Some great games here; these packs are stronger than the last lot.
I'd like to see some arcade adventures - Magic Knight or Wally games in particular. Alternative re-released "Everyone's A Wally", so that might be easier to get hold of.
Granted i dont know who owns the rights to what (Eg Skool Daze i was surprised to see from Alternative) but going on the 80's - Mikro Gen - UK based company, no arcade games there, mostly the Wally ones, could be a great pack.
As i mentioned before Hewson are a great british company plus i think most games are non-arcade ones so they 'should' own the rights
Would be stunning if there was an Ultimate collection ! Probably wouldnt say yes but possible to get hold of them as theyre now Rare (or then again didnt they sell to US gold ?).
Its a very good underated game. Basically Gauntlet will be near impossible to get hold of due to it being an arcade game etc. However Duet is a half decent Gauntlet clone, by Elite and hopefully no trouble being on a future pack (Despite being called Commando 87).
But anyway some very nice packs. My only 0.1% criticism is i wished Rallybug was on Cauldwells pack.
I'm still dying to see Dynamite Dan and Technician Ted. It'll be a long wait until end of May for the next update!
Great shout, Mirrorsoft are UK based and yeah Technician Ted is a Hewson game.
From the sounds of it they have a lot of games lined up, suppose you cant flood the market with tons instantly and can see why they do new packs every 2 months.
I'm still dying to see Dynamite Dan and Technician Ted. It'll be a long wait until end of May for the next update!
I find both of these games to be brutally hard! But it would still be good to see them. I'd love Dynamite Dan 2 actually, I thought it was a big improvement on the first.
A "Firebird" budget pack would be good: Booty, Kings Keep, Megabucks, Thrust, The Wild Bunch and Zolyx!
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
Finally I can break my silence...
Obviously, the games had to be reworked slightly for the emulator's controls, but I took the opportunity to make slight improvements while I was there.
One of the criticisms of Loco Bingo was that it was far too easy for trucks to get stuck against a wall. Others complained that the third level was too hard. So I made a few changes. The player can now nudge trucks out from against the walls by jumping into them from below, which really opens up the gameplay. The tricky level was also modified, and moved to later on in the game.
In Slubberdegullion, selecting bouncing balls then releasing them always reselected the laser cannon afterwards, whereas the selected weapon did not return to lasers after dropping a bomb. This was changed so that lasers are always reselected after using another weapon, which is handy in those tight spots. It feels a lot more natural now.
The Dodgems game in GameX now has a fire button to speed up.
Obviously, the games had to be reworked slightly for the emulator's controls, but I took the opportunity to make slight improvements while I was there.
Thanks for posting Jonathan; that's excellent news. Not only do we get a fantastic pack of games, but some have been tweaked to make them even better!
Looking forward to getting home and giving them a go!
Don't suppose you can spill the beans and let us know if a second pack of your games is in the works? No specifics, but it would give psj (and me) hope of seeing Rallybug!
Regardless of my trepidation re: all this talk of bringing order to the Spectrum market, and the possible end of the glorious emulator free-for-all that sounds like... the pic of Matthew Smith receiving money makes me feel happier about the whole enterprise :)
I'd just typed a long response only to be kicked off when i tried to post it, that will teach me for not copying it first.
Anyway, to answer a few questions:-
Matthew did still remember how to play Manic but didn't play it long enough to get past the first screen. He was also interested in noting the emulation qualities once he realised that it was an emulator and not a port. He was actually more interested to play Push Off as he said he always used to play it whilst developing the other games.
On the JSW music note the first 36'000 or so copies had if i were a rich man in it, however they got a tap on the shoulder at some point about it's use and permissions which is why they reverted back to the Manic Miner music.
About colour cycles in the emulator i'm not sure why you'd want to know but i'll find out anyway.
Finally...glad the new games are going down well so far, Cronosoft actually suggested the titles that they thought we should go with and that's how they were chosen. As mentioned there are plenty more Crono titles that could be used to put additional packs together in the future, should they wish us to do so.
Now, onto another note I just realised this morning that for some people (sadly) the app update didn't actually work on the ipod/iphone. I've been looking into this today and I think it's for people with the older 3.1.3 firmware.
