Derek Brewster‘s Jasper is a decent platform game from the early days of the ZX Spectrum. It was first published by Micromega in 1984.
Jasper himself is a yellow mouse, and his raison d’etre in life is: making it home across 22 screens of obstacles.
Tag Archives: early
Braxx Bluff, ZX Spectrum
Braxx Bluff was released by Micromega for the ZX Spectrum in 1984. It was written by Tony Poulter.
It’s a weird game – of space exploration – well, the exploration of a planet and its surface.
Booga-Boo, MSX
The MSX conversion of the classic Bugaboo (The Flea) has a slightly different title to the original, but the same great gameplay.
Bomb Jack, Arcade
A classic platform game from 1984, Tehkan‘s Bomb Jack is a colourful collect ’em up, with bombs that must be collected in the right order, to get the full bonus.
Antics, ZX Spectrum
This 1983 sequel to Bug-Byte‘s The Birds and the Bees is a simplistic maze game, but with excellent controls as you control a bee (with plenty of inertia), on the lookout for a kidnapped friend (kidnapped by ants, no less).
The Birds and the Bees, ZX Spectrum
The Birds and the Bees is a simple, side-scrolling collect ’em up, with you playing a bee, out collecting pollen from nearby flowers. It was released by Bug-Byte Software on the ZX Spectrum in 1983.
Ant Attack, Commodore 64
The ZX Spectrum original of Ant Attack was so good that it spawned a decent 1984 Commodore 64 version, by Paul Fik and Bitterne Software.
Swords and Sorcery, Amstrad CPC
This Amstrad CPC conversion of Swords and Sorcery by PSS is even better than the ZX Spectrum original. The graphics are slightly better, if anything.
Star Raiders, Atari 8-bit
Doug Neubauer‘s 1979 release, Star Raiders, is a very important game indeed. Predominantly because it was so hugely influential on many other games that followed it. Some people even point to it being the spark that started the first-person shooter market, but that is probably going a little too far…
Combat, Atari 2600
Combat was designed by Atari, Inc. and first released for the Atari 2600 in 1977 and was the pack-in game for the system until 1982 (meaning: you got a Combat cartridge with the console, upon purchase).
It was one of the first home video games I ever played (probably the same for millions of others) and it enthralled me. Yes, Combat is very simple by today’s standards, but in 1977 it was a revelation and was much cloned by other developers.
The King of Grabs 