ZX81 – Red Alert

Fantastic looking box art from this vintage ZX81 game – Red Alert. I found it whilst trawling through a few items on eBay. I’m loving the mock ZX81 keyboard at bottom of the screenshot and as I’ve since found out since,  SoftSync did a few other similar covers. o.k, so they’re not as good as this one but some of them do contain the same keyboard artwork. I might have to look at RCM’s archive the next time I’m down there, as they would be great to see it close up.

Red Alert appear to be some kind of Star Trek/Scramble clone and intrigued by the screenshot I thought i’d track down a copy of the game file and run it via emulation.

Hey, you know what, it’s actually quite a good game! Try playing it with the speed setting set to  number 9 though!

Incidentally,  EightOne is such a great emulator for  a wide range of Sinclair/Timex computer including the early ones like this and the ZX80. I like the way you can inverse the ‘colours’ and mess around with the TV emulation to add noise and ghosting just like the original picture used to look on those old crappy black and white tv’s back in the day. It even emulates the infamous rampack wobble

 

http://www.aptanet.org/eightyone/

 

 

Elusive Raspberry Pi

29th of Feb at 6:00am, Raspberry Pi announces the public release of their $35 computer and details how to order.

So like many i set the alarm, woke up this morning, poured myself a strong coffee and waited.

This initial release of only 10,000 units was going to be a fast seller but as i sat there, i hoped i’d be one of the lucky ones to get my mitts on this epic release.

Checking the Raspberry Pi website a few minutes to 6am but the site was down for maintenance. It’s not surprising really as they prepare their servers for the announcement.

Just after 6am the site was up and provided external links to suppliers that were taking orders.

…and clicking on the links, for many, this is probably what they saw.

It was like this for the first hour as i alternated between hitting F5 and reading the Twitter posts on their feed.

Yay, I finally  managed to get on to the RS website albeit it was very slow and seemed to take ages to find the product. Sweating hands with excitement.

Huh?…erm, why can’t i order one now?

There’s a lot of rumours online that RS are now not selling them until next week. At  6:30 the other supplier, Farnell,  has sold out, just adding to peoples frustration.

So..i didn’t managed to get one this morning, did you?

Personally i thought is was rather exciting to try and track down this elusive tech toy…it’s a shame that many were frustrated and started posting angry posts via twitter.

I guess this gives us more time to think about what cool projects we’re going to be using these boards with.

Stereo Bullet – Indie Gaming

You know, i’m starting to really dig Hideki Kubo’s PC indie games. Rules (see previous post) great but Stereo Bullet is superb!

I’m a sucker for a) Vector based games & b) Games with grids…and for a bonus points, the grid lines have to be old school  green and  glide due to a high fps.  :)

So, you can see why I became instantly interested in this game when i saw the screenshot.

 

Stereo Bullet sees you plonked in front of a big ass mother ship that spits out huge patterns of bullets  for you to dodge. It’s actually quite a good training aid for other ‘bullet hell’ games as the included slow motion buttons means you can practise dancing around them.

On it’s own, Stereo Bullet is a great retro looking Schmup, yet despite the intense bullet patterns, it plays very gracefully –  just like the   excellent soundtrack.

….but why the mirrored screen?

Well, this is a Stereoscopic game. Remember those books you used to get as a kid which were full of those ugly repeating patterns and  if you could figure out how to ‘do’ them, they would reveal a 3D image, well this game is just like that.

…and if you can ‘Do’ Sterograms you’re going to love Stereo Bullet as the 3D effect is awesome.

If you can’t do them, get yourself a book sharpish and learn, you won’t be disappointed!

 

Space Invaders – Indie Gaming – Rules

Space Invaders, everyone loves a bit of invader blasting don’t they? Well…to be honest, i’ve often found it to be a bit boring after a few minutes.  Give me something with a bit of variety to shoot at such as Phoenix or Gorf.

Looking through the interweb searching for a good sized picture of a Space Invader I stumbled across a few Space Invader clones for PC.  This one in particular, called ‘Rules’ pretty much looked like any other Space Invaders clone (minus the bases), accept there was something not quite right with your ship. It appeared to be at a funny angle!

