Category Archives: ZX Spectrum

Fred, ZX Spectrum

Written by famous Spanish software house Indescomp, Fred is a scrolling platform/maze game where you control a cartoon Indiana Jones-type character plundering treasures from an Egyptian tomb, while avoiding contact with ghosts and mummies.

Fred was first released in 1984. In its native Spain the game was published by Investronica, while in the UK and other parts of Europe the game was published by Quicksilva.

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Moon Cresta, ZX Spectrum

The Spectrum conversion of Nichibutsu‘s classic 1980 arcade game Moon Cresta was published by Incentive Software in 1985 and it is considered to be very good, considering the machine’s limitations.

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Light Force, ZX Spectrum

Light Force is one of the best vertically-scrolling shoot ’em ups on the ZX Spectrum and it was published by Faster Than Light in 1986. It was written by Greg Follis and Roy Carter – the same guys who wrote the classic Spectrum games Tir Na Nog, Dun Darach and Marsport for Gargoyle Games.

The game is a fairly straightforward – if very playable – shooter, with smooth-scrolling backgrounds that have destructible elements, but it is so well presented that it’s hard not to be impressed.

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Football Manager, ZX Spectrum

It might look like an outdated pile of crap by today’s standards but Addictive Software‘s 1982 game, Football Manager, was a massive hit on the ZX Spectrum at the time.

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Bruce Lee, ZX Spectrum

Bruce Lee on the ZX Spectrum was developed by Ocean Software and is an excellent conversion of the Atari 8-bit original. It’s playable, solid, and remains great fun to play to this day. It even retains the simultaneous two-player mode from the original.

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Jack the Nipper II: In Coconut Capers, ZX Spectrum

As the title suggests, this is the sequel to the classic Spectrum ‘naughty kid’ game, Jack the Nipper. Jack the Nipper II: In Coconut Capers was again written by Greg Holmes (with graphics help by Terry Lloyd) and published by Gremlin Graphics. It first came out on the ZX Spectrum in 1987.

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Jack the Nipper, ZX Spectrum

This puzzle-based platform game was written by Greg Holmes and published for the ZX Spectrum by Gremlin Graphics in 1986. The main character, Jack the Nipper, is a mischievous baby based loosely on the British comic character Sweeny Toddler.

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Gauntlet, ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet is surprisingly good. It was developed by Gremlin Graphics and published by US Gold in 1987 and features all 100 levels from the original, only in multi-load chunks. This was because the game was initially released on cassette only and required loading after a certain number of levels were traversed.

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The Arc of Yesod, ZX Spectrum

The Arc of Yesod is the sequel to Nodes of Yesod and was actually published the same year as Nodes, in 1985. The game was again developed by Odin Computer Graphics, but this time was published by Thor Computer Software.

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