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.
Tag Archives: maze
Melkhior’s Mansion, PC
Another superb tribute to Ultimate‘s isometric adventures, this one called Melkhior’s Mansion. It was created by BitGlint Games and could be described as an “isometric Atic Atac“, although there is definitely more to it than that.
Wycheweald, ZX Spectrum
Wycheweald is a rare thing on the ZX Spectrum – an actual Role-Playing Game, with a first-person viewpoint and turn-based combat. It was created by Red Zebra and first released in 2023. And, while it is a little slow to play, it is well presented and quite absorbing. That is: if you like these kinds of esoteric RPGs. Which I do! 🙂
Pac-Man Arcade, ZX Spectrum
Written by Marco Leal and first released in 2023, Pac-Man Arcade on the ZX Spectrum is about as close as you could possibly get to the original Pac-Man, without using voodoo.
PSI Warrior, Commodore 64
Created by Paul Voysey and Tayo Olowu, with graphics by Yemi Olowu, PSI Warrior is an almost mythical game, released fairly early in the C64‘s lifetime (1984) by Beyond Software.
Arcana, Super Nintendo
Developed and published by HAL Laboratory, Arcana is a fantasy Role-Playing Game that mixes card-battling with first-person dungeoneering, and it is a reasonably enjoyable experience overall. Also known as “Card Master” in Japan, Arcana was first published in 1992, exclusively for the Super Nintendo.
The NewZealand Story, Megadrive/Genesis
A pretty much perfect conversion of the classic Taito arcade game, The NewZealand Story, developed by Visco Corporation and released for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis in 1990, in Japan only, through Taito themselves.
Amidar, Atari 2600
A conversion of the 1981 arcade game (of the same name) from Konami, and published by Stern in North America in 1982.
Wizard’s Lair, MSX
Steve Crow‘s superb tribute to Atic Atac, Wizard’s Lair, was released for the MSX by Bubble Bus Software in 1986.
Ms. Pac-Man, Atari Lynx
The Atari Lynx version of Ms. Pac-Man is a very good pill-gobbler, and – as far as I’m aware – it was only Pac-Man type game to appear on the system, outside of homebrew. It was developed and published by Atari Corporation in 1990.
