Does anyone remember Code Masters' humorous music management simulation
Rock Star Ate My Hamster?
Well, SyX has released two modified, updated versions of the game – the
Bizarre Edition and the Millennium Edition.
When Rock Star Ate My Hamster was originally released in 1989, the
tabloid newspaper The Sun ran a competition, and ten of the runners-up
received a special edition for the ZX Spectrum titled Rock Star Goes
Bizarre, which featured six additional pop stars who weren't in the standard
edition. This special edition wasn't preserved until mid-2016. It was then
converted to the Commodore Plus/4 by the Italian team FIRE, who in turn also
developed the Millennium Edition and replaced the existing pop stars with new
additions such as Germana Bigga (Ariana Grande), Ketty Parry (Katy Perry), Anna
Ray Barbados (Rihanna) and Dea Kosova (Dua Lipa). New loading screens have also
been designed, featuring Michael Jackson on the Bizarre Edition and Daft Punk on
the Millennium Edition.
The first new Amstrad CPC game of 2022 has arrived. Team Moritz has released
Moritz on the Autobahn, which is the third game to be released for the
Amstrad CPC that features author Sebastian Braunert's dog Moritz, who has since
sadly passed away. Moritz's cousin has invited him to Portugal, but instead of
flying from his home in Germany, Moritz has decided to travel all the way to
Portugal in his Sinclair C5 and visit several other European countries (Belgium,
France, England, Ireland and Spain) on the way.
As with the previous games in the series, Moritz on the Autobahn is a
platform game in which Moritz must collect hearts (and gold once he reaches
Ireland), while avoiding various creatures and enemies that move around the
screen. The game features several covers of tunes by the pioneering German group
Kraftwerk (including Autobahn, of course), and the game even features a
stand-alone jukebox section based on the cover of Kraftwerk's album The
Man-Machine. You can
download
Moritz on the Autobahn from itch.io and make a donation if you wish.
Abalore is now taking orders for a physical cartridge version of Alcon
2020 – his unofficial conversion of Slap Fight that received
much praise on its release (including a
9 out of 10 rating on this site). Copies
will cost €34.90 (I presume this excludes shipping) and they will be sent
from France. To order a copy,
click this link and then
click the 'Pre-order now' button to send an e-mail to Abalore with the number
of copies you wish to order, along with a delivery address. You can obtain more
information at the
CPCWiki forum.
Although the game is in cartridge format, it is possible to play it on a
standard CPC by using the
Plus2CPC hardware device.
If you want one of those, you'll need to contact Abalore via the CPCWiki forum.
He is also developing an updated version called the
Play2CPC
that offers enhanced sound capabilities and the ability to write cartridges.
Issue 2 of AmtixCPC Micro Action is now
available from Retro Fusion Books at a price of
£3.99 excluding shipping costs, featuring contributions from Novabug, Xyphoe,
Zoë Kirk-Robinson and Simon Butler. Among the features in issue 2 are a review
of Puzzle Bobble and an interview with its developers, Crazy Piri, a look
at the top three games from the recent #CPCRetroDev 2021 contest and an
interview with its organiser Fran Gallego, Simon Butler's opinions of some CPC
artwork, and the usual reviews of new Amstrad CPC games and a couple of classic
games.
Roland Goes Rescuing 2
Zoë Kirk-Robinson has released a new game in time for Christmas called
Roland Goes Rescuing 2. It's a simple little platform game that Zoë
developed on YouTube over a series of livestreams on
her GameHammer Classic
Gaming channel. The game was created using
Arcade Game Designer
by Jonathan Cauldwell, and as Roland, you have to collect as many Christmas
presents as possible so Santa can deliver them to all the boys and girls around
the world. You can
download Roland Goes Rescuing 2 from the CPCWiki forum.
Stéphane Gourichon has just released a new puzzle game called Just Get
9. If you've played 2048 already, then
the concept of Just Get 9 is very similar. There is a 5×5 grid of
tiles, each labelled with a number. You have to combine two or more tiles of the
same number, and when you do, they disappear and produce a new tile with the
following number. More tiles then appear at the top of the grid to replace those
that have disappeared. The goal is to obtain a tile with the number 9. It's not
as easy as it sounds; I've managed to achieve an '8' so far, but that '9' tile
is proving elusive!
Although Stéphane didn't devise the concept (it's based on Veewo Games'
Android game
Just Get 10),
he has produced an excellent and compelling game with great presentation. You
can download Just Get 9 from
itch.io, and look out for a review soon on this site.
