Gluf


Gravibots


Join


Lirus


Multidude


Old Tower


Ringo


S.I.P.


Sector


Sector: Invasion


Twinlight


Tiny Dungeons


Tourmaline


Yazzie

Not an easy one. All games are wonderful...

Yeah, this is pick your favourite child.... Jim choosing either Pam Beasley (Jenna Fischer) or Katy Moore (Amy Adams).... Knight Lore or Alien 8.... Scampi or nice n spicey Nik Naks. Portal or Portal 2..... You want both. in this case, all of them to win.

1. Old Tower
2. Dreamwalker
3. Yazzie

All the other games are excellent, but I've just had too much fun with those three. Wanting to put them all in joint first place is entirely understandable.

1. Gravibots
2. Sector: Invasion
3. Multidude

All great games.
For me, Denis is one of the greatest game designer nowadays. All games are great.

I think I know my top spot, but this is going to need a play session.

MatGubbins wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 12:56 pm Yeah, this is pick your favourite child....

Join, your mummy and daddy love you very much, but...

These are fantastic games... it's very difficult to pick one! I wish i could vote for at least 2 or 3

I've gone with Multidude as my pick as I just love it, everything about it is excellent.

1 - Multidude
2 - Old Tower
3 - Gluf

Tough one, as there are many amazing looking games and many amazingly playable games, although they're not always the same ones. I feel as if games like MultiDude and Gluf are ever-so-slightly held back by a few concessions to how the graphics are done, but what graphics there are are brilliant. And probably my favourite to play is Gravibots, which has very good graphics for what it needs to show, but simply isn't as colourful as the others. Ringo is an extraordinary achievement, but dropping to ZX81 resolution to get that much colour and animation on screen is maybe a little too far. And Yazzie uses colour in such a subtle way it looks like the Spectrum is displaying colours it hasn't got, never mind in 4x the attribute resolution. As for Old Tower, I'm just not very good at it and keep getting stuck!

It also seems unfair to be criticising such a brilliant load of games at all, but it wasn't me who set one against the other!

So, overall, I think it has to be Dreamwalker. Brilliant gameplay and good use of a mix of multicolour to enhance the scenery, coupled with an older style sensibility of attribute-clash avoidance.

1 Tourmaline
2 Alter Ego
3 Old Tower

This is a tough one, I went for Tourmaline in the end as it's on par with Earthshaker in the world of Boulderdash clones.

Tomorrow from 8pm UK time (or 3am Omsk Standard time if you're over in the Novosibirsk Oblast), I'll be on https://twitch.tv/ReheatedPixels to give each of these 16 games a brief little play to discover which ones I like best.

(Наверное, все.)

1. Yazzie
2. Multidude
3. Dreamwalker

One of the toughest polls that I've had to choose from as any one of these games would be a deserving winner.

1) Dreamwalker: Alter Ego 2
2) GLUF
3) Multidude

Well, I've made my Twitch stream on this and it's a very tough call, you could stick a Rizla paper in between the top ten games for where they are on quality. Really tough to choose. The games are so good you could shut your eyes, pick one at random and I don't think anyone would argue.

But yeah, rewatch my stream here and you'll see I did give each game a bit of a play (yes, some much more than others) and so this is now my honest vote!

I've had a good go at Ringo. Its ace, so voted for that. What a superb list of games, most of which i never knew about. One of the reasons i love these polls and enjoy them every week is picking up on cool games i never had back then or are relatively new and i've missed them... (So thanks Pete, long may these continue).

I've also made my own "1G1R" Spectrum collection for my MiSTer so i don't have to trawl through 1000's of cacky games. Lets be honest, theres a crapton of rubbish to wade through. It currently stands at 2370 files (stick with me this is going somewhere)...

So i have a #-E folder, an F-L folder (and the rest of the alphabet), then i have an Artic Computing folder, one for Automata UK, Behind Closed Doors, Code Masters, Dizzy, DK Tronics, Firebird, Gargoyle, Hewson, Imagine, Jonathan Cauldwell, Level 9, Magic Knight, Microsphere, Mikro-Gen, Odin, Tom Frost, Ultimate and Vortex. I then have a "Top 300" (my picks) to catch everything not already in another folder. (Happy to share BTW, every game is a TZX file where possible and all sets are complete. Collection is 68mb currently).

So the point of this is... Since this poll was created i have added a "RetroSouls" folder. I would class it as one of the best collections of games for the Speccy ever, congrats to the RetroSouls guys on these games.

Not to derail the thread too much (you don't mind do you Pete ), anyone got any suggestions for software houses or authors that i should consider having in their own folder. My intention is to do a complete 2020, 2021 and 2022 release set as well.

So yeah. Ringo.

1 - Gluf
2 - Alter Ego
3 - Gravibots

It's got to be Gluf for me. It's an absolute riot. It's got all the action and joy of a 'regular' arcade game without any compromises for the multicour. I'm in the minority, but I much prefer Alter Ego to Dreamwalker - I think Alter Ego looks classier and is more atmospheric. Gravibots nearly stole second place, in fact ask me on a different day it might have stolen first.

These are all incredible games by a talented team. I love that Denis isn't afraid to go very big or very small when it comes to pixels!

Also - loving these homebrew polls Prodge.

1 Dreamwalker
2 Gluf
3 Multidude

Well, Dreamwalker (Alter Ego 2) got this with 7 votes. Frankly, you could shut your eyes in the poll, vote randomly and you would not have picked a duff game. RetroSouls output is simply astonishing and I say that even about the zero-voted here.

Joint second place: Old Tower and Ringo, 5 votes each.

Gluf is third, with 4 votes.

Tourmaline and Yazzie are both fifth with 3 votes.

Gravibots and Multidude are both sixth with 2 votes.

There's a single vote each for Alter Ego and Tiny Dungeons, placing them seventh.

The proportional votes have the same winner, but a slightly different story...

Dreamwalker: Alter Ego 2 9
Gluf 8
Multidude 8
Old Tower 6
Alter Ego 4
Gravibots 4
Yazzie 4
Tourmaline 3
Sector: Invasion 2