ZXUDGedit
This Android app makes it quick & easy to create and edit User Defined Graphics (UDGs). The UDGs can be loaded straight into a Spectrum emulator as a binary file into the usual UDG area (USR “A”, i.e. 65368 in 48K), or any other appropriate location in the Spectrum memory.
Free download, no ads or in-app purchases
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=udgedit.zx.zxudgedit&hl=en_GB
Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
A new year, a new CSSCGC! My first game is based on the life of the Renaissance artist Michelangelo. The player has to help him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Of course, this game is deliberately bad but does contain a graphical cut-scene intro using a system I’m working on to convert digitised pictures into Spectrum UDGs. Including the cut-scene did lead to improvements in my graphics system (which I’ve rather haughtily entitled “The Graphicalizer”!).
Anyway I couldn’t describe the game better than this year’s CSSCGC host, GReW so here’s a link, which gave me a good laugh
http://csscgc2017.000webhostapp.com/submissions.html#002
Santa’s Quick Drop
Santa’s Quick Drop is one of the many games on the Woot! ZXmas Tape Magazine released a few days ago. Woot! ZXmas is something of an homage to the “16/48” and “Spectrum Computing” tape mags sold in newsagents during the 1980s (instead of being paper based, these magazines were distributed on tape cassettes).
Santa’s Quick Drop is a mini game written in BASIC, so it’s more of a Christmas cracker novelty than an epic new 8-bit classic.
Thanks to all of the contributors to this tape, especially World of Spectrum user R-Tape for suggesting the idea and for putting it all together!
Time-Gate graphics hack
Time-Gate is a 4D space shooting game for the ZX Spectrum from 1982 published by Quicksilva. 4D you ask? A typo? No, it’s a 3D game with time travel, and time is the fourth dimension (apparently). It’s quite an atmospheric game, you have to explore 18 sectors of space looking for Time-Gates, sometimes this is a little tedious but somehow this adds to the sense of “realism”. It’s important to know how your spaceship is damaged: e.g. if the shields are destroyed then you’re only more hit away from being vapourised, but if the scanner is destroyed you can still continue. One shortcoming with the original is that the status indicators of the spaceship use the same graphic:
And yes, it is worth writing them down but it breaks the atmosphere of the game to look for the envelope/credit card bill/newspaper margin I’ve written them on. I rediscovered the game recently and thought about adding icons instead of the boxes in the status indicators. I didn’t want to release a hacked version of the game for 2 reasons, 1. I don’t own the copyright to the game and 2. I liked the extra technical challenge. I wanted to produce something that would load Time-Gate, alter it then run it.
Adding the graphics wasn’t actually very difficult, all I had to do was find the memory locations storing the instrument panel. This was done by using ZX Spin’s GFX Ripper (ZX Spin is a Spectrum emulator) – luckily the graphics are stored SCREEN$/bitmap style in the game. The difficult part was overcoming the auto-run. Time-Gate loads using a self-running LOAD “” CODE block, changing some system variables. What I did was load it into a higher memory location, i.e. preserving the system variables then copying down to where it should be, which I did with 11 bytes of machine code:
LD HL,32401 LD DE,26000 LD BC,31000 LDIR RET
Then I overwrite the graphics and call USR, this has mocked up text but shows the new status indicators:
I like to think that this moment represents the start of the game when Void-Runner 1 is about to launch from Earth, after the control panels have hummed into life and the glowing screen has just shown it’s first message in 1500 years: “Void-Runner 1 on standby”. It’s near Cairo of course and the pyramids tie in nicely with the ideas of time travel, events happening over millenia.
The hack works and improves the game. I had some difficulty thinking what graphics to use for each item – the engine is represented by a * from the arcade font (it resembles a cog) and I never could work out how to represent the Jump Drive. What does a Jump Drive from a futuristic spaceship look like? I don’t know either so I just used a big letter J. All the graphics are chunky because they become coloured more darkly as more damage is sustained and thus difficult to discern if they’re thin.
You can download the hack here and if you want, you can change the graphics easily (well, easy depending on how well you know Spectrum BASIC). Press BREAK when it says “Play TIME-GATE tape”, load in new UDGs into A-F then type GOTO 9999 to save the new hack.
I still enjoy Time-Gate but haven’t yet finished it on Skill Level 5…..
Strange Kitchen – Boriel version for the ZX Spectrum
Last month I released a Spectrum version of Strange Kitchen written in Boriel ZXBasic. Boriel has provided a compiler that takes a BASIC-style text file and produces a ZX Spectrum machine code executable! Debugging is harder than normal BASIC, you can’t just press BREAK and print variable values but it’s worth the hassle and of course there’s more incentive to get right first time (or, at least, less wrong!).
CSSCGC2016
The CSSCGC is an annual competition to write deliberately poor quality games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. I’ve sent 2 entries so far this year.
Text Golf Pro combines the thrills of golf with the excitement of a text adventure. It also allows players to save their score cards for analysis to help them improve their game. I haven’t heard from any professional golfers wishing to endorse the game yet, but it’s early days. Fore!
ERASE is an arcade style game about strange invaders from another dimension. It seems to be a good game: but if you’re playing on an emulator, you’ll be playing on a keyboard that won’t have the Spectrum Symbol Shift characters on it. So your only chance of winning is either to have a picture of a (non-+2 and non-+3) Spectrum nearby or to possess knowledge of Symbol shifted characters keyboard locations (probably gained by hours of Spectrum BASIC programming). Or, as it’s written in BASIC, its not too difficult to break into and cheat!
Reviews from Appliv
Appliv is an established and expanding app review and discovery site. They have kindly reviewed Weird Island and Shakespeare Adventure Pt.1. Here is what they have to say:
Shakespeare Adventure Pt. 1 review
Appliv “Bringing apps closer to you” Appliv Android
Appliv
An app discovery site, expanding internationally and soon to include Weird Island!
Shakespeare Adventure Part 1
London, 1605. William Shakespeare has writer’s block. And he’s lost his quill, run out of ink and has cashflow problems. Plus, of course, he has to help out at the Globe.
Become the Bard and help William find inspiration for his new play!
Festive Tension
Festive Tension. The festive season is here. Ho Ho Ho! Some people can feel tense at this time of year… the shopping, cold weather, sprouts, irritating songs etc. Bah humbug! You might be able to relieve some tension with this free app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sprout.attack
This is quite a frantic game and requires no thought at all – just blast and bounce everything ! How frantic? This video shows level 9 & 10
textvoyage 
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