2- Allow Spectrum screen to be moved/resized similar to IDaptive controls editing with also x1 & x2 of original Spectrum resolution.
You can move and resize the screen to your taste when editing the controls - only landscape mode though (There's no point in a screen resize option in portrait mode).
You can move and resize the screen to your taste when editing the controls - only landscape mode though (There's no point in a screen resize option in portrait mode).
Excellent, never spotted that option. I like the dark textured background too.
While resizing the game screen is it possible to keep the aspect ratio or like I mentioned before just have the screen at x2 of the original Spectrum resolution?
Excellent, never spotted that option. I like the dark textured background too.
While resizing the game screen is it possible to keep the aspect ratio or like I mentioned before just have the screen at x2 of the original Spectrum resolution?
Sadly not, you've just got to stretch it until it looks about right and there is no x2 option (on the iPhone/iPod version at least).
From today's update:
"What We Did This Week:
- Announced Friday 18th Mar, ’11 as the release date for the forth update of ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection (the iPhone / Pod version), INCLUDING the in-App ‘shop’ and the next four volumes (Vol. #11 & Vol. #14)."
Looking forward to it. Any chance of letting us know which games are in the new packs before then, Matthew?
[EDIT] lol - dazsin beat me to it by a few seconds :)
Just got an email off Elite, cant wait for friday, some good games coming out and great to see another Cronosoft pack. Be good if its true about Matthew Smith getting that 5 figure income....
Elite? Announce ZX Spectrum Game Software Market Worth In Excess of US$150,000. ?Jet Set Willy? Author, Matthew Smith, ?On Course For Five Figure Income?.
Elite Systems, the long established UK based developer and electronic publisher of games for portable, mobile and other devices made the announcement based on an analysis of the first four months sales of its ZX Spectrum Apps for iOS devices.
Elite MD said, ?Both versions of Elite Collection will be updated this coming Friday (18th March, 2011) when, for the first time they will include ?Jet Set Willy? as an in-app purchase.? He continued, ?When we announced Elite Collection in September 2010 we said, our goals are:
? to offer access - via mobile and wireless devices - to many of the thousands of fantastic ZX Spectrum games created since 1982?
and
?to restore some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games and to enable other developers and publishers to offer access to their games by licencing our technology for a modest one off fee.
?We?ve made some measurable progress toward the achievement of those goals and it?s a pleasure to be able to report that Matthew Smith will, deservedly, be a beneficiary of the more orderly market for ZX Spectrum games on iOS devices. However, the theft (copyright infringement) of ZX Spectrum games on other platforms - notably on Android devices and online / PCs - is still very widespread. In concert with our many licencors, we intend to begin to tackle those abuses in the weeks and months ahead and in so doing bring some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games on those platforms too.?
When updated this coming Friday, Elite Collection will include 4 more volumes (#11 through to #14) as in-app purchases, each priced at ?1.19/?1.59/US$1.99 and each containing 6 ZX Spectrum games. The new volumes are:
- Cronosoft Collection Vol. #2, featuring - various
- Odin Collection, featuring - Nodes of Yesod
- Software Projects Collection Vo2. #1, featuring - Jet Set Willy,
- Stephen Crow Collection, featuring - Starquake, bringing the total number of ZX Spectrum games available (including those available as an in-app purchase) to at least 84.
Other features of the Apps include:
- iDaptive (i.e. user-definable, game-specific joystick, keypad & canvas) Controls, an instructional video for which can be found by Googling ?Tiny URL 22qh8hl? and here: http://tinyurl.com/22qh8hl
- ?auto save? on exiting any game
- separate infinite-lives version (where available)
Looking forward to these...
- Cronosoft Collection Vol. #2, featuring - various
Really hope Rallybug is in there plus another Egghead game.
- Odin Collection, featuring - Nodes of Yesod
Not a huge Odin fan but need to get into Nodes of Yesod. Robin of the Wood is another one for sure. Hopefully Heartland or Side Wize or even Hyperball will be there.
Great to get JSW there. Looking at the list of their games wonder what other ones will be available.
- Stephen Crow Collection, featuring - Starquake, bringing the total number of ZX Spectrum games available (including those available as an in-app purchase) to at least 84.