Upon initial inspection I think it relates to when we were testing TV out in the app. As 3.1.3 doesn't support it in applications as soon as it's detected the app will exit on the splash screen.
Before those with 4.0 and above start getting too excited the TV out code is disabled in such a way that if you are lucky enough to have a cable it wouldn't still work when you tried it with the app as it's sufficiently disabled to stop it for now. When we tested it after some tweaking around we got some very impressive results and running JSW on my Optoma HD65 projector at 1280x720 was might impressive. However, we still need to optimise the settings so that the game speed on the other display runs correctly, this is why it's not yet active.
If you have a 3.1.3 don't update the app yet as i'll be submitting a fix for this as soon as i can.
If you do have a 3.1.3 and already updated there's a couple of things you can do.
A.) Bite the bullet and update your iOS firmware.
B.) If you have a backup of the older 1-10 version in your itunes library just delete the new updated one off your device and re-install the old on via itunes.
OR
C.) Have a good moan and wait for the fix, well...please don't moan actually
Right, back to the grind and another standalone we intend to release in a couple of weeks which isn't likely to appear in any of the future updates I don't think but will be well received for some people.
Oh, I also forgot to say that the LTD edition prints signed by Matthew are going well, there's some more pictures of Matthew on the LTD Edition page inside the News section of the app if you haven't already seen them. I'll also upload a small video later of him on that page too.
Right, back to the grind and another standalone we intend to release in a couple of weeks which isn't likely to appear in any of the future updates I don't think but will be well received for some people.
Please let it be bomb jack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack,
From what I have read, Bombjack is one of the titles Elite still have a licence for, having made a mobile version...
Yeah good point, never thought of that ! From earlier in this thread i read that its difficult for Elite to do arcade conversions due to licensing etc. But like you say they managed to do a mobile phone version so surely an old Speccy game should be 'easier' to get the 'yes' to ?
I've torn myself away from The Arc of Yesod to say a giant THANK YOU to the ZXEC team for putting in a music on/off button in Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy - that button has stopped me going mental. Any chance of updating the stand-alone versions so they also include music on off buttons too?
I've torn myself away from The Arc of Yesod to say a giant THANK YOU to the ZXEC team for putting in a music on/off button in Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy - that button has stopped me going mental. Any chance of updating the stand-alone versions so they also include music on off buttons too?
Er, that feature has been 'included' since 1983!! (Press keys H, J,K, or L to toggle the music).
Er, that feature has been 'included' since 1983!! (Press keys H, J,K, or L to toggle the music).
Yup, I know, but you couldn't turn the music off in the ZXEC version until recently - only left/right and jump buttons were available. They've now included a music on/off button too, which is effectively acting as one of the H - L keys.
Been very busy of late but yes this is true the app update has been brought forward now.
It's actually ready to go but we won't be setting it to go live until midnight.
Again it adds another 4 volumes which each have some gems of Spectrum goodness and should have something in them for everyone.
We've also included a quick launch option in the Choose Volume screen so you can quickly launch a game from your collection without having to go thru the volumes/help etc if don't want to.
I've also tidied up the whole of the help screens now for each game into a more universal format which looks better and also helps to keep the overall size of the app in check, which is now just under 30mb's i think.
Also fixed a couple of game bugs (if any of you spotted them?) in Starquake Cheops Pyramid and in Roller Coaster it was possible to get stuck on some of the screens.
We're aware that there may be some issues with Chaos that sometimes leads to a crash but due to the nature of the game it's a complex one to investigate although we will definitely be looking into it.
If you experience any problems with anything just let us know and we'll do our best to fix it.
The iPad version hasn't quite made it into submission yet so it won't be released at the same time although i will be submitting it today.
The iPad version will feature the same updates apart from the UI help screen overhaul for all the games.
This will be included into the next iPad update after this one.
Wahaaaay, great update - like the pick games from a list instead of trudging through volumes trying to remember where all the games are. Here are the game packs ...
