The Addams Family for TurboGrafx-CD was developed by ICOM Simulations, Inc. and first published by NEC Technologies in 1991. It does not follow the template of all the Ocean ports of this game. It instead does its own thing entirely and takes advantage of the audio streaming from the CD by adding lots more sound and speech. Which gives it a distinctive “talkie” feel.
Tag Archives: 8-bit
The Addams Family, Amstrad CPC
The 1992 Amstrad CPC version of Ocean‘s ubiquitous The Addams Family is probably the ugliest out of all the versions. The chunky pixels and small play window certainly don’t make for much to look at.
The Addams Family, Sega Master System
The Sega Master System version of The Addams Family is very good. It features an interesting player character in Gomez, in this one wearing a blue suit, who can jump and climb through a complex set of levels in order to rescue his other family members.
All the while holding his hand, distinctively, in his jacket pocket…
Ranarama, Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad version of Steve Turner‘s Ranarama is every bit as good as the Spectrum original, although it is probably fair to say that it isn’t quite as colourful. It still looks good, though. And – even more importantly – it plays just as good, if not better, than the original.
Batty, Amstrad CPC
Batty, Commodore 64
First published by Hit-Pak (the ‘budget’ label of Elite Systems) in 1988, the C64 version of the classic bat-and-ball action game, Batty, is more or less the same as the ZX Spectrum original, but with chunkier graphics. And, like the original, it is an excellent Breakout/Arkanoid clone.
Batty, ZX Spectrum
Written by Mark Crane and first published by Hit-Pak (the budget label of Elite Systems) in 1987, Batty is a clone of the games Breakout, and Arkanoid, but with a few of its own unique features.
The game was a minor hit on the ZX Spectrum and was also released for the Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64.
Pastfinder, MSX
I would have to say that David Lubar‘s Pastfinder is one of my favourite games of all-time. Not only does it have an interesting player craft, but there’s also a compelling game buried within this seemingly impenetrable shooter.
Spindizzy, ZX Spectrum
Originating on the Amstrad CPC, Spindizzy is a genius piece of coding and game design. It is an isometric exploration game, where you play as a spinning gyroscope (called GERALD) trying to collect gems across a large map of screens. It was designed by Paul Shirley, and the Spectrum port was handled by Phil Churchyard. Spindizzy on the Spectrum was published by Electric Dreams in 1986.
Wee Ninja, Atari 8-bit
Wee Ninja is a homebrew scrolling platform game for Atari 8-bit home computers (with 32K of RAM). It was written by Paul Lay and first released by Playsoft in June 2025, to rapturous applause.
