Fitosoft has released a new game called Spaceman Kerl on Rescue
Mission. It's a platform-cum-puzzle game that is based on a simple ZX
Spectrum game from 2019 called Paracaidista Kerl! Starting at the top of
a level, Kerl has to make his way to the bottom by walking off platforms and
falling through space. He can make use of drills (to remove platforms) and slabs
(to extend them), and he can also collect additional drills and slabs, as well
as fuel for his jet pack, but the catch is that in order to collect these items,
he has to land on top of them; he can't collect them by walking into them! This
means that there is a fair bit of thinking involved as you try to ration your
use of resources.
I have taken the time to rename the titles used in a lot of the reviews, so
that they better match the titles listed on the
NVG archive. Generally, the
titles are now based on what is written on the game's inlay (if the game was
released commercially) rather than what appears on the loading screen or in the
game itself. For instance, the classic that is commonly known as The Island
of Dr Destructo is actually titled Destructo on the inlay, and that
is the title that is now used on this site.
Similarly, the Firebird game
Samurai Warrior was previously
listed on this site as Usagi Yojimbo.
6th September 2022
Amstrad CPC World's YouTube channel added
I've added links to videos on
Amstrad CPC World's
YouTube channel on my site. This channel features longplay videos and
compilations of some of the best Amstrad CPC games from particular years and
genres.
After some delays, issue 4 of AmtixCPC Micro Action is now
available from Fusion Retro Books at a price of
£3.99 excluding shipping costs. The main feature I want to highlight is
an interview with me, in which I recall my own history with the Amstrad CPC and
how CPC Game Reviews started, and discuss how I choose which games to review
next, and my current and past favourite games for the Amstrad CPC.
Issue 4 also contains the usual selection of game reviews, a look at some
game covers from 1987, an article by Zoë Kirk-Robinson about the CPC's
floppy disc drive, and a guide by Novabug to the best shoot-'em-ups for the CPC.
RIP Oliver Frey
There is also some sad news from Fusion Retro Books. Oliver Frey, the hugely
talented artist whose many works graced the covers of Crash!,
Zzap!64 and Amtix! (and have also been resurrected on the covers
of AmtixCPC Micro Action), passed away on Sunday 21st August at the age
of 74. For many fans of 8-bit computers, Oliver Frey's artwork was one of the
main reasons why they preferred Crash!, Zzap!64 and Amtix!
over their rivals.
Mananuk has released another platform game for the Amstrad CPC. This one is
called Astrocop. It's slightly different from his previous platformers
in that instead of a single large level, it's divided into 15 small levels, and
on each level, you must collect a floppy disk and rescue a kitten. You can
download Astrocop from
itch.io.
The Mojon Twins have reworked one
of their earlier games for the Amstrad CPC, Lala Prologue, which was
released back in 2010 (was it really twelve years
ago?! How time flies...). The original game (which was
rated 8 out of 10 on this site) featured
four-colour Mode 1 graphics, but this new updated version uses the CPC's
16-colour, low resolution Mode 0 to make the graphics brighter and more
colourful. The movement of Lala and enemy sprites on the screen is now much
smoother as well.
You can download
Lala Prologue 2022 from itch.io. It seems to be the trend among
developers of 8-bit games nowadays to use itch.io for downloading games, as it
provides a convenient means for players to donate money to the developers for
their efforts.
Playonretro has released Red Planet for the Amstrad CPC. The game was
originally released for the ZX Spectrum in 2015, and in it, you control an
astronaut who has to explore an old space station, find ten containers of
explosive, place them in an area deep within the station, and then return to the
room where you entered the station. Your supply of oxygen is limited, so you
will need to find oxygen canisters to replenish it. You can also collect
ammunition to kill enemies - pelusoids, arachnoviruses, and even your former
companions who attempted this mission before you but have been infected by
arachnoviruses! It's a fairly small game – there are only 30 rooms and you
are given so many opportunities to replenish your ammunition that you don't
really need to conserve it – but it has great graphics and is very
enjoyable to play.
You can download Red
Planet from itch.io, although at the moment it's only available as a
cassette image or a snapshot, and some people have reported problems getting
both of them to work on emulators, as well as a real Amstrad CPC. The game is
available in both English and Spanish.
29th June 2022
Blinky's Scary School
Screenshot of Blinky's Scary School
Zisquier (aka Amstariga) has released Blinky's Scary School. I've
played it and it plays very well and looks very nice, but from what I've seen so
far, the puzzles and the layout of the castle have changed, so if you've played
any of the original versions of the game, it probably won't help you much! You
can download
Blinky's Scary School using this link to Google Drive.
Goody, el Regreso
Iván Ávila has released Goody, el Regreso. Spanish
readers may be familiar with Opera Soft's 1987 release
Goody, and this is an unofficial sequel.
Following his previous bank-robbing capers, Goody made some poor financial
investments and has had to don his mask once more and break info safes to recoup
his losses. As with Iván's previous games such as Llum,
Goody, el Regreso has been programmed using the
8 Bits de Poder (8BP) RSX library,
and you can
download his latest game from itch.io.
