Game of the day...

[Ast A. Moore]

Awesome find! Didn’t know Dave knocked out another one.

[R-Tape]

Just stumbled into another addicting game from none other than Stonechat Productions! Looks like this one was released recently for a Summer Jam compilation.



The levels start off nice and easy but around stage 4 or so, things get hectic and stressful. So far this is the highlight of my weekend

Tardigrade. Find it here

This is great to read. Ta for playing.

Awesome find! Didn’t know Dave knocked out another one.

Yep - the first game I've coded from scratch in ages, and the first time in god knows how many years that I had to think about trigonometry!

[TMD2003]

...and the first time in god knows how many years that I had to think about trigonometry!

Earlier today, I had to answer a few questions for a future solar panel installation. The company needed to know the pitch of the roof (35°) and the length along the slope. Which I couldn't measure directly without climbing on the roof, but half the length of the house is 4m, and the slope length = 4m / cos 35° = 4.87m.

I'll have a real-world calculus problem to do next!

[R-Tape]

Earlier today, I had to answer a few questions for a future solar panel installation. The company needed to know the pitch of the roof (35°) and the length along the slope. Which I couldn't measure directly without climbing on the roof, but half the length of the house is 4m, and the slope length = 4m / cos 35° = 4.87m.

Haha great. Double bonus points if you used your speccy for the cos calculations. I might pick your brains on panels in future.

[Morkin]

Aaargh, will you guys stop reminding me about solar power....

[R-Tape]

Aaargh, will you guys stop reminding me about solar power....

Good point - I hope Jim has considered the risks of that deadly beam bouncing all over the place. And does he have space for the helicopters?

[TMD2003]

The panels won't be moving. There is no risk!

Any helicopters can land in the field behind my back fence.

[Ast A. Moore]

Any helicopters can land in the field behind my back fence.

Did someone just say “helicopters?” Cause I have a bunch I can send your way.

[clebin]

Guerrilla War, by Imagine.



A mediocre conversion of a cool arcade game in the Commando/Ikari Warriors style.

Anyway, not a bad game to play on the Spectrum. One of the few Imagine games I hadn't known so far.

I just picked this up on eBay and searched to see if there was any mention of it on these forums. I'd also never heard of it, and at first I thought it was Victory Road which has a very similar cover. I guess that's what happens when Ocean/Imagine are unhappy with a game but chuck it out anyway. Inside the inlay is an advert for Operation Wolf which everyone bought. It cost me £25 which is a lot more than I'd normally pay, but it also seemed quite cheap for a virtually unknown Imagine title.



As for the game, I think Juan sums it up well. It's not a great conversion - the scrolling and framerate are choppy, the graphics are so-so and there's a few bugs.

Against all the odds though, I really enjoyed playing it. The 4 way scrolling sets it apart from Commando/Ikari Warriors and the difficulty levels is pretty good. It also has great AY music on the titles.

To make sure I wasn't going mad, I thought I'd fire up US Gold's Desolator, a game I resent spending money on 30 years on. To my relief, Desolator is still no fun and I have some standards left.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Draughts Genius. A nice draughts game vs Einstein



By the way, as you can see in the screen, I tried to move till the cursor position but the game said it was a invalid move. I can't guess why it is an invalid move. Am I missing something about draughts rules?

[TMD2003]

Do you have to jump the two white draughts one at a time? Maybe if you jump just the first one, it'll ask if you want to jump again...?

I've little to no experience of any Spectrum draughts games other than A.M. Scott's generic version from 16/48 Tape Magazine. It beats me why this wasn't something that Psion made in the early days - they did Chess and Backgammon just fine, and Othello... just about.

Looking at this, I'm reminded about castling in Quicksilva's Chess Player (and there's another software house that could, and should, have made a decent draughts game). The computer will show the standard "O-O" or "O-O-O" for castling, but to do it yourself, it involves moving the king two squares towards the rook, and it'll do the rest for you. (I had to check to see if this is how it works on Psion Chess - and it is, so I suspect this is standard practice.)

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Do you have to jump the two white draughts one at a time? Maybe if you jump just the first one, it'll ask if you want to jump again...?

I tried both options and always the same message.

[Luzie]

By the way, as you can see in the screen, I tried to move till the cursor position but the game said it was a invalid move. I can't guess why it is an invalid move. Am I missing something about draughts rules?

Could you please provide a snapshot of this/at this movement position?

Does this help?! ("Multiple Moves"):

[Daveysloan]

I used to LOVE Draughts Genius back in the day, it was great for a budget game.

Iirc I think you've got to click once on the 1st jump then twice on the 2nd to finish the move.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Maybe that's the question, clicking twice.

I'll try later. Thanks!

[RWAC]

Smuggler by CCS (1983)



You sail around Europe buying and selling goods and trying to make a profit. There's not much to it but it's a nice game and very addictive.

[RWAC]

Egghead Goes to Town by Jonathan Cauldwell

[R-Tape]

Egghead Goes to Town by Jonathan Cauldwell

Good shout. This is very much an explorer game for me. It's so big and well cheat-protected that I can't see myself knuckling down and finishing it anytime soon (sorry Jonathan!*).

*Though I did fire my +2 up today and had a decent play of Quantum Gardening if it helps!

[Pegaz]

Here's an interesting Russian game - Mystery of Ancient Castle, which I missed somehow in the "Best modern game..." discussion.
It's some kind of mix or tribute, based on Dizzy graphics, as well as some other games, including several well known sound themes.
Still, all this is very good packed and the end result is very good.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... ent_Castle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLWJrFTo14

[R-Tape]

A bit of Halloween warm up (mind you the shops started that on September the 30th) with Pumpkin Poe. A very polished AGD game. It looks completable but has some very pretty hard screens.

[Pegaz]

After a long time, I played again a great Russian game - Escape to Kharkhan.
The game has Dizzy look&feel, but actually is much more than that and its really worth to try.
Translation from Russian and conversion from trdos to tap format, has done by [mention]tom-cat[/mention] and it can be played on standard 128K models, too.
For some reason on SC, the game is wrongly called "Flight to Kharkhan" and that should be fixed.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... o_Kharkhan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcWoj59CUpk

[R-Tape]

For some reason on SC, the game is wrongly called "Flight to Kharkhan" and that should be fixed.

That's not an SC error - the English version is actually called "Flight to Kharkhan" by the authors. So да — это плохой перевод, but it's not a database error.

[Pegaz]

Last night I also played two great Jetpac mods - Jetpac DX (or advanced) and Jetpac RX.
They look really good, first one is there for a long time but somehow remained quite unknown.
Both have modified levels, although RX has more changes in the graphics.
There is couple of Jetpac mods in sc database, but I didnt notice these two...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8S4fo2Zrrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qapgZN-sj5Y

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Escape From Omicron by Video Showcase (1984), a 16K maze game, must be today's game for obvious reasons:

[BillyDuke89]

The Great Escape was loosely based on the classic movie of the same name back in the days when film adaptions weren't exclusively terrible. It cast players as a prisoner of war who had to employ careful strategies to give his German captors the slip, and we felt nothing short of triumphant when making our own daring getaway.