Intrigued, download and loaded it on my PC. Sure enough it’s a rather nice Space Invaders clone with great big chunky white pixels…and a rather funky chip tune to boot but it’s just Space Inv…3..2..1..erm…i don’t remember the ship being able to move forward and fire left & right?….3…2…1 Huh? Space Invader Breakout mashup…3..2..1 what’s going on?…..this is soooo cool!

You see, Rules starts off as a  the standard Space Invaders type game, but then  the ‘Rules’  change and you’ll find that  you can fire diagonally or the floor is deadly, or the Invader become Breakout blocks or the fire button hops to another key or a complete mashup of whole set of random different rules. Such a novel and refreshing concept for one of the oldest games out there.

Check it out for yourself, it’s bonkers!

 

http://homepage2.nifty.com/datsuryoku/rules.html

Quit Smoking

An off topic post here but, if it’s ok with you, do you mind if I pat myself on the back a little bit? After 13 odd years as a cigarette smoker I finally decided to quit and am celebrating my 1st year smoke free anniversary  today. It’s a horrible addiction and i’m glad to be rid of it. The journey was a hard one at first but with time, things started to get a little easier and at the three month mark i’d pretty much forgot all about them. One year on and they’re a distant memory – I don’t crave them, think about them or even care about them anymore. What I do know is that it’s one of the best feelings in the world….highly recommended!

As an extra  incentive (and a great idea by my wife Curstie) we decided to save up the £5.50 I would have spent daily on cigarettes and throughout the year this has been used to buy my iPhone, my beloved iPad2, my iCade and a whole host of retro gaming computers, console, games, photography gear etc etc. In total, the figure came to whopping £2007 i would have spent on cigarettes instead of all these cool toys i now have.

Quitting for me was difficult, but it’s true what ex smokers say, it does get easier with time…even though it’s VERY difficult to believe during the first few months.

Here’s a few things i thought i’d jot down here that have helped me along the way.

- Set a quitting date. This gives you a date that you can prepare yourself for.

- As i mentioned above, either save the money you would have spent on cigarettes or simply mark the achievements on a calendar as you make it through each day. These rewards are essential.

- If you crack and have a cigarette, don’t give up, get back on the horse and continue on. Fight fight FIGHT.

- If you have access to a microphone/webcam, record yourself, your feelings, comments, outbursts, when you’re sad or happy. They’re great to look back on, especially when the cravings are at their strongest. You can keep these private or course, which is what i originally planned to do and then thought sod it and uploaded them to YouTube! The feedback and kind comments that folk had left me were very welcome and spurred me to stay smoke free.

- Change your routines. Over the years as a smoker i’d built up this set of routines based around smoking – these so called trigger points. For example, every morning i’d wake, head outside and have my first smoke. I had to change this to something else to take my mind off the craving when I quit. For me, I would take a walk out to get the morning papers and sit with a coffee and catch up on the news. It doesn’t always work but it’s better than sitting there wishing you could have a cigarette.

-Don’t worry too much about doing other things to excess whilst quitting. For example, some folk might be worried about over eating etc. You can always deal with that later. Focus on quitting smoking first.

- If you’re in employement, book the first or couple of weeks off work if you can. There’s nothing worse than trying to quit smoking and having to deal with the pressures of day to day work. Have the time off and do whatever you feel like doing whether it’s something or simply nothing at all. If you can, don’t do anything you don’t want to for a week or so.

You may not feel like it but exercise really helps. Hook up you pod, play back some tunes and head out into the fresh air.

 

If you’re decided to quit, the very best of luck to you. Feel free to post here if you have any questions, just want to rant or need someone to talk too (happy to give you my email address is you wish to keep this private).

If someone had said to to me a year ago ‘go on, you can do it’, i would have said ‘bugger off’. I loved smoking, i didn’t want to quit, i was different and knew in my heart that I wouldn’t be able to quit….yet, I gave it a go anyway and  flippin ‘eck i didn’t half  surprise myself when i actually made it!  Give it a go yourself, you might be pleasantly surprised too!

 

 

Fun with iDos

You can’t beat a bit of classic PC DOS gaming from time to time and thanks to amazing programs like DOSbox and FreeDOS you replay those fondly remembered games on a variety of modern platforms.