Paco, el Hombre
Goody, el Regreso isn't the only new release to be programmed using
8BP. Jose Javier García Aranda, the author of 8BP, has released Paco,
el Hombre – a clone of Pac-Man that is designed to demonstrate
that games developed using 8BP don't have to be sluggish. There is only one
level, and there are no power pills to collect, but the game can be played at
four different speeds ranging from 15fps (frames per second) to 33fps. You can
download Paco, el Hombre from the 8BP GitHub page;
look in the dsk and tape folders for the disc and cassette images for use with
emulators.
Jean-Marie Barone has released another modified version of Chuckie
Egg, which is unsurprisingly entitled Chuckie Egg 4. This latest
modification features eight more new screens taken from the 2009 BBC Micro and
Acorn Electron release
Chuckie Egg 2009 by
Dave Edwards, and it also includes a new title screen courtesy of Kukulcan from
CPC-POWER. You can download
Chuckie Egg 4 from NVG.
Blinky's Scary School
Thanks to XeNoMoRPH on the
CPCWiki forum for posting details of
a preview version of a game called Blinky's Scary School that is being
developed for the GX4000 and Plus machines. This arcade adventure platformer was
originally released by Zeppelin Games in 1990 for several 8-bit machines, as
well as the Amiga and Atari ST, but unfortunately the Amstrad CPC missed out. I
used to own it for the ZX Spectrum and I remember playing it a lot – until
the Spectrum developed a terminal fault a few months later and I was left with
only my CPC.
Amstariga has been working for several months developing Blinky's Scary
School, and he has suggested it will be coming very soon. It's looking
quite impressive, although the palette resembles that of the Commodore 64 in
places. You can watch his latest preview video below, and he has posted a few
more videos of the game on
his YouTube channel.
Preview of Blinky's Scary School on YouTube
29th May 2022
Last Friday, Xyphoe presented
the second Amstream Amstrad Video Game Awards Show, known colloquially as the
Sugars. There are no real life prizes, but it's a fun way to recognise the hard
work that has been put in by individuals and teams to develop new games for the
Amstrad CPC over the last twelve months. Fifteen games were nominated, and the
results are as follows:
Jean-Marie Barone has released a modified version of the A'n'F Software
classic Chuckie Egg called
Chuckie Egg 3. Back in 1984, Bit Twiddlers released their own modified
version of Chuckie Egg for the BBC Micro with the title
Chukee, apparently
with the approval of A'n'F Software. It contained eight new screens, and
Jean-Marie has inserted those screens into the CPC version of Chuckie Egg.
You can download
Chuckie Egg 3 from NVG.
Krappygamez has released
Retrobloc for the Amstrad CPC. It's a puzzle game based on an old
MS-DOS and arcade game called Blockout, which is like a 3D version of
Tetris. Retrobloc was originally released for the ZX Spectrum in
late 2020 and it has now been converted to the CPC. If you've played
Welltris on the CPC or another machine,
the presentation will probably look very familiar to you, and the gameplay is
also quite similar, although not identical. You can
download Retrobloc
from itch.io.
I have rewritten my review of Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers
and given it a higher rating. When I first reviewed it, I didn't have a clue
what I was supposed to be doing, but I revisited it recently, and after watching
a couple of YouTube videos, I now understand what to do.
6th April 2022
Toki
GGP continue to tease the Amstrad CPC community with the release on YouTube
of another trailer of
their forthcoming conversion of Toki. The group has stated that this
is the final trailer, and it looks like it is scheduled for release in October.
They didn't state which year, though... The video premiere was on the 1st of
April, so I hope it isn't a poisson d'avril.
We've been waiting for nearly four years now, and I'm sure we can wait for
another six months (hopefully). It's looking amazing, and if you haven't tried
the beta preview version yet (which admittedly is from Christmas 2019),
download it now and
get a taste of what to expect!
Back in the 1990s, I was obsessed with the type-in listings that were
published in Amstrad Action and Amstrad Computer User magazines.
Amstrad Computer User ran a regular feature each month where they
published listings that were written in just ten lines of BASIC, known as
'10-Liners'. I was amazed by the ways in which some programmers managed to cram
so much into ten lines – but one such 10-Liner that I came across recently
is on another level.
Dokoban is a clone of the puzzle game Sokoban, in which you
move blocks around the screen so they are positioned over some markers, while
trying to avoid getting them, or yourself, stuck. Normally I wouldn't write an
article about tiny games like this, but Dokoban has to be seen to be
believed. This game includes 13 highly challenging levels and multi-coloured
graphics, all in ten lines of BASIC, and with no
machine code routines at all! Now, it does cheat a bit, since it's impossible to
type it in manually (it contains lots of characters that aren't available on the
keyboard, so you have to run a separate program that sets it up for use), but
even so, it's just utterly astounding.
It seems that Mananuk just can't stop converting games from the ZX Spectrum
to the Amstrad CPC, as he's released his third CPC game in less than two months!
His latest game is Black Sea – an underwater exploration game in
which you, as Captain Robinson, explore the depths of the Black Sea in your
bathyscaphe in a search for treasure.
Black Sea features a beautiful animated title screen by Éric
Cubizolle (aka Titan) and colourful graphics by Radastan. In my opinion, the
graphics are better than in Mananuk's previous two games for the CPC,
The Mandarin and
Paleto Jones. You can
download Black Sea
from itch.io.