Hope Wizards Lair is there also, surely it is, saying that its a Stephen Crow collection not Bubble Bus ?. Looking at Crows other games would love to see Firelord and of course Zynaps
Still sadly no coin op games. Yep i'm sure the licenses are a pain but would still LOVE to get Commando/Bomb Jack on there one day.
However, the theft (copyright infringement) of ZX Spectrum games on other platforms - notably on Android devices and online / PCs - is still very widespread. In concert with our many licencors, we intend to begin to tackle those abuses in the weeks and months ahead and in so doing bring some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games on those platforms too.
Don't like the sound of this (bold is mine).
Will some games on WoS be targeted? Martijn has permission for a fair number, but that was when the authors didn't think there was any money to be made on 20+ year old games.
I'm still looking forward to the game packs, but I hope Elite don't suddenly start becoming heavy handed, now that they see the money is coming in. I wonder if this is why Matthew has been extremely quiet on the forum?
However, the theft (copyright infringement) of ZX Spectrum games on other platforms - notably on Android devices and online / PCs - is still very widespread. In concert with our many licencors, we intend to begin to tackle those abuses in the weeks and months ahead and in so doing bring some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games on those platforms too.”
Just read the whole press article.
Hmmmm. This puts me off buying any future games i must admit. I've got cd's full of emulator images, i've got every single game from the Ipod ZX apps but i've bought all of them as i want to support this iOS app but perhaps not anymore. I hope its nothing to do with WOS.
Deleted my long rant. Hopefully its not directed at WOS who have done a ton of good for the Speccy and retro gaming. If anything give Martijn a bonus for doing all this hard work for nothing and helping Speccy retro stay so popular.
Having spoken to Steve Wilcox about the very subject of World of Spectrum a few months back, I would be extremely surprised if he denied any games. He's surely talking about competing emulators on mobile devices that come bundled with unauthorised games. i.e. direct competition.
Elite's position on WoS appears to be that they don't endorse it, yet they don't oppose it either.
However, the theft (copyright infringement) of ZX Spectrum games on other platforms - notably on Android devices and online / PCs
But there isn't widespread "theft" of ZX Spectrum games on Android devices...quite the contrary....you'd have a real hard time find any Spectrum apps for it apart from a few emulators and a couple of "inspired by" games. I suppose they could mean old games being played on Android emulators....in which case it makes just as much sense to blame Nintendo because an emulator that runs on a DS does exactly the same thing!
I hope you noticed the words "bring some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games on those platforms too" in there as well? If I found myself paying 5 figures to an old Spectrum coder for his games, rights or just to pimp his name above the title on a PC game-pack then I'd make damn sure that you couldn't get those games for free anywhere else.
Who died and put Elite in charge of running the Spectrum market?
Having spoken to Steve Wilcox about the very subject of World of Spectrum a few months back, I would be extremely surprised if he denied any games. He's surely talking about competing emulators on mobile devices that come bundled with unauthorised games. i.e. direct competition.
Elite's position on WoS appears to be that they don't endorse it, yet they don't oppose it either.
Thats what surprised me. I hope my ewgf style rant above is over nothing but we've been through this before with Odin (When they had that Pocket PC version) and of course retrosoft i think they were called who seemed to think sales would sky rocket once those games are denied from here.
I hope its about competing emulators and not just some hardcore fans on a Speccy site.
Hopefully they meant any sites which sell Speccy cd's with an emulator/tons of images.
So they issue a cease and desist order against a seller, and the seller removes Manic Miner and JSW and the games that Elite say they have the rights to. What do Elite do next when the seller say "but you can get those exact same games from WoS.....hell it's where I got them from in the first place.....I'm only selling the emulator, the games are free. How come THOSE guys can distribute your games for free and I can't?"
Anywayyyyyyyy on the plus side i hope the Cronosoft gang are doing okay out of this and again its great to hear about Matthew smith getting some good lumps of money. Hope hes enjoying it
no where to what he should have got originally, but still thats not elite's doing.
I wanna know what the co is with Microsphere (skool daze etc).. they sold the rights to alternative outright or the couple behind that are also entitled to a slice of pie? that'd be nice to hear
When the news release said Friday I assumed 12am this morning but obviously not ! Hopefully see the updates/ news tomorrow
Plus i still think you should 'tease' people with the odd screenshot or mention of other games. Just drum up hype and hopefully more sales.
Just wish Commando/Bomb Jack would one day appear but can imagine its a pain talking to those companies and getting permissions etc , crazy in a way as these are 25 year old games not a recent release.