Palace Collection Vol.1
================
Barbarian
Caulrdon
Sacred Armour of Antiriad
Titan
Crazy Cars
Fire and Forget
Alternative Collection Vol.2
====================
Back to Skool by MICROSPHERE
Confusion
Turbo Girl
Revolver
Slug
Combat Zone
Nexus Collection
============
Earthlight
Firestorm
Micronaut One
Hades Nebula
N.E.X.U.S
Fat Worm Blows a Sparky
Some gems in there, although the Alternative Collection vol.2 is a bit weak (Turbo Girl, Revolver, Slug and Combat Zone being the weaker titles but an improvement over vol.1, with MICROSPHERE's Back to Skool being the highlight and Confusion a pleasant surprise). Personal Favourites are Frost Byte, Earthlight, Micronaut One, Fat Worm Blows a Sparky, Everyone's a Wally (What happened to Pyjamarama?) and Back to Skool by MICROSPHERE. Antiriad is worth a mention too.
Comments
I'd like to see some arcade adventures - Magic Knight or Wally games in particular. Alternative re-released "Everyone's A Wally", so that might be easier to get hold of.
Also, "The Great Escape" would be excellent.
As i mentioned before Hewson are a great british company plus i think most games are non-arcade ones so they 'should' own the rights
Would be stunning if there was an Ultimate collection ! Probably wouldnt say yes but possible to get hold of them as theyre now Rare (or then again didnt they sell to US gold ?).
How about another Elite game, Duet...
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001534
Its a very good underated game. Basically Gauntlet will be near impossible to get hold of due to it being an arcade game etc. However Duet is a half decent Gauntlet clone, by Elite and hopefully no trouble being on a future pack (Despite being called Commando 87).
But anyway some very nice packs. My only 0.1% criticism is i wished Rallybug was on Cauldwells pack.
Great shout, Mirrorsoft are UK based and yeah Technician Ted is a Hewson game.
From the sounds of it they have a lot of games lined up, suppose you cant flood the market with tons instantly and can see why they do new packs every 2 months.
But some great games in these latest packs.
A "Firebird" budget pack would be good: Booty, Kings Keep, Megabucks, Thrust, The Wild Bunch and Zolyx!
Bounder by Gremlin Graphics. Very original game, would love to see this
Finally I can break my silence...
Obviously, the games had to be reworked slightly for the emulator's controls, but I took the opportunity to make slight improvements while I was there.
One of the criticisms of Loco Bingo was that it was far too easy for trucks to get stuck against a wall. Others complained that the third level was too hard. So I made a few changes. The player can now nudge trucks out from against the walls by jumping into them from below, which really opens up the gameplay. The tricky level was also modified, and moved to later on in the game.
In Slubberdegullion, selecting bouncing balls then releasing them always reselected the laser cannon afterwards, whereas the selected weapon did not return to lasers after dropping a bomb. This was changed so that lasers are always reselected after using another weapon, which is handy in those tight spots. It feels a lot more natural now.
The Dodgems game in GameX now has a fire button to speed up.
Egghead Website
Arcade Game Designer
My itch.io page
Looking forward to getting home and giving them a go!
Don't suppose you can spill the beans and let us know if a second pack of your games is in the works? No specifics, but it would give psj (and me) hope of seeing Rallybug!
I'd just typed a long response only to be kicked off when i tried to post it, that will teach me for not copying it first.
Anyway, to answer a few questions:-
Matthew did still remember how to play Manic but didn't play it long enough to get past the first screen. He was also interested in noting the emulation qualities once he realised that it was an emulator and not a port. He was actually more interested to play Push Off as he said he always used to play it whilst developing the other games.
On the JSW music note the first 36'000 or so copies had if i were a rich man in it, however they got a tap on the shoulder at some point about it's use and permissions which is why they reverted back to the Manic Miner music.
About colour cycles in the emulator i'm not sure why you'd want to know but i'll find out anyway.
Finally...glad the new games are going down well so far, Cronosoft actually suggested the titles that they thought we should go with and that's how they were chosen. As mentioned there are plenty more Crono titles that could be used to put additional packs together in the future, should they wish us to do so.
Now, onto another note I just realised this morning that for some people (sadly) the app update didn't actually work on the ipod/iphone. I've been looking into this today and I think it's for people with the older 3.1.3 firmware.
Upon initial inspection I think it relates to when we were testing TV out in the app. As 3.1.3 doesn't support it in applications as soon as it's detected the app will exit on the splash screen.
