What was your favourite ZX Spectrum game?

Ste - yeah Scuba Diver - really very good.

I don't recognise any of the names on your list above. Are they "late" spectrum games?

http://www.appn72.dsl.pipex.com/wally/img/grab01.gif

i LOVED this. and completed it, i think.

this too, which i definitely completed:

http://remakeszone.com/juegos/42_2.gif

(colour clash in action!)

actually, woah, those mikro-gen games were FUCKIN' ACE.

where you rode a motorbike at insanely fast speed through a thick forest

Forest, that reminds me of "The Forest" -- someone actually had the crazy idea of making an ORIENTEERING SIMULATOR for the Speccy! With enclosed paper maps and whatnot.

Someone mentioned "Deus Ex Machina", that was one ambitious project yeah.

grimly That's part of the Automania series isn't it? I liked it enough, but at the time it was kind of state-of-the-art rather than breaking new ground.

The level of creativity of spectrum games makers was incredible, really.

Philk, not sure i think it's a mixed bag. Not very old tho, definitely not past 88 as i had my amiga then.

oh god i would thrash about on those mikrogen games and get absoloutely nowhere. i don't believe i ever completed a single puzzle.

I imagine Norman Phay playing Tir Na Nog. I could never get to grips with it, or Dun Darach.

Guilty as charged, "Dun Darach" is one of my favourite games ever. Wd pay $$ for a prerelease version w/the missing centre of the map intact. Otherwise, I liked Knight Lore (I never finished it though), Fairlight, that stealth fighter flight sim one, 3d ant attack. My favourite was highway encounter:

http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/h/highway_encounter.png

A weirdly abstract game which drew you into its odd little world quite effectively. What was that one with the wizard floating around & travelling along ley lines? That one was pretty great, and quite creepy in places.

i think a lot of my suggestions are small time budget games

deathchase was famous for being the #1 spectrum game in your sinclair's best games ever list which filled their letters bag with complaints

lucasarts before they made star wars games:

http://www.zxscreens.i12.com/zxscreens/night_shift.gif

Pashmina - I finished Dun Darach, but there was one door I could never get in - it was labelled "Ladyo's" or something. That drove me mad for years!

Fairlight was stunningly attractive if I can remember (or describe a game in such terms).

Did anyone play Explorer? Or understand it? Or get anywhere?

In the 16K category: The Train Game! I think you either became totally addicted, or loathed it from the very start and continued loathing. Rather original, using all the letter keys on the keyboard to control those rail switch things, whatever they're called in English. Come to think of it, might work well as a mobile phone game even today!

too awesome

The door in whicheverroom it was that said "forbidden!" when you tried to open it was the door to the missing bit! If you mapped the game out (which you had to) there was a big gap in the middle - the missing bit was Dun Darcach's red light district, inhabited by courtesans - they pulled it because of fear of bad publicity. I liked the game so much I wanted more of it, so I was totally bummed out when I found out about the cut bit.

Dun Darach probably the forerunner of the GTA 3D games, har.

Ah right. Well I never saw a door called "Forbidden", so I suspect that must have been inside "Laydo's" or "Loyd's" or whatever.

A really intriguing game though. Loved the atmosphere. Especially the "Thieves' Guild".

You know about the annual comp.sys.sinclair Crap Game Competition, right? Every year, the finest Spectrum programmers, or rather the other ones, compete for the title of crappiest game of the year. Some examples of previous years' winners:

Anthea Turner's National Lottery Simulator
http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/csscgc/image.php?file=ALS.SNA&year=1996

Sheepdog
http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/csscgc/image.php?file=sheepdog.tap&year=1999

Celebrity Arses
http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/csscgc/image.php?file=cel.tap&year=2006

grimly That's part of the Automania series isn't it?

yeh. IIRC: automania, pyjamarama, everyone's a wally, herbert's dummy run, three weeks in paradise. the last two being way too hard for their own good.

once you figured out how to get the proper coin to open the bog door in pyjamarama, the rest was pretty straightforward.

ANOTHER ACE SERIES OF ACENESS:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/6/6d/Spellbound_screen.GIF

finders keepers/spellbound/the one in space/the other one. don't have time to google ... first one to fill in the blanks wins a blank C15 cassette from boots ;)

hang on, celebrity arses actually looks grate.

er, ahem:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/6/6d/Spellbound_screen.GIF

Wizball or Jetset Willy

Was it Mikro-Gen who did a completely out-of-character fantasy game that came in big box with a RAM pack and map etc.?

