I've added links to videos on
GameHammer Classic Gaming's
YouTube channel on my site. This channel is run by Zoë Kirk-Robinson and it
features a variety of videos, including occasional reviews of Amstrad CPC games
and multi-format comparisons of games, similar to the ones you'll find on
ChinnyVision.
23rd March 2019
Vintage is the New Old and Retro Video Gamer are running a poll called the Amstrad CPC Gamers' Choice Award, to decide the best
Amstrad CPC game released in 2018. Thirteen games have been nominated, and you
can vote for your favourite three games. The vote closes at 23:59 GMT on Monday
25th March 2019.
10th March 2019
Screenshot of Scramble
Scramble
PuzCPC has converted Konami's 1981 coin-op game Scramble to the CPC.
For those who don't know, Scramble is a horizontally scrolling
shoot-'em-up in which you fly along a landscape shooting aliens and frantically
bombing ground targets, missile launchers and fuel tanks in an attempt to stay
alive for as long as possible. PuzCPC has spent ten months programming it and
it is amazing just how faithfully it has been reproduced on the CPC!
You can download
Scramble from the CPCWiki forum. The reception from CPCWiki forum
members has been overwhelmingly positive, and if you haven't tried it already,
I'm sure you'll love it too.
2nd March 2019
Novabug, in collaboration with Indie Retro News, has uploaded a
YouTube video which
contains an exclusive first look at the full version of Pinball Dreams,
with footage from all four tables. It looks amazing!
Pinball Dreams video on YouTube
17th February 2019
Batman Group has tweeted
that the Amstrad CPC version of Pinball Dreams was finished in November
2018 and they are negotiating with Rebellion, who hold the intellectual property
rights to the game. Keep your fingers crossed that an agreement will be reached
and we'll see a full official version of Pinball Dreams for the CPC soon!
Pinball Dreams teaser video on YouTube
A preview version of Pinball Dreams with one table (Beat Box) was
released in late 2016, and if you've yet to try it, you can
download it from NVG.
13th February 2019
Repoker de Ases
4MHz are planning to release a unique
product for the CPC – a compilation of five of their games on a single
cartridge that plugs into the back of your CPC! The good news for CPC464 owners
is that all of the games are now compatible with machines with 64KB of RAM; some
of the games originally required 128KB of RAM.
The cartridge is limited to 150 units, and if you
place an order by 28th of
February, it will cost you €39.95 (excluding shipping). After this date, it
will cost €45.00. 4MHz has stated that everyone who places an order before
28th of February will have their names included in the main menu and the
instruction manual.
Here's a list of the five games that will be included in the compilation,
with links to their reviews on this site:
Jordi Sureda and Santi Ontañón released Phantomas 2.0
on the 1st of February. It's a remake of Dinamic's 1986 release Phantomas
2, which British readers will know better as the Code Masters release
Vampire. Phantomas 2 is regarded as a classic in
its native Spain, but the Amstrad CPC version looked rather ugly and
Spectrum-like.
Phantomas 2.0 features improved graphics using the CPC's high-colour,
low-resolution MODE 0, and several tunes are also included. The control method
has also been altered; the original game enabled you to jump in two different
ways using two different keys, but to simplify the gameplay, only one key is now
used to control the extent of your jumps.
You can download Phantomas 2.0
from Santi Ontañón's GitHub page, and physical cassette copies
are also available from
Matra
for €8.75 (excluding shipping).
New reviews
I have reviewed the first three games in a series of six by the French
publisher Chip that star secret agent Karl Adrix, also known as KA:
ESP Soft has released a playable
demo of their forthcoming game Red Sunset as a Christmas gift for Amstrad
CPC fans. It's a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up in the style of
1942 or
Flying Shark, with the action viewed from an overhead perspective.
You can download Red Sunset
now from ESP Soft's site. Merry Christmas!
1st December 2018
Box artwork of Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death
Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death
The highly acclaimed text adventure Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death
can now be pre-ordered
from poly.play. The CPC version can be purchased on cassette or disc, and if
you buy the cassette version, you'll also receive the ZX Spectrum version on the
other side of the cassette. The package will also include goodies such as a
poster, patch
and stickers, and you'll also get a bonus game called Eight Feet Under
(and the author, Stefan Vogt, has tweeted images of the beautiful
title screens,
drawn by Railslave).
Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death costs €20 for the cassette and
3½″ disc versions, and €25 for the 3″ disc version
(excluding shipping). Sadly it isn't expected to be available until mid-January
2019. If it had been released during December it would have made an excellent
Christmas present.
I've changed the links to the NVG archive site so that they now use HTTP
instead of the older FTP. This should make it quicker to download the ZIP
files when you click on a game's title.
2nd place: The Rookie Thief (CPZenon Games) – €75 prize
Special mentions
Best music (awarded by Gominolas): Operation Alexandra – €135
Most enjoyable game (awarded by Carlos Abril): Operation Alexandra – €135
Best technical development and artificial intelligence (awarded by Pablo Ariza): Jarlac – €135
Best global product (awarded by Jon Cortázar): Operation Alexandra – €135
As you can tell, 4MHz dominated the awards with Operation Alexandra,
receiving €705 in prize money, and it's a deserving winner. You can
download all 41 games
from the #CPCRetroDev website.
As with the previous competitions, I offer my congratulations to all the
winners!
6th November 2018
Entries for the #CPCRetroDev 2018 contest
closed on 31st October, and this year saw 41 games (count them!) submitted
– a new record! Now we all wait in anticipation of what the final results
will be. The results are due to be announced this Friday 9th November at 18:30
CET (17:30 GMT). There is a
playlist
with short clips of all 41 games on YouTube, and some of the more 'professional'
developers, for want of a better term, have their own separate preview videos
that you can watch:
Screenshot of Chibi Akuma(s) (V1.666, Plus version)
Chibi Akuma(s)
Keith Sear released version 1.666 of his bullet hell shoot-'em-up Chibi
Akuma(s) a couple of days ago, in time for Hallowe'en. The game
received a rating of 10 out of 10 on
this site, and further improvements have been made. The game now uses the
improved engine that was used in the sequel, Chibi Akuma(s) Episode 2:
Confrontation!; a 2-player option has been added; there are additional
background graphics, and if you have a Plus machine, the game makes much more
use of its enhanced 4,096-colour palette.
You can download Chibi
Akuma(s) from the official site, and you can also
buy a physical copy from poly.play
for €20 for the 3½″ disc version, or €25 for the 3″
disc version (excluding shipping). I've already bought my copy and the
packaging and artwork are lovely!
Some of you may know of the game The Trap Door by Piranha,
based on the classic animated children's TV series. It turns out that a bug
exists in the Amstrad CPC version of The Trap Door, which makes it
impossible to complete the game – and for 32 years, it seems to have gone
unnoticed.
One of the tasks you have to complete is to prepare 'boiled slimies'. You do
this by putting the slimies in a cauldron, and releasing a green robot-like
monster from the depths of the Trap Door. What is supposed to happen (and which
can be verified by watching walkthroughs on YouTube of the ZX Spectrum and
Commodore 64 versions) is that the robot can be made to breathe fire on the
cauldron and boil the slimies – but on the CPC version, no matter how
many times the robot heats the cauldron, the slimies remain uncooked.
I will not bore you with the technical details, but after a lot of digging
in the code, I have fixed the bug, so after 32 years, The Trap Door can
now finally be completed on the Amstrad CPC! You can
download
the fixed version of The Trap Door from NVG, and there is also a
discussion on the CPCWiki forum
which prompted my decision to create a fixed version.
YouTube user Novabug has wasted little time in creating a walkthrough of the
Amstrad CPC version, which you can watch below.
I have reviewed Behind Closed Doors Seven. This is one of
two text adventures that have recently been released by
Zenobi Software for the CPC (the other
one being Ramsbottom Smith and the Quest for the Yellow Spheroid).
Zenobi Software is much better known in the ZX Spectrum community for its huge
catalogue of homebrew text adventures, so it's great to finally see a release
for the CPC 32 years after the company's first ZX Spectrum release.
