Tag Archives: budget

C5 Clive, ZX Spectrum

C5 Clive, written by Barry Jones and published by Scorpio Gamesworld Ltd., pays tribute to (ie. satirises) Sir Clive Sinclair‘s infamous “personal automotive vehicle“, which was released onto the UK market as the Sinclair C5 in 1985.

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Gogo the Ghost, Commodore 64

Written by Marcus Charleville and Richard Dagsköld and published by Firebird in 1984, Gogo the Ghost is a simple maze game in which you must guide a friendly spectre through many screens of enemies and traps in order to rescue his “dream princess”.

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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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Brainstorm, ZX Spectrum

Written by Pete Cooke and published by Firebird (as a £1.99 budget game) in 1987, Brainstorm is a clever puzzle/strategy game where the aim is to draw lines using a pointer in order to make a bouncing ball travel over coloured sections of the screen, to accumulate points.

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Return of the Mutant Camels, Commodore 64

Return of the Mutant Camels is the third game in the LlamasoftCamels‘ series, after Attack of the Mutant Camels and Revenge of the Mutant Camels, and it is arguably the best of the bunch. It was first published by Mastertronic in 1987 as a budget game.

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Park Patrol, Amstrad CPC

Tony Ngo‘s classic Commmodore 64 game, Park Patrol, has a decent conversion on the Amstrad, courtesy of programmer Andrew Rogers and publisher Firebird Software. The Amstrad version was released in 1986 at a budget price (£1.99 if I remember correctly).

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The Official Father Christmas Game, Amstrad CPC

A game not often mentioned in online ‘Christmas video game’ lists, The Official Father Christmas Game is one of the better Christmas-themed video games that I’ve found so far. It was developed by Enigma Variations and published by Alternative Software for the Amstrad, Spectrum and C64 in 1989. All proceeds from the game went to the famous children’s charity, Save The Children.

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The Official Father Christmas Game, ZX Spectrum

Although you may laugh at the title of this Christmas-themed game, it’s not called that because the publisher (Alternative Software) went to Lapland to buy an official license from Santa… It’s called that because it is an official tie-in with the famous children’s charity, Save The Children. The game was sold (for a reasonable £2.99, for the Spectrum, Amstrad and C64) in 1989 and all profits went to Save The Children.

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The Official Father Christmas Game, Commodore 64

Created in association with Save The Children, The Official Father Christmas Game was developed by Enigma Variations and published by Alternative Software for the C64, Spectrum and Amstrad in 1989. Profits from the game went to the aforementioned children’s charity.

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