It was a bugger because you had to actually BUY it (which I did). I seem to remember that it was lovely to look at, but didn't have much in the way of gameplay.....

Oh yeah, and those Back-To-Skool people did a 1930's detective thing that was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. Never got more than about half-way through, mores the pity....

Was it Mikro-Gen who did a completely out-of-character fantasy game that came in big box with a RAM pack and map etc.?

yep: i got it for christmas one year. it was a bit pish -- huge, but a bit pish.

a 1930's detective thing that was absolutely BEAUTIFUL

really? tell me more: i don't remember this at all.

never got those dun darach things. ys gave this away once which i tried to enjoy

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Hotmopening.jpg

oh, i remember that one, too. heavy on the magick. with a k. i think i'd have enjoyed it if i'd been a bit older and had more patience. (ditto marsport, although i have v fond memories of it.)

"you are in the room of misery" ... yeh, my fuckin' office.

spellbound! wow, that pic just totally gave me the shivers. loved it.

i used to love a ninja game called, possibly, usurper. google's being unhelpful.

i had a speccy plus between 1986 and 1988, at which point i sold it with all its loads of games to my friend al's parents and got an atari st, which i still own (well, it's packed away, but i can still technically play bubble bobble if i want.

and gauntlet!

wait, wait- BARBARIAN

"Contact Sam Cruise"

grimly - info here: http://www.crashonline.org.uk/36/samcruise.htm

That Crash online is pure Gold.

"Trashman" - I loved this!

http://www.crashonline.org.uk/04/trashmn.htm

O yes, that was good. I bought it before it hit the shops properly, at the ZX Microfair.

ah, yeh, i remember that sam cruise thing now ... don't think i ever played it, mind. but, of course, i can rectify that pretty easily ;)

Tir na Nog, Dun Darach, Marsport, Heavy on the Magick - Gargoyle Games brought the next-level shit.

Also Lords of Midnight.

Valhalla.

Now that was a strange one. Amazing graphics for an early game. But what the hell where you supposed to do?

The Valhalla graphics were fucking rubbish! They were little stick men. The game was fun, in some way. It was sort of an adventure game but errr... not really.

the follow-up, "the great space race", got absolutely fucking panned and the company (legend, was it? i'm not looking any of this up, i promise) went under shortly afterwards. sinclair user memorably compared the battle graphics to "two fried eggs fighting in a pan", or something.

it worries me, the effect SU/crash/YS have had on my personality/writing style/life.

more amazing feats of memory: infinite lives in JSW was poke 23296,0. i think manic miner (has no-one mentioned this yet? my (acting) boss looked over my shoulder when i had this window open and said MM should win, hands-down) was 35136,0.

The other John Peel, of Valhalla and TGSR fame.

Why are he and his wife green?

christ, i remember reading that first time round.

hah! "dave ashe and his mouse".

I remember the background graphics of Valhalla being quite good. And I also seem to remember the stick men moving quite well. It had quite a lot of atmosphere iirc.

There was a whole host of Spectrum games that I seem to recall as being unfathomable: Gift From The Gods, Braxx Bluff, Dark Star....they seemed to be graphics experiments with a scoreboard plonked somewhere on the screen.

And did anyone know how to get past the first screen on "The Pyramid"?

I think we could do a few screens on "The Pyramid" but they were all the same boring shit. Spent a lot of time trying to get to the top/bottom tho.

(Clue: just keep the fire button held down)

http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/050/sodov2.gif

Sodov the Sorcerer: not a bad, if odd, game for £2.95.

I forgot Avalon and Dragontorc. Man those games were good.

http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/shared/sshots/rambo.gif

How many precious hours of my teenage life did I sit playing Rambo? Better than the film, anyway. Good music too!

('Good')

http://www.23mag.com/games/vg/bmxsimsp.jpg

Okay, now THIS fucking rocked! More playable then the C64 version (as usual: better graphics, clunky gameplay), and the slow-motion replay option was useful for viewing your opponant's Spec-tacular crash and burn.

ah, god, "the pyramid"! i really loved that, for some reason.

"sodov the sorcerer" ... hoo hoo, almost sounds like swearing, etc.

What was that one with the wizard floating around & travelling along ley lines? That one was pretty great, and quite creepy in places.

Dragontorc of Avalon! Thx NV!

I remember one bit where you got the mage to open a chest and a pair of super-scary disembodied eyes came out! I got the chills the 1st time I saw it.