I've just set the iPhone and iPad updates to go live although it usually takes a while for the apps to process before they hit the store, so you'll have to keep checking.
As usual if you have to update or re-buy any of your existing in app purchases for whatever reason you will not get charged twice, providing you use the same apple id account.
If for whatever reason you experience any other problems please let us know and we'll do our best to rectify them. Although you shouldn't have to, sometimes people had to delete their old version off and then just did a straight install of the new one so they could see the updated build quicker. Sometimes the app store works in mysterious ways I guess.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the new games and perhaps even tempted to purchase one of the Ltd Edition Manic Miner prints.
In conjunction with that here's some images which i'm sure you'll be interested in especially for the WOS users!
Just having a look at the new apps (Look away now if you dont want to know the results !)...
Jonathan Cauldwell
Game X (yayyyy), Slubberdeguillion, Quantum Gardening, Loco Bingo, Egghead 4 and 5. Gutted theres no Rally Bug as i feel that would work really well, hopefully Jonathan Cauldwell vol 3 ! Devs - Please take a look at Rallybug, great platform game
Software Projects vol 2
Jet Set Willy, Jet Set Willy 16k (nice idea to add this), McKensie (never seen this game before), Hysteria (Obviously one of Joffas, nice to have a 'Cobra' type game), Push Off and Star Paws.
Steve Crow Collection
Firelord (get in), Starquake (get in again), Wizards Lair (yesss), Factory Breakout (??), Laser Shaker (??) and Sigma 7 which isnt bad. A few duffers but some great ones.
Odin
A nice collection here. Nodes of Yesod, Arc of Yesod, Robin o the Wood, Sidewize (nice shoot em up), The Plot and Heartland. Some good uns there.
A lot of good games above, hope to see a Hewson pack in the future as theyre all original games (Quazatron/Marauder) etc so no problems with arcade licensing.
Obviously would love to see the 'big boys' like Commando / Bomb Jack but can see why theyre tricky to get hold of.
But some very nice games. Still wish Elite would let us know more of the titles and future ones !
But games i would love to see which arent coin-ops...
Who Dares Wins II (Get round having a Commando game)
Quazatron (Hewson - so 'should' be easy to get hold of).
Critical Mass - Got an email address for Mr Durrell, surely Elite have as well as Saboteur was in an earlier version. Critical Mass would be nice to have
Comments
Some options I would like to have:-
1- Switch off UI/HUD etc leaving only the Spectrum game gfx and touch screen buttons on black screen.
2- Allow Spectrum screen to be moved/resized similar to IDaptive controls editing with also x1 & x2 of original Spectrum resolution.
You can move and resize the screen to your taste when editing the controls - only landscape mode though (There's no point in a screen resize option in portrait mode).
Excellent, never spotted that option. I like the dark textured background too.
While resizing the game screen is it possible to keep the aspect ratio or like I mentioned before just have the screen at x2 of the original Spectrum resolution?
Sadly not, you've just got to stretch it until it looks about right and there is no x2 option (on the iPhone/iPod version at least).
"What We Did This Week:
- Announced Friday 18th Mar, ’11 as the release date for the forth update of ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection (the iPhone / Pod version), INCLUDING the in-App ‘shop’ and the next four volumes (Vol. #11 & Vol. #14)."
Looking forward to it. Any chance of letting us know which games are in the new packs before then, Matthew?
[EDIT] lol - dazsin beat me to it by a few seconds :)
Elite? Announce ZX Spectrum Game Software Market Worth In Excess of US$150,000. ?Jet Set Willy? Author, Matthew Smith, ?On Course For Five Figure Income?.
Elite Systems, the long established UK based developer and electronic publisher of games for portable, mobile and other devices made the announcement based on an analysis of the first four months sales of its ZX Spectrum Apps for iOS devices.