2nd best UA student game: Castle Kid (Axolotl) – €75 prize
Special mentions
Best artificial intelligence (awarded by Pablo Ariza): The Wrath of the MCPC (LambdaMikel) – €200
Best music (awarded by César Astudillo, aka Gominolas): Shovel Adventure – €200
Best product (awarded by Relevo): Shovel Adventure – €200
Sponsored awards
Most popular game, as chosen by public votes (awarded by AUA): Shovel Adventure – €200
Best arcade game (awarded by Arcade Vintage): Shovel Adventure – €100 and 5 tickets for the Arcade Vintage museum
Best game with multiplayer options (awarded by Gee-k.net): Castle Kid – €100
Most original final product (awarded by Trusiga): Survive the Week – €100
Best newcomer game (awarded by Ready and Play): LoopWorlds (DreamyZombies Studio) – €70
Best "Opera Prima" (awarded by Blast Annual): Cosmic Gatlin' (Chill Boat Studio) – €50
Best game made in BASIC (presented by AmstradSakis): Wrecking Ball – €60
2nd best game made in BASIC (presented by Somos de Amstrad): Double Keys! (Antonio Corpas Cuenca) – €40
Shovel Adventure was the clear winner with 523 points and €1,030
in prizes, well ahead of Wireware, which obtained 430 points. I watched
the livestream of the awards ceremony, and in the early stages I thought Wireware had a good
chance of winning, but I'm still pleased that CNGSoft did better than in last
year's competition, where he only came fifth with Fire Tyre.
The deadline for submission of entries to the
#CPCRetroDev 2021
contest was the 2nd of November, and 37 entries were submitted (although one of
them has since been disqualified for not strictly adhering to the rules of the
contest).
You can view and
download all the entries for #CPCRetroDev 2021 on itch.io, and this year,
members of the public can also rate the games via itch.io, and the winner of
the public vote will receive a prize of €200. Voting closes on Tuesday
9th November at 23:00 GMT, so you don't have long to cast your votes! The
awards ceremony is due to be held on Friday 12th November at 18:00 GMT (19:00
CET).
YouTube videos by Classic Replay
Classic
Replay has asked me to publicise a couple of his YouTube videos that relate
to the Amstrad CPC. Both of them are very well produced and worth watching. The
first one – Classic Replay's
top ten Amstrad CPC games
– dates from 2015, but it includes a great choice of games, and if you're
new to Amstrad CPC retro gaming, this is a good place to start.
Classic Replay's Top 10 Amstrad CPC games on YouTube
The second video –
Amstrad CPC Ultimate
Gaming Guide – features gameplay footage and commentary on dozens of
CPC games from various genres. It's nearly 1¾ hours long, though, so
you'll probably need to watch it in several sessions if you want to see all the
games.
Amstrad CPC Ultimate Gaming Guide by Classic Replay on YouTube
30th October 2021
I was away for a few days, and I have come back to find that four new games
have been released!
Puzzle Bobble
As promised in a post earlier this month,
Crazy Piri have now released their
conversion of Puzzle Bobble for the CPC. Puzzle Bobble (also known
as Bust-A-Move) is a coin-op game by Taito in which you fire coloured
bubbles and match them with other bubbles of the same colour to remove them. It
features Bub and Bob, the dragon twins from Bubble Bobble. Crazy Piri's
conversion retains the cute graphics of the original coin-op version and
features colourful backgrounds and music from various Taito games and digitised
sounds - and there are 100 levels to complete!
You can download
Puzzle Bobble from itch.io, and you can also make a donation to Crazy
Piri to show your appreciation. The current version is 1.0, but the author,
Miguel Vanhove, has stated that version 1.1 is in progress and should be
released soon.
Gem Jam
A user on the CPCWiki forum
called Arnolde has released Gem Jam - a clone of the tile-matching game
Bejeweled, in which you swap different shapes of tiles around in order to
match at least three tiles of the same type in a horizontal or vertical line.
He's been working on it as a project for several months during COVID-19
lockdowns. A preview was released in May and the final version has now been
released. You can
download
Gem Jam from the CPCWiki forum.
Jewel Warehouse II
EgoTrip has released Jewel Warehouse II. Unsurprisingly, it's a sequel
to his 2016 game Jewel Warehouse, which was well received (such as an
8 out of 10 rating on this site).
Jewel Warehouse II contains 50 more levels of platforming and collecting
jewels, and you can
download
it from the CPCWiki forum.
Josh
CPC-POWER has released a puzzle
game called Josh. In each of the 99 single-screen levels, Josh has to
push fragments of gems around and recombine fragments of the same colour. These
gems have amazing powers of healing, and Josh must find them so that people
around the world can be cured of a highly infectious and deadly disease before
it's too late to save them. You can
download
Josh from CPC-POWER.