I still fire up the occasional game of Wing Commander, Doom, Duke Nuke’em and the Sierra adventure games from time to time on my netbook. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a portable DOS emulator for tablets?…Well, if your an Android user that theres a damn find port of Dosbox available. For iOS owners like myself there’s iDOS.

One snag though, iDOS has been pulled off the app store so many times and it looks to be permanently out for the count as far as this store is concerned. There is another (limited) DOS emulator out there but the In App store doesn’t contain many titles…Commander Keen makes an appearance though!

If you were lucky enough to install iDos when it first appeared then I bet you’ve already been enjoying the delights of this great app. For me who missed it the first time around, i’ve had to wait for the Absinthe Jailbreak and a visit to the wonderful Cydia store.

iDOS purchased and ready to rock. The app is shipped with six classic games with more coming available – although the app’s been out for a while now and nothing new has be released

But the big question is, can you add your own games?…well the answer to that is a big fat Yes.

There’s two ways you can do this and both will require iExplorer http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/

If you’ve read some of my previous posts regarding the ios Commodore C64 and ZX Spectrum emulator then you’ll probably know your way around this great little app. If not, check out the iExplorer site and have a read through the documentation, it really is a simple app to use.

Right, we need a game. For this it’s a visit to my favourite DOS game emporium – Abandonia

http://www.abandonia.com/

This site has a huge collection of freely available old DOS games were the original publishers/IP owners given the software as free to distribute on public domain. Not all games are free (such as those IP’s that are still in circulation…for example, Lucasarts games).

For my example i’m going to use one of my favourites games from the Amiga days – Geoff Crammond’s Stunt Car Racer.

First method –

Download the folder/files and with your iDevice connected to your PC, use iExplorer to copy the files to /apps/idos/documents

If you already have the iDOS app running on your iDevice, you need to restart it for it to detect the new fles.

Start the app and go into DOS command mode by pressing the ‘C:’ icon.

Now you just need to browse and run the game .exe just like you did back in the of DOS. You do remember the old commands don’t you?

Now

o.k so that’s the old fashioned way of launching a game and after all, it’s a DOS emulator and so it’s fun to play around with the the old commands again.

Second method.

The games library within iDOS shows a mock bookshelf with nice box art covers for the games that are shipped with the app. No messing around with DOS commands, just click and play. Well, we can also add our own games to this library.

Download the game file (again, i’m going to use Stunt Car Racer).

Unzip the contents, if the original download was a .zip file.

Place all of the unzipped files/folders into one folder. For my example i’ve named this folder ‘SRC’

Using a suitable program (i’m using 7zip) rezip the folder SRC but change the extension name to .PKG. Your zipped file should now be called SRC.PKG. If it’s called SRC.PKG.zip then something isn’t right. I’m not sure if any other programs like Tugzip, Winzip allow you to change the archive extension type. If not, try 7Zip.

Next we need some boxart. One you have a suitable image downloaded, use MS Paint/Gimp to resize the image to 188×214 pixels and save as either a .jpg or .png. For this example i’ve used src.jpg

With your iDevice connected to your PC, use iExplorer to browse to apps/idos/iDOS.app/packages

Copy your SRC.PKG and src.jpg files to this location.

Whilst in this folder, drag a copy of one of the existing .CFG files to your PC desktop. In this example i’ve used DUKE.CFG.

Open the file with a text editor and change it to the following – (changing the pathname and .exe fie to suit your own if not using Stunt Car Racer.

#—————————————————–
# GamePad Key Bindings
#—————————————————–
[gamepad.keybinding]
button0=ATL,ALT
button1=CTRL,CTRL
button2=SPC,SPACE
button3=ENTR,ENTER
button4=ESC,ESC
button5=y,y

[start.iphone]
cycles=2500
cd \3drealms\SRC\SCR\SCR
car.EXE

[start.ipad]
cycles=3000
cd \3drealms\SCR\SCR\SCR
car.EXE
———————–

Save the file at SCR.CFG

Also, take a copy of GAME.plist (also dump a backup copy of the original somewhere for safe keeping).

