Category Archives: Mastertronic

Chiller, ZX Spectrum

The 1985 ZX Spectrum version of Mastertronic‘s Chiller was coded by Richard Wright, and is pretty much the same as the original C64 version, except that it doesn’t have any music (which was probably a good thing, from a legal standpoint), and the graphics are even worse.

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Chiller, Commodore 64

Chiller is a simple platform game set over five different screens, and the aim is to rescue your girlfriend who is located in a haunted house at the end of the game. You jump around and collect ‘magic crosses’ to transition to the next screen. An energy bar indicates the player’s health. Touching enemies, or red mushrooms, depletes health, and collecting pink mushrooms increases it. If the bar reaches zero it’s game over – you only have one life.

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Rollaround, Commodore 64

Rollaround is an isometric action/puzzle game written by Tony Kelly of Mr. Chip Software and was published by Mastertronic in 1987. The gameplay is a combination of Marble Madness, Bobby Bearing, Spindizzy and Q*Bert, where the aim is to control a rolling ball that moves around a map of screens, rolling over tiles, activating switches, and collecting cross tiles for points.

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Canyon Warrior, ZX Spectrum

Canyon Warrior is a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up written by Ste Cork and published by Mastertronic in 1989. The game came out very late in the ZX Spectrum‘s life, which is probably why it’s technically quite impressive (for the Spectrum).

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Voidrunner, Commodore 64

Voidrunner is second sequel to Gridrunner, the famous Llamasoft grid-based shooter that author Jeff Minter was evolving throughout the 1980s. The C64 version was first published by Mastertronic in 1987, following on from the C16/Plus 4 original.

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Rogue, Atari 8-bit

I was hoping that the Atari 8-bit version of Rogue might be better than the other 8-bit versions (or at least a balance between the awful C64 version and the half-decent Amstrad version), but I was hoping for too much – especially as it’s another Mastertronic “special” (ie. a good example of a publisher not giving a sh*t about what they released).

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Rogue, Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC version of Rogue is arguably the best of the 8-bit conversions from Mastertronic, although it’s not without its problems. It was developed by Icon Design and first published in 1988.

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Rogue, ZX Spectrum

Rogue on the ZX Spectrum was developed by Icon Design and published by Mastertronic Added Diminsion in 1988. And it’s a pretty poor conversion of the classic dungeon-crawler.

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Rogue, Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 conversion of Rogue was developed by Icon Design and published by Mastertronic in 1988, and it is a bugged, incomplete, and un-finishable version of the game that demonstrates the utter contempt for which Mastertronic held for both the game, and for gamers who paid money for it.

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Amaurote, Amstrad CPC

Amaurote is an isometric action game, developed by Binary Design and published by Mastertronic in 1987. It first appeared on the ZX Spectrum and was later ported to the Amstrad CPC, and it suits the machine quite well.

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