Screenshot of Puzzle Bobble
Screenshot of Gem Jam
Screenshot of Jewel Warehouse II
Screenshot of Josh
Throne Legacy
Cover of Throne Legacy
One of the entrants in last year's #CPCRetroDev contest, Throne Legacy
by Arnaud Bouche, is now available to purchase from Bitmap Soft for £10 excluding
shipping costs. If you're not familiar with the game, it's a graphic adventure
that sees you exploring a castle in search of three objects – a sceptre, a
crown and a ring. Retrieving all of these objects will lift a curse and restore
your family's right to rule the land. Throne Legacy was reviewed on this
site and received a
rating of 9 out of 10.
Fumigator is a really mysterious game – so mysterious that no
one seems to know what its correct name is! It was originally uploaded to the
NVG FTP archive under the name The Polluting Bacteria, after a message
that appears on the attract mode screen. Somewhere along the line, it also
became known as Fumiga, after a filename on the disc. A few years
later, a cassette version was found with an Amsoft title screen naming it
Fumigator – although it's uncertain if this was a genuine Amsoft
release, as no one had seen a physical copy of the game. Finally, in 2016, the
ZX Spectrum version, released by Microbyte and known as Exterminator,
was recovered.
The search for a physical copy of the Amstrad CPC version of this game
continues, but in the meantime, CPC Game Reviews will use Fumigator as
its name – mainly because calling it Exterminator could cause
confusion with
Audiogenic Software's game of the same name.
I have reviewed Attentat, and I have also rewritten my
review of Les Pyramides d'Atlantys. I had given it a rating of
only 1 out of 10, but that was largely due to the fact that I didn't understand
how to play it. Someone – it may have been the game's author, Luc Thibaud
– posted a link to a walkthrough of the game many years ago on my
guestbook (which is long gone now) but I never got round to playing it again.
Now I have finally played it again and given it a
rating that it deserves.
A note about CPC Soccer 22 –
CPC-POWER combines it with the
previous release, CPC Soccer, in its database, but the author,
VoxelTower, treats it as a separate game on
his itch.io page, and I have done
likewise and kept Missas' review of the original game.
4th October 2021
There's been so much news about new and forthcoming games recently that it's
difficult to know where to begin!
Title screen of Los Amores de Brunilda
Los Amores de Brunilda
Retroworks has released a new game
called Los Amores de Brunilda. This graphic adventure was released for
the ZX Spectrum in 2013 and the MSX2 in 2019. You control Fray Gonzalo, one of
two monks who are making a pilgrimage. During their journey, they stop at a
village to get some rest, but Fray Gonzalo's companion falls victim to the curse
of Brunilda – the ghost of a woman who committed suicide in the house
where they are staying.
Like Retroworks' most recent CPC release, The Sword of Ianna,
Los Amores de Brunilda is designed to run only on the
Dandanator
hardware device, which enables the creation of games that use up to 512KB of
ROM. Because of this, you can only play the game on a CPC that has this device,
or on an emulator that supports the device, such as
CPCEC or
Retro Virtual Machine. It
is an excellent game with cute and beautiful graphics and very atmospheric
music, and you should definitely try it out if you haven't done so already.
There's even a choice of seven languages, including Basque and Galician; I don't
recall ever seeing any other Amstrad CPC games that support these languages! You
can download Los
Amores de Brunilda from Retroworks' site, or
watch their trailer for
the CPC version on YouTube.
Bug's Quest for Tapes
It was announced on one of Novabug's livestreams very recently that Yellow
Belly's game Bug's Quest for Tapes is now available to download from
CPC-POWER! As you may know if you visit CPC Game Reviews regularly,
the original plan was that it wouldn't be made available to download for free
until after Play Expo Blackpool,
which is taking place on the 23rd and 24th October 2021. However, CPC-POWER
accidentally made the cassette and disc images available for downloading –
oops! Yellow Belly has said that he doesn't mind, though, so go ahead,
download it
and enjoy!
Bubble Quest
Édouard Bergé (Roudoudou) recently released a YouTube video of a game he has
been working on for the GX4000 and Plus machines called Bubble Quest. The
footage dates from 2020 and development of the game has been delayed due to the
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but it looks amazing; it's
hard to believe it's running on a GX4000! The gameplay is very similar to
Bubble Ghost; you have to guide a bubble around the
screen while avoiding any contact with walls and other hazards. Let's hope that
Roudoudou can find the time to finish developing the game. In the meantime, you
can watch the footage below, or
watch it on YouTube.
Video of beta version of Bubble Quest on YouTube (footage from
2020)
Retrobytes Productions
has released a short trailer
on YouTube for Arctic Moves. After the release of Navy Moves,
Arctic Moves was planned as a sequel, and while it eventually saw a
release on the PC in 1995, a CPC version never happened – but it looks
like Retrobytes Productions want to right that wrong! There's no gameplay
footage in the trailer, but it looks like they aim to release a CPC version of
Arctic Moves some time in 2022.