Edit and add the following line before the end line –

dict>
ConfigFile
SCR.CFG
CoverImage
scr.jpg
PackageFile
scr.PKG
TargetFolder
3drealms/SCR
Title
SCR
UUID
supa1

———————

Again, you might need to exchange the word ‘SCR’ for your own game files.

Save the file and copy this and SCR.CFG back to your iDevice.

Restart iDOS.

Go to the My Collection area.

Yay, Stunt Car Racer has appeared. Click the box art to install.

After installation the game will now show as available so click on it to start.

Woohoo!

Virtual Keyboard, Virtual Joystick, Virtual D-Pad and touch screen mouse support. iDOS supports them all!

In landscape, full screen mode.

Another HUGE bonus with iDOS is that it supports Bluetooth keyboards too. One feature i’ll be checking out a lot! Now, to find my X-Wing floppies

Have fun and feel free to post any questions if you get stuck (this probably isn’ the best guide).

iOS gaming: Midway Arcade

If you missed the opportunity of grabbing the ultimate arcade emulator ‘MAME’ for your iPhone/iPad during its very brief appearance on the Apple app store, then Warner Bros’ release of Midway Arcade might be just what you need?

Midway Arcade is currently on offer for 69p/$0.99 and for that you get access to six classic arcade games with options to buy more via the in app store.

The available games are -

Defender
Spy Hunter
Joust
Arch Rivals
Root beer Tapper
Rampage

Further purchases can unlock-

Gauntlet 1and 2
A.P.B
Total Carnage
Narc
Wizards of Wor

What makes Midway Arcade such a great app though is the presentation of these games by recreating a digital version of a typical arcade from the 80′s. If you’re of the era, then prepare to go back in time!

Dodgy patterned and worn carpets, neon signs, symphony of digital beeps, game posters, change machines, it’s all here. You can almost smell the stale popcorn, smoke and under topped Pizza’s.

Let take a tour of our arcade.

Starting on the first floor we see the highly detailed Defender and Spy Hunter cabinets. You. N pan around and look at them from any angle. Gotta love that funky steering wheel.

On past Arch Rivals and Root Beer tapper and we stop by Joust for a minute or too…actually, I’ll catch up with you later, I’ll be some be some time with Joust.

Downstairs and before hitting the cabinets again, grab a drink and a few rounds of touch screen Pool.

Never was an APB fan but always like the side art.

Stopped by the Rampage cabinet for some monster mayhem with George and co. before shooting some balls.

Yay, won some tickets so headed over to the prize desk to cash them in. Damn it, only enough tickets to get this izzy doll, got my heart set on a 720″ skateboard

So how do the games play? Well, emulation is spot on and as far as touch screen controls go they actually work pretty well. Defender, Joust and Tapper in particular transform quite well and the added options of multiple control type/buttons for Spy Hunter means that you can pick one to suit.

Tilt, d-pad or funky virtual wheel..your choice.

Sadly Rampage suffers as the eight-way virtual stick is not precise enough to handle the diagonals required to scale the buildings and so gameplay is a tad frustrating. To be honest, even the original arcade cabinet with real joysticks was always a bit hit and miss.

Games can be played in either landscape or portrait mode. The latter giving non portrait oriented games a splash of marque and control panel artwork.

Of the titles I’ll be unlocking, Total Carnage is on the top of my list. Here’s hoping for virtual dual stick controls. Gauntlet is ok but the original was fun because it could be played with up to three other mates, its doubtful this emulated version can replicate that.

I think WB/Midway have got it spot on with the presentation of this app. O.k so so the mini games aren’t actually that good but they compliment the digital arcade very well. Add in the ability to play your own iTunes music in the background (preferably something from the 80′s) whilst smacking away on a quick round of Air Hockey will no doubt bring back all those happy gaming memories. Taito, Capcom, Atari, take note, this is how to present your arcade games!

Oh and Warner Bros’, two things.

Where’s the flippin iCade support! How can you present these classic games and omit the one great device that was built for such apps? Sort it out!

Secondly, can you bring this to my digital arcade please?

