In my last update, I announced that
Rhino was planning to convert an Amiga game to the CPC. Well, that game is...
Pinball Dreams! The Spanish site RetroInvaders
made an announcement
a few days ago, and needless to say, the CPC community is getting excited by
the news, as the
discussion on the CPCWiki forum is proving. This tweet from
Un Pasado Mejor appears to show a couple of CPC screens of the actual game,
but unfortunately I can't verify their authenticity.
Defence title screen
Cyber-Chicken title screen
12th September 2016 The good news just keeps on coming! Here's the latest set of
announcements...
Defence
Shining recently announced that he has
released a new game after three years of development. It's called
Defence, and it is the first 'tower defence' strategy game to be
released for the CPC. It's not a genre that I'm familiar with, and I've never
played any tower defence games before, but any new games for the CPC are to be
welcomed!
As well as a freeware edition, it will also be possible to
buy a personalised edition of the game – either a digital version (a DSK
file to use with emulators), or a physical copy of the game on disc. Visit
Shining's website to download the
freeware edition and get more information about the personalised editions, and
go to the CPCWiki
forum to discuss the game.
Cyber-Chicken
TFM has graciously allowed his game Cyber-Chicken to be downloaded
for free. The game was previously only available on cassette or disc, and only
115 copies were produced (you can see the nicknames of some of the people who
bought copies here). You can
download Cyber-Chicken from the official
website.
Physical copies of
Elf, Heroes Rescue and The Return of Traxtor now available
Defecto Digital Studios' games,
Elf and Heroes Rescue,
can now be purchased
online. They are both available in either cassette or disc formats, with
prices ranging from between 9 and 13 euros (excluding postage) depending on the
format and style of box.
Juan J. Martínez's game The Return of Traxtor
is also available as a physical edition on cassette from the
Matranet
store, with the CPC version of the game on one side, and the ZX Spectrum version
on the other – just like Mastertronic used to do with some of their
releases!
A new game from
Rhino?
One of the CPC's most talented
programmers, Rhino, has
hinted
on the CPCWiki forum that he is converting a well known Amiga game to the
CPC, and a preview should be released in October 2016. He claims that it will
be "the most technically advanced game on Amstrad so far, and probably the best
game on 8 bits". Given that Rhino is the genius behind the incredible Batman
Forever demo, it would be unwise to dismiss these claims lightly...
29th August 2016 After some discussion between EgoTrip, Missas and me, the rating for Missas'
review of A Prelude to Chaos has been reduced to 9 out of 10.
Screenshot of Golden Tail
Screenshot of Heroes Rescue
Screenshot of Kung Fu Guns
21st August 2016 It's been nearly two months since I last posted any news, but since my last
posting, several new Amstrad CPC games have been released.
Golden Tail
Juan J. Martínez has released a
new platform game called Golden Tail. The Golden Tail is a magical
stone that has been broken into 30 pieces. You play a ninja spy called Kitsune,
and you must wander around looking for the pieces of the Golden Tail. One
rather nice innovation is that you can use Kõga Magic to become invisible
for very short periods of time, and while you are invisible, you can run faster
and jump higher. You can
download Golden Tail from
Juan's website.
Heroes Rescue
Javy Fernández of Defecto
Digital Studio has released the full version of Heroes Rescue. A preview
version of the game with six levels was released a few months ago, but the full
version has thirteen levels and features cartoon characters from Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons and Marvel comics, who you must rescue. You can
download
Heroes Rescue from Defecto Digital Studio's site; click on the blue
button labelled "Descarga AMSTRAD CPC" towards the bottom of the page to
download it. Javy is planning to release a physical edition of the game as well.
Kung Fu Guns
bitbitJAM
is an annual competition where entrants have to program a game on old 8-bit or
16-bit hardware in one week. The team at ByteRealms set themselves a challenge
– to develop a beat-'em-up for the 2016 competition. In fact, they
developed their game Kung Fu Guns over a weekend – and they
achieved 5th place out of 20 entries!
In Kung Fu Guns, you play Sheriff Melissa Chase, the
'Red Hot Princess', who has arrived in the town of Dos Santos to rid it of
bandits. As the game was developed in such a short space of time, there are only
two levels, there's only one type of enemy, and it's very easy to complete, but
the author has stated that ByteRealms will probably release a more polished
version with additional features in the future. In the meantime, you can
download
Kung Fu Guns from NVG or from
Game Jolt.
25th June 2016 4Mhz have released a preview version of Adiós a la Casta: Episode
2. Like the first episode, it's a platform game in which you must collect
as many objects as you can, but the graphics are now mostly drawn in MODE 0
instead of the four-colour MODE 1, and they look absolutely wonderful. You can
download the preview version from 4Mhz's
site.
It was also recently announced that the Oliver Twins are
joining
the jury in the #CPCRetroDev 2016 competition. They will be examining all
the entries and providing feedback to the developers, and they will also be at
the awards ceremony. I think every CPC fan will know about the Oliver Twins;
they programmed more than 20 games for the Amstrad CPC and they also created one
of the most famous 8-bit characters of them all – Dizzy – so this is
exciting news!