Elite?s ZX Spectrum Apps include, ?Jet Set Willy: ZX Spectrum? for iPhone / iPod Touch:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jet-set-willy-zx-spectrum/id418193849?mt=8
and ?Jet Set Willy: ZX Spectrum HD ?for iPad:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jet-set-willy-zx-spectrum-hd/id418720728?mt=8
They also include ?ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection? for iPhone / iPod Touch:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/zx-spectrum-elite-collection/id391336343?mt=8
and ?ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection? for iPad
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zx-spectrum-elite-collection/id401767708?mt=8
Elite MD said, ?Both versions of Elite Collection will be updated this coming Friday (18th March, 2011) when, for the first time they will include ?Jet Set Willy? as an in-app purchase.? He continued, ?When we announced Elite Collection in September 2010 we said, our goals are:
? to offer access - via mobile and wireless devices - to many of the thousands of fantastic ZX Spectrum games created since 1982?
and
?to restore some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games and to enable other developers and publishers to offer access to their games by licencing our technology for a modest one off fee.
?We?ve made some measurable progress toward the achievement of those goals and it?s a pleasure to be able to report that Matthew Smith will, deservedly, be a beneficiary of the more orderly market for ZX Spectrum games on iOS devices. However, the theft (copyright infringement) of ZX Spectrum games on other platforms - notably on Android devices and online / PCs - is still very widespread. In concert with our many licencors, we intend to begin to tackle those abuses in the weeks and months ahead and in so doing bring some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games on those platforms too.?
When updated this coming Friday, Elite Collection will include 4 more volumes (#11 through to #14) as in-app purchases, each priced at ?1.19/?1.59/US$1.99 and each containing 6 ZX Spectrum games. The new volumes are:
- Cronosoft Collection Vol. #2, featuring - various
- Odin Collection, featuring - Nodes of Yesod
- Software Projects Collection Vo2. #1, featuring - Jet Set Willy,
- Stephen Crow Collection, featuring - Starquake, bringing the total number of ZX Spectrum games available (including those available as an in-app purchase) to at least 84.
Other features of the Apps include:
- iDaptive (i.e. user-definable, game-specific joystick, keypad & canvas) Controls, an instructional video for which can be found by Googling ?Tiny URL 22qh8hl? and here: http://tinyurl.com/22qh8hl
- ?auto save? on exiting any game
- separate infinite-lives version (where available)
- Cronosoft Collection Vol. #2, featuring - various
Really hope Rallybug is in there plus another Egghead game.
- Odin Collection, featuring - Nodes of Yesod
Not a huge Odin fan but need to get into Nodes of Yesod. Robin of the Wood is another one for sure. Hopefully Heartland or Side Wize or even Hyperball will be there.
- Software Projects Collection Vo2. #1, featuring - Jet Set Willy,
Great to get JSW there. Looking at the list of their games wonder what other ones will be available.
- Stephen Crow Collection, featuring - Starquake, bringing the total number of ZX Spectrum games available (including those available as an in-app purchase) to at least 84.
Hope Wizards Lair is there also, surely it is, saying that its a Stephen Crow collection not Bubble Bus ?. Looking at Crows other games would love to see Firelord and of course Zynaps
Still sadly no coin op games. Yep i'm sure the licenses are a pain but would still LOVE to get Commando/Bomb Jack on there one day.
Will some games on WoS be targeted? Martijn has permission for a fair number, but that was when the authors didn't think there was any money to be made on 20+ year old games.
I'm still looking forward to the game packs, but I hope Elite don't suddenly start becoming heavy handed, now that they see the money is coming in. I wonder if this is why Matthew has been extremely quiet on the forum?
Just read the whole press article.
Hmmmm. This puts me off buying any future games i must admit. I've got cd's full of emulator images, i've got every single game from the Ipod ZX apps but i've bought all of them as i want to support this iOS app but perhaps not anymore. I hope its nothing to do with WOS.
Deleted my long rant. Hopefully its not directed at WOS who have done a ton of good for the Speccy and retro gaming. If anything give Martijn a bonus for doing all this hard work for nothing and helping Speccy retro stay so popular.
Elite's position on WoS appears to be that they don't endorse it, yet they don't oppose it either.
But there isn't widespread "theft" of ZX Spectrum games on Android devices...quite the contrary....you'd have a real hard time find any Spectrum apps for it apart from a few emulators and a couple of "inspired by" games. I suppose they could mean old games being played on Android emulators....in which case it makes just as much sense to blame Nintendo because an emulator that runs on a DS does exactly the same thing!
I hope you noticed the words "bring some order to the market for ZX Spectrum games on those platforms too" in there as well? If I found myself paying 5 figures to an old Spectrum coder for his games, rights or just to pimp his name above the title on a PC game-pack then I'd make damn sure that you couldn't get those games for free anywhere else.
Who died and put Elite in charge of running the Spectrum market?