Submarine – ZX Spectrum

Loading up Submarine and you’s think, hmm that doesn’t look like much of a game does it? In fact, even for a game made in 1984 it looks, well…..a bit pants – try not to laugh too hard when you hear the ‘music’ However, what Submarine does do really well is recreate those silent moments of suspense found in nearly all Sub vs Boat movies. Ok, so you have use your imagination a little bit so i suggest an afternoon viewing of Das Boot, Enemy Below or Hunt for Red October.

Played from the prospective of the boat Captain (shame it wasn’t the other way around), you have to sniff out what you fear is lurking somewhere down there in the deep below, before he detects you and sends up an invite to join him in the darkness.

Yikes!

Press keys 5 & 8 to steer your boat, Capt.

Press key 0 to activate your sonar and listen to the sound pitch. Low pitch means there’s nothing below and a high pitch means you’re bouncing off metal and you all know what that means!

Steer your ship so that the Sonar signal is the strongest and listen to the timing between beeps between your ship and the sub below.

If there’s a short delay between beeps, then he’s not far below you and a longer delay means he’s lingering further down.

Set the timer delay on your Depth Charge accordingly using keys 6 & 7.

Let one rip with key 2 (although I don’t believe that’s the correct Naval term )

That’s a miss. Adjust position and/or timer delay and launch again.

Boom! Got him!

Victory is short lived as your warning alarms scream out..Torpedo in the water. Do you stay still hoping that it was just a wild shot or move and run the risk of being in harms way?

Damnmit, should have moved. ‘Woot woot, all hands abandon sh….glug glug’

Scoring is based on the amount of times your ship is moved and also the number of Depth Charges used. The less of both used equals a lower (but higher) score.

Here’s my best so far.

J Rignal Reviews – c64anabalt

Here’s a great review of the equally great, c64 remake of Canabalt, written by the one and only Jaz Rignall….and for those that read it in the 80′s, it’s written in the style of a Zzap64 magazine review.

J Rignall – c64anabalt review

- old print makeover with Pixlromatic.

Indie Gaming: Hunted Forever

 

One link led to me to another this afternoon and i found this rather stylish looking   SciFi Flash game called Hunted Forever.

http://armorgames.com/play/2483/hunted-forever

It kinda reminds me of Canabalt (http://adamatomic.com/canabalt/) except you have more control over your character as you run around avoiding laser fire from the invading alien craft.

 

 

Can anyone tell me how to play this in full screen?

Control is via cursor keys but i thought it would be cool to map the controls to the JoyPad app  on my iPhone and use  as a wireless controller.

Here’s the game in action -

Very impressive stuff indeed!

 

 

 

 

iOS gaming: SFcave & iCave

I’m still hopeful that someone somewhere might be able to help me track down a copy of VeCave for the MB Vectrex or indeed for emulation via ParaJVE (see previous post – http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/homebrew-gaming-weekend/ ) but until then I thought I’d have a look around Apple app store to see if there’s anything that’s similar.

The first is iCave which pretty o.k. It runs lot faster than the Vectrex version but then maybe the Vectrex homebrew version is in fact a lot slower compared to the original Palm OS/Windows 3.1 original? The turning arc of your worm is very quick and so keeping it level is quite challenging as you navigate your way down the cave tunnel and around the block obstacles. Touch screen control works really well here.

iCave also let’s you change the colours of the cave terrain, worm and obstacles via three RGB sliders found in the options menu. Bight orange, pink and yellow anyone?

O.k, it’s doesn’t have that intense phosphor glow you get with the Vectrex, but it looks pretty close? No?…no, didn’t think so too

The second game is called SFcave.

Here, your worm’s turning speed isn’t so quick and with rapid touches, it fairly easy to keep it in a straight line. This means it doesn’t quiet play the same as VeCave but compared to iCave, this is much more fun to play….especially during moments when there’s hardly any room between cave roof and floor. One of those games that makes you think ‘how the hell did I make it through there!’

SFcave also offers a selection of level enhancements such as moving obstacles and playing a level in reverse. Unlike iCave, SFCave is free app, although you have to purchase the rather bizarre looking 3D 1st person version.

Red 5 standing by!