Before those with 4.0 and above start getting too excited the TV out code is disabled in such a way that if you are lucky enough to have a cable it wouldn't still work when you tried it with the app as it's sufficiently disabled to stop it for now. When we tested it after some tweaking around we got some very impressive results and running JSW on my Optoma HD65 projector at 1280x720 was might impressive. However, we still need to optimise the settings so that the game speed on the other display runs correctly, this is why it's not yet active.
If you have a 3.1.3 don't update the app yet as i'll be submitting a fix for this as soon as i can.
If you do have a 3.1.3 and already updated there's a couple of things you can do.
A.) Bite the bullet and update your iOS firmware.
B.) If you have a backup of the older 1-10 version in your itunes library just delete the new updated one off your device and re-install the old on via itunes.
OR
C.) Have a good moan and wait for the fix, well...please don't moan actually
Right, back to the grind and another standalone we intend to release in a couple of weeks which isn't likely to appear in any of the future updates I don't think but will be well received for some people.
Oh, I also forgot to say that the LTD edition prints signed by Matthew are going well, there's some more pictures of Matthew on the LTD Edition page inside the News section of the app if you haven't already seen them. I'll also upload a small video later of him on that page too.
Matt
Please let it be bomb jack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack, please let it be bombjack,
;)
Ha ha !
Evil though ! ;)
Yeah good point, never thought of that ! From earlier in this thread i read that its difficult for Elite to do arcade conversions due to licensing etc. But like you say they managed to do a mobile phone version so surely an old Speccy game should be 'easier' to get the 'yes' to ?
Fingers crossed
Er, that feature has been 'included' since 1983!! (Press keys H, J,K, or L to toggle the music).
Eh ? Bit dififcult to do on this version when you only have keys for left/right and jump !
Yup, I know, but you couldn't turn the music off in the ZXEC version until recently - only left/right and jump buttons were available. They've now included a music on/off button too, which is effectively acting as one of the H - L keys.
Been very busy of late but yes this is true the app update has been brought forward now.
It's actually ready to go but we won't be setting it to go live until midnight.
Again it adds another 4 volumes which each have some gems of Spectrum goodness and should have something in them for everyone.
We've also included a quick launch option in the Choose Volume screen so you can quickly launch a game from your collection without having to go thru the volumes/help etc if don't want to.
I've also tidied up the whole of the help screens now for each game into a more universal format which looks better and also helps to keep the overall size of the app in check, which is now just under 30mb's i think.
Also fixed a couple of game bugs (if any of you spotted them?) in Starquake Cheops Pyramid and in Roller Coaster it was possible to get stuck on some of the screens.
We're aware that there may be some issues with Chaos that sometimes leads to a crash but due to the nature of the game it's a complex one to investigate although we will definitely be looking into it.
If you experience any problems with anything just let us know and we'll do our best to fix it.
The iPad version hasn't quite made it into submission yet so it won't be released at the same time although i will be submitting it today.
The iPad version will feature the same updates apart from the UI help screen overhaul for all the games.
This will be included into the next iPad update after this one.
Matt
And still not even the faintest hint of any of the incuded titles for us faithful WoSsers. Why is that?
Palace Collection Vol.1
================
Barbarian
Caulrdon
Sacred Armour of Antiriad
Titan
Crazy Cars
Fire and Forget
Alternative Collection Vol.2
====================
Back to Skool by MICROSPHERE
Confusion
Turbo Girl
Revolver
Slug
Combat Zone
Nexus Collection
============
Earthlight
Firestorm
Micronaut One
Hades Nebula
N.E.X.U.S
Fat Worm Blows a Sparky
Mikro-Gen Collection Vol.1
===================
Automania
Everyone's a Wally
Frost Byte
Cruise Attack
Laser Warp
Paradroids
Some gems in there, although the Alternative Collection vol.2 is a bit weak (Turbo Girl, Revolver, Slug and Combat Zone being the weaker titles but an improvement over vol.1, with MICROSPHERE's Back to Skool being the highlight and Confusion a pleasant surprise). Personal Favourites are Frost Byte, Earthlight, Micronaut One, Fat Worm Blows a Sparky, Everyone's a Wally (What happened to Pyjamarama?) and Back to Skool by MICROSPHERE. Antiriad is worth a mention too.