Mazogs is a maze action adventure game designed and programmed by Don Priestley and published by Bug-Byte for the 16K ZX81 in 1982. It is the predecessor to the classic ZX Spectrum game, Maziacs.
Tag Archives: early
Rapscallion, ZX Spectrum
Rapscallion is a bizarre and humorous action adventure written by Albert Ball and published by Bug-Byte for the ZX Spectrum in 1984.
You play an un-named king who has had his crown and castle seized by his arch enemy, Rapscallion the Rogue. Rapscallion has thrown you into the dungeon to rot, but you are saved by your friend, The Fairy Princess, who transforms you into a bird and grants you six lives. This allows you to begin your quest for revenge…
Time Bandit, Dragon 32
An American TRS-80 release imported to the Dragon 32, Time Bandit is a scrolling maze game with shoot ’em up elements. It was written by Bill Dunlevy and Harry Lafnear and first published by MichTron in 1983. Microdeal published it in the UK.
Pogo, ZX Spectrum
Ocean Software‘s 1983 release, Pogo, is arguably the best Q*Bert clone on the ZX Spectrum. And there were a lot of Q*Bert clones around at the time.
It was one of the very first Spectrum games I ever bought and it kept teenage me occupied for a few days, before I eventually grew tired of it.
Pi-Balled, ZX Spectrum
Pi-Balled was published by Automata UK in 1984 and is basically a Q*Bert clone. And it’s not a bad one at that.
Pi-Eyed, ZX Spectrum
This infamous ZX Spectrum game was released way back in 1983 by Automata UK (one of the first video games companies ever set up in the UK), and is basically about visiting pubs and going out “on the razz”.
Leprechaun, Arcade
Ugh… Now this is a turkey of a game if ever I saw one… Created by Tong Electronics in 1982, Leprechaun is a dour collect ’em up that was designed for children but in fact offends their intelligence.
In fact: it would probably offend everyone now, except for those people who want to play the worst video games of all time, in which case it is probably mana from heaven…
Ghostbusters, Sega Master System
The 1987 Sega Master System conversion of David Crane‘s classic Ghostbusters is… Okay. It’s actually got a few enhancements over other versions that make it a bit more of a challenge, although it does have its down sides.
Ghostbusters, NES/Famicom
The Nintendo Entertainment System version of David Crane‘s Ghostbusters is known for being a bit of a mess, compared to all the other versions.
It was initially released in Japan in 1986 and later in North America in 1988. Why the two year delay? Probably something to do with the fact that the game is terrible…
Ghostbusters, PC
This 1986 PC Booter version of Ghostbusters won’t run in MS-DOS, but it is easy enough to get working in DOSBox, by simply adding a “BOOT” line to the config file.
To get the game running in colour (ie. not horrible CGA) I had to use the “pcjr” graphics option and set CPU cycles to 240. Otherwise the game would run too fast.
The King of Grabs 