Screenshot of Space Invaders Arcade Emulator
13th June 2016 40Crisis has emulated yet another classic on the Amstrad CPC! This time
it's one of the most famous video games of all time, and one that even the most
ardent non-gamer will recognise – Space Invaders. Yes, you can now
play the original 1978 coin-op arcade version of Space Invaders on a CPC!
However, you will need to find the relevant ROMs and download them, as 40Crisis
hasn't included them with the emulator for copyright reasons.
You can
download the emulator from NVG,
which contains a program that will convert the ROMs to DSK and CDT files which
you can play on an emulator or transfer to a real CPC. Get blasting!
Screenshot of Jewel Warehouse
26th May 2016 EgoTrip has just released another CPC game starring little Amy, called
Jewel Warehouse. It's a simple platform game in which you control Amy
and must collect jewels. Each level has a tight time limit, although you can
retry each level as many times as you wish. There is a
discussion
on the CPCWiki forum which includes a link to download the game.
Missas has reviewed three more games from from last year's
#CPCRetroDev competition:
Speaking of #CPCRetroDev,
the 2016
competition has been launched, with a total of €1,050 in prizes on
offer. This year, some well known personalities will be among the judges –
the Spanish musician Gominolas, Jon Ritman (the author of classic games like
Batman and
Head Over Heels) and Victor Ruiz of Spanish software
house Dinamic. The deadline for submitting entries is the 26th of October, so
there's five months to program a game. 36 entries were submitted for the
2015
competition; will we see as many in 2016?
I have also been informed that Sir Ababol II: The Ice
Palace is being developed for the CPC.
This post from RetroManiac
contains a few CPC screenshots, and someone has
posted a tweet
with a picture of the game being played on a CPC at the Amstrad Eterno event
held last month.
30th April 2016 Missas has reviewed two games from last year's #CPCRetroDev competition:
24th April 2016 One other item of interest from the recent Amstrad Eterno event in
Barcelona was an 80-page special edition of
RetroManiac magazine which was available for purchase exclusively at the event. However, if you weren't there, you can download it from their site; click on the link
entitled "Páginas sueltas...". Be aware that the entire magazine is
written in Spanish!
The special edition is dedicated to the #CPCRetroDev contest
that was held last year. There are reviews of all 36 games, an interview with
Fran Gallego (the organiser of the contest as well as the developer behind the
CPCTelera library), and
"making of" articles for some of the highest-ranking games in the contest
(Space Moves, Frogalot, Top Top, Regreso al CPC and
Junior!).
What intrigued me the most were the advertisements included
in the magazine: Adiós a la Casta: Episode 1, Galactic
Tomb, and... Sir Ababol II: The Ice Palace (see the image on the
right). My limited knowledge of Spanish prevents me from confirming if this is
just a spoof advertisement, but is it really possible that we may see a return
of the Mojon Twins to the CPC after a hiatus of five years?
Video preview of Galactic Tomb on YouTube
23rd April 2016 The first Amstrad Eterno event took place in Barcelona last weekend.
Unfortunately I wasn't there, but there was plenty of news of new games that
were released or are currently in development.
Galactic Tomb
The most impressive game that I learnt
about is Galactic Tomb from
ESP Soft.
It's a shoot-'em-up with beautiful
graphics, multi-directional scrolling and end-of-level bosses. A playable demo
of the first level was available at Amstrad Eterno, and a
YouTube video is also
available, which you can also watch right here on CPC Game Reviews. Based on
what I've seen in the video, this could be one of the best-looking and most
ambitious games to be released for the CPC for several years!
Linaje Real
The second game from ESP Soft is
Linaje Real – a platform game with a mediaeval theme which is being
programmed by GG.
According to ESP Soft,
the game has "scrolling so smooth that you'll have to see it to believe it".
ESP Soft uploaded a YouTube video
several months ago, so you can judge this claim for yourself, although the video
doesn't have any sound.
Adiós a la Casta: Episode 1
Shortly before Christmas 2015, a beta
version of Adiós a la Casta was released by
4MHz. Now they've released version 1.00, which
you can
download from their web site.
It's a platform game in which you play a character called Pablender (inspired by
the Spanish politician Pablo Iglesias) who must collect as many opposition votes
and the votes of undecided people as possible, with the votes being represented
by icons. The more votes collected, the easier it will be for Pablender to
defeat the final boss Rodrigo Rata. I don't know anything about Spanish
politics, but this is a very playable platform game with nice graphics and
music which plays fairly similarly to most of the Mojon Twins' games.
Zombi Terror Reloaded
The final game to be announced is
Zombi Terror Reloaded from a new development team called
Bitzarro Games. It's a
reworking of Kabuto Factory's game Zombi Terror which was released for
several different formats. The game is a text adventure in the style of
the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks that were popular in the 1980s, although
you'll need to understand Spanish to be able to play it properly. You can
download
Zombi Terror Reloaded from Bitzarro Games' site.
27th March 2016 EgoTrip released a new CPC game called A Prelude to Chaos a few days
ago. It's the latest in a series of games starring a girl called Amy. EgoTrip
also released a ZX Spectrum game with the same name in early 2015, but the CPC
version is much bigger.
The game seems to be inspired by the Legend of Zelda series of games for
Nintendo's NES console, and the aim is to collect 40 jewels scattered around a
maze of screens. You can
download
it from the CPCWiki forum.