I’m also on he hunt for other homebrew versions and clones of SFcave for PC or older computers. I’v found a rather cool looking 2008 version for the Commodore c64 and also this video from a PC w.i.p project. Sadly, it’s an old video with no further updates therefore I’m not sure if it was ever finished?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkBmyhVmE-0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Of course, there’s always the immensely popular Jetpack Joyride which is loosely based on SFcave mechanics. Such a great game that gets better each time you play.

Does anyone out there have any recommendations? – especially for the ZX Spectrum?

Prince of Persia:Classic returns to ios soon

Great news announced on Ubisofts website. Prince of Persia – Classic, has been given a gfx facelift and will be available on the Apple app store soon. I thought I might be ‘POP’d’ out after all that C64 remake action but it’s just left me hungry for more.

I wasn’t too impressed with Ubisofts previous attempt as to me it just looked like a lazy port of the Super Nintendo version – which quite frankly was pants too. Lets hope these new visuals match perfect and fluid gameplay us classic POP fans demand.

Gunpoint – Indie game intro

Gunpoint is a indie game currently in development for the PC and one I’ve been closely following for a while now. There’s a pretty cool introductory video available now to show you what the game looks like and what it’s all about etc….and I for one, cannot wait until it’s released!

Awesome-ness!

More Another World.

Continuing my renewed interest in all things Another World, I’ve been having a dig around the interweb looking at reviews and tube video for some of the other console and computer conversions. Suffice to say, I’ll be dusting down my 3DO console soon and also checking out the rerelease on the PC. On my journey I also happened across the Another World website.

http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/index.htm

Despite not having an update for a few years now, it contains a whole heap of Another World goodies including an insight into the making of the game and sketches and concept paintings.

Deluxe Paint on the Amiga rocks!

Early cover concepts.

Lester’s amazing office.

Great reading and well worth a look. Also, head over to the download section to pickup a copy of that great cover art. Makes for a great wallpaper too

iOS Gaming: Another World

Like all good computer games, modern or old, there comes along something that just bowls you over the first time you experience it and you’ll forever remember those ‘wow’ moments. Growing up and in my late teens, the Commodore Amiga was my tech weapon of choice and of all the machines I’ve owned, it’s this one that continued to produced so many of those wow moments.

Here’s just a few of the many gaming moments.

First ever Amiga game I ever saw/played was Defender of the Crown. Compared to previous years of having only 16 colours with the Commodore 64 this was just insanely beautiful.

Operation Wolf – First digitised speech in a game that i heard that was a) audible and b) was more than a few words (excluding Mission Impossible on the C64 of course!).

Intro Music – Xenon II. I stayed in the computer shop until it closed that day just to listen to this over again. I still get goosebumps whenever I hear Megablast

Intro to Another World..one big WOW….thunk, pick myself up again..WOW!

It’s hard to believe Another World is twenty years old…it only seems like yesterday! To celebrate the anniversary, Eric Chanti’s Another World is back, having been given a lick of high-res paint and rereleased onto iOS devices. It came out a a few months back and has been on my ever growing shopping list of every apps to purchase.

Surely the best game intro of it’s time?

Surely the coolest looking PC ever?

Thankfully, this revision hadn’t been altered or messed around with other than a facelift and remains true the original. Even better, the old chunky low res graphics are available too and can be swapped between both new and old modes whenever you wish.

High Res mode -

Original Low Res mode -

There’s two control methods, either swipe gestures (which I personally think is horrendous) or virtual d-pad/button which works surprisingly well. I’d had a feeling that even though Another World looked great it would be unplayable if the transformation to touch screen was implemented incorrectly. Well done dev guys, the d-pad works perfectly.

Even this tricky….shoot, run like hell or take a shower, jump, jump, jump moment is easy on the d-pad

Handy dandy level selection mode.

Now, if I’d not played Another World before or remove my rose tinted glasses for a moment here, then I’d say that Another World is a pretty average game. I mean, it’s no Flashback for example. However, for me and those Amiga fans out there that simply forgot how to breath the first time they say this running then you NEED to treat yourself to this app.

….or else

Now I’m pretty sure I’ve still got the original Amiga floppies somewhere…mental note to look for them this weekend.