Thats what surprised me. I hope my ewgf style rant above is over nothing but we've been through this before with Odin (When they had that Pocket PC version) and of course retrosoft i think they were called who seemed to think sales would sky rocket once those games are denied from here.
I hope its about competing emulators and not just some hardcore fans on a Speccy site.
Hopefully they meant any sites which sell Speccy cd's with an emulator/tons of images.
Even with these i dont see them affecting sales. Even us WITH all the games on our PC's are still lapping up every single Speccy game pack there is.
The bloke in the street wont want to faff about with emulators/images, he just wants something simple for his iphone
I'll still be buying all four packs on Friday, but will keep a close eye on what develops.
Hopefully Elite will do right by the WoS community.
So they issue a cease and desist order against a seller, and the seller removes Manic Miner and JSW and the games that Elite say they have the rights to. What do Elite do next when the seller say "but you can get those exact same games from WoS.....hell it's where I got them from in the first place.....I'm only selling the emulator, the games are free. How come THOSE guys can distribute your games for free and I can't?"
Anyway time will tell. Do like what Elite have been doing and not denying any games on WOS has been brilliant.
I wanna know what the co is with Microsphere (skool daze etc).. they sold the rights to alternative outright or the couple behind that are also entitled to a slice of pie? that'd be nice to hear
(I don't have iPhone/iPad and so won't be buying these packs)..
Looking forward to the packs! I never had Nodes of Yesod but i'm looking forward to getting it this time around.
Another reason to look forward to Friday..!
Hope it is true about the payout to Matthew Smith!
As you can imagine it's been pretty busy for us over the last few weeks but as the press release states the update will go out sometime tomorrow.
Me and Steve had an eventful day today but all will be revealed tomorrow.
Matt
Plus i still think you should 'tease' people with the odd screenshot or mention of other games. Just drum up hype and hopefully more sales.
Just wish Commando/Bomb Jack would one day appear but can imagine its a pain talking to those companies and getting permissions etc , crazy in a way as these are 25 year old games not a recent release.
I've just set the iPhone and iPad updates to go live although it usually takes a while for the apps to process before they hit the store, so you'll have to keep checking.
As usual if you have to update or re-buy any of your existing in app purchases for whatever reason you will not get charged twice, providing you use the same apple id account.
If for whatever reason you experience any other problems please let us know and we'll do our best to rectify them. Although you shouldn't have to, sometimes people had to delete their old version off and then just did a straight install of the new one so they could see the updated build quicker. Sometimes the app store works in mysterious ways I guess.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the new games and perhaps even tempted to purchase one of the Ltd Edition Manic Miner prints.
In conjunction with that here's some images which i'm sure you'll be interested in especially for the WOS users!
Downloading now
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
The question is, was he any good at the games?
Jonathan Cauldwell
Game X (yayyyy), Slubberdeguillion, Quantum Gardening, Loco Bingo, Egghead 4 and 5. Gutted theres no Rally Bug as i feel that would work really well, hopefully Jonathan Cauldwell vol 3 ! Devs - Please take a look at Rallybug, great platform game
Software Projects vol 2
Jet Set Willy, Jet Set Willy 16k (nice idea to add this), McKensie (never seen this game before), Hysteria (Obviously one of Joffas, nice to have a 'Cobra' type game), Push Off and Star Paws.
Steve Crow Collection
Firelord (get in), Starquake (get in again), Wizards Lair (yesss), Factory Breakout (??), Laser Shaker (??) and Sigma 7 which isnt bad. A few duffers but some great ones.
Odin
A nice collection here. Nodes of Yesod, Arc of Yesod, Robin o the Wood, Sidewize (nice shoot em up), The Plot and Heartland. Some good uns there.
A lot of good games above, hope to see a Hewson pack in the future as theyre all original games (Quazatron/Marauder) etc so no problems with arcade licensing.
Obviously would love to see the 'big boys' like Commando / Bomb Jack but can see why theyre tricky to get hold of.
But some very nice games. Still wish Elite would let us know more of the titles and future ones !
But games i would love to see which arent coin-ops...
Who Dares Wins II (Get round having a Commando game)
Quazatron (Hewson - so 'should' be easy to get hold of).
Critical Mass - Got an email address for Mr Durrell, surely Elite have as well as Saboteur was in an earlier version. Critical Mass would be nice to have