Octopus
The Amstrad Eterno festival took
place in Barcelona on the 25th September 2021 after being cancelled last year
due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and one of the games that was previewed at the
event was Octopus by Cyrille Gouret. Octopus is a game for the
GX4000 and Plus machines that is based on Nintendo's Game & Watch handheld
game of the same name. As far as I can tell, it can emulate the LCD look of the
original Game & Watch handheld, but there will also be a deluxe version with
much better graphics. You can
watch a preview of
Octopus for the CPC on YouTube.
New reviews
As well as all that exciting news, there are also some new reviews to read.
Robert Small has reviewed two games:
Last year, VoxelTower released CPC Soccer to much acclaim (including a
10 out of 10 rating on this site) and
comparisons to Sensible Soccer, which is widely regarded as an excellent
football game for 16-bit machines. Now he has released an updated version called
CPC Soccer 22 with many improvements. The most obvious of these is that
the action is now presented in the CPC's 16-colour Mode 0 instead of the
four-colour, but higher resolution, Mode 1, so teams and players now have more
appropriate colours of shirts. Other additions include five different types of
pitch that affect the behaviour of the ball, cutscenes where the referee
approaches a player to give him a yellow or red card, and a cursor to show where
you're aiming when you're taking, for example, a goal kick or a corner. Even
with all of these new features, the game still fits into 64KB of memory.
ESP Soft has released a new game
called Siemb Chronicles: Arkos the Traitor. It's based on events from two
previously released games – Dinamic's Game Over, and Galactic
Tomb – another game from ESP Soft.
In Game Over, Arkos faithfully served the evil ruler Gremla until he
decided to revolt against her increasing lust for power. Now that she has been
defeated, you, the hero of Galactic Tomb, have travelled to the planet of
Hypsis, where Arkos is based, in a mission to overthrow him.
As previously mentioned on this site, Novabug held his second charity
fundraising stream for
Macmillan Cancer Support on YouTube,
auctioning 20 copies of Yellow Belly's new platform game Bug's Quest for
Tapes, with every penny going to the charity. The target was £664, but it
was easily smashed, with a total of £2,500 raised! One bidder
even donated an utterly astonishing £464!
Novabug's Bug's Quest for Macmillan fundraiser on YouTube
28th August 2021
Cover of issue 1 of AmtixCPC Micro Action
Amtix! magazine relaunched
Chris Wilkins of
Fusion Retro Books has relaunched
the Amstrad CPC magazine Amtix! Originally published by Newsfield
Publications from 1985 to 1987, Amtix! focused on games, but it was less
successful than its ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 counterparts, Crash and
Zzap!64, and it only lasted for 18 issues before merging with
Computing with the Amstrad. Now Chris is planning to relaunch
Amtix! as a quarterly publication called AmtixCPC Micro Action,
with each issue containing 60 A5-size pages.
Novabug has uploaded a
video to YouTube that shows what the physical copies of Yellow Belly's game
Bug's Quest for Tapes will look like. All of these copies will be
auctioned on a YouTube livestream that is scheduled to take place on Saturday
28th August 2021 at 21:30 BST (20:30 GMT), and all the proceeds will go to
Macmillan Cancer Support. This is
intended to be the only opportunity to purchase a physical copy of the game
– once they're sold, that's it! However, images for use with emulators
will be available to purchase at a later date, probably at the end of October
2021.
YouTube video showing the production of copies of Bug's Quest for Tapes
I have reviewed four games, and given that the English football season has
now started, I thought I would include a couple of football management games
(even though I'm not a fan of the genre):
Yellow Belly has released a
promotional video for
his game Bug's Quest for Tapes, which you can watch below. It's looking
very promising, although some of the sprites shown in the later part of the
video are of a somewhat, er... dubious nature!
Promotional video for Bug's Quest for Tapes on YouTube
Yellow Belly is in the process of developing a platform game called
Bug's Quest for Tapes, and it's getting close to completion. It's
based around Novabug's YouTube livestreams
where he tests and plays a few cassettes from his collection of Amstrad CPC
games every Saturday evening. In Yellow Belly's game, you control Novabug and
you have to collect as many tapes on each screen as you can.
Once the game is completed, the plan is that
Xyphoe will play and attempt
to complete it on one of his YouTube livestreams every Friday evening, and if
you would like to purchase a physical copy of Bug's Quest for Tapes,
Novabug will be auctioning twenty copies on one of his livestreams, and all
proceeds will go to Macmillan Cancer
Support. In the meantime, a few screenshots of the game are shown below.
