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The life of a Spectrum programmer can be something of a rollercoaster ride at times. All those endless cups of tea, the fun-packed hours spent staring at a screen of cryptic mnemonics muttering "why the bloody hell doesn't this work?" and numerous exciting trips to the toilet. If the code isn't making sense after the third bottle of homemade wine it probably never will. Join me on a thrill-a-minute journey into the development of new games for a machine that has about 10,000 titles already in existence. Are there any game styles which haven't already been written for the machine? How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? And more importantly, why do Sugar Puffs make your piss stink? Steady on chaps, one question at a time please...
26.07.04: The next-door-neighbour and myself take it in turns to mow each others lawns, and I made the usual pigs ear of both of them on Friday, it's now green carnage where two overgrown lawns used to be. Back indoors I'm recovering from a trip to the Classic Gaming Expo on Saturday which was exhausting but great fun. A gruelling 5-hour drive down meant I didn't arrive until 1PM, but still managed to catch talks given by Andrew Oliver (co-author of that other egg game) and the legendary Matthew Smith. The highlight of the day for me was getting a signed copy of Jetset Willy, how cool is that?! Nice to see Simon Ullyatt again, met Gasman and Icabod of raww.org, and finally learned how to pronounce Yerzmyey's name properly. Retro Gamer were there in force, and I said hello to staff writer Shaun Bebbington, a real multi-platform retro gaming enthusiast and author of the excellent Commodore feature in issue 2. Shaun's weekly retro column in Micro Mart is a must-read. Protovision were over here too, exhibiting some spectacular new C64 games, really inspirational stuff which gave me one or two thoughts about possible future Spectrum projects. So that was it, talked to a few people, wandered about and played some games, eventually left just after 7PM for a relatively painless 3-hour drive back. One gripe though: surely it would be better to have held this event at a more accessible location, instead of an expensive corner in the south-east?
28.07.04: I haven't announced this before, but a few weeks ago I started on another new Spectrum project with graphics artist Craig Stevenson. Much of today has been spent fixing bugs in the code for this, and incorporating some of Craig's background graphics. The result is that I now have 3 player sprites meandering around firing bullets all over the place - I think I'll call it Trigger Happy. Back on MT,V? I've reduced the amount of memory Javier's sprites are taking up, they are now held in an efficient unshifted format then rotated into each of the 8 bit positions and placed in a sprite buffer prior to starting each level. This will give Javi more space should he wish to send any more, but means limiting each level to 2 or 3 types of alien sprite. Hey, there's enough room for a third level now!
01.08.04: Spotted the neighbour tidying up his lawn with a strimmer today so thought it best to avoid him, spent the morning investigating the possibility of converting Fun Park to the Amstrad CPC464. Actually, looking at his handiwork I don't think he's any more of a gardener than I am. Javier has designed the third level for Vicar - it looks a beast to navigate - it's now a case of incorporating the graphics and layout into the game and working out some attack patterns that will work. MT,V? is really beginning to take shape and the light at the end of the tunnel isn't looking too far away.
06.08.04: Finished work at 12:30 today, and after driving home I started looking at Vicar again. Level 3 is 5544 bytes long without any attack or control data but the level buffer is nowhere near big enough to accommodate this. There isn't enough CPU time to decompress much level data on-the-fly, but just now that's looking like the only serious alternative. However, it's far too hot to worry about that today so I went back to playing around with an Amstrad emulator, and that has really gotten me thinking. When I wrote Egghead in Space a couple of years ago there were precious few programmers working on new Spectrum games, but with retrogaming's rise in popularity the numbers have increased to a healthier level, and I probably wouldn't be missed. Perhaps it is time to consider the previously unthinkable and start writing games for other Z80-based machines such as the Nintendo Gameboy (okay, not strictly a Z80) or the CPC464. Whether this means stopping Spectrum development entirely remains to be seen, I can't see myself riding off into the sunset YS-style while I have a couple of unfinished Spectrum projects on the go, but for the first time today I could foresee a point in the not-too-distant future when I decide to quietly slip out the back door. Who knows, maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow.
18.08.04: Returning to Vicar most of the attack waves for stage 3 have been added today and given the size of this level it's now clear that this game is never going to fit inside 48K.
12.09.04: I've been looking to erect a clothes line in the back garden recently, but almost nowhere actually sells poles for them anymore. Unbelievably, those rotary airer things are all that most stores sell. Both Argos and B&Q drew a blank, and in the end it took a trip into Nottingham city centre before I finally managed to track one down in Wilko of all places. Then it was a case of staggering back to the car through one of the busiest pedestrianised shopping areas in the country with an eight feet long aluminium pole, only to discover that it was approximately two inches too long to fit inside my Ford KA. Aluminium poles aren't like minigame competition entries.
13.09.04: Back to Vicar, and level three is finished; only one more level to go now. The two-level playable demo appears on the cover CD of the excellent Retro Gamer magazine this month, and it seems noone has yet managed to find the cheat mode or hidden game. There's a great deal of Spectrum content in this month, and even the Retro section of GamesTM - much improved since Darran took over as editor - has some Spectrum content in the latest issue. How much longer, I wonder, before Edge magazine gives the Spectrum scene the coverage it deserves?
26.09.04: All of the functionality from the Spectrum version of Fun Park is now in the CPC version, and a lot more besides. Every couple of days or so another idea for the Amstrad version pops into my head, and as it's not being squeezed into 8 or 9K of RAM it's going to be much the better version. One of many added extras is the ability to change the park's livery at the end of each year. For the most part this is aesthetic, but it can have an impact on the guests. Discovering undocumented bits and pieces like this will be half the fun for the player I'm sure.
02.10.04: For over a year there has been one serious outstanding bug left to fix in Platform Game Designer, but despite every effort it has remained tantalisingly difficult to replicate. Just before ten o'clock last night the bug surfaced again, and as a result it has now been located and rectified. Encouraged by this, I spent this morning eking out a few more bytes from the editor, so that a new option can be added to change the frame rate; 25 frames per second is fine for a game in the style of Egghead, but anyone who wants something more like Manic Miner will probably want to drop that down to 17 or 12.5 frames per second. PGD is on the way again folks!
16.10.04: With ORSAM 2004 a matter of weeks away I was asked if I'd like to give a talk about being a Spectrum programmer at the event. Frankly, I don't think I'd have anything particularly interesting to say on the subject, but not wanting to be a spoilsport I suggested an alternative. Rather than talk about Spectrum programming, I volunteered to turn up complete with battered old development kit and hammer out a new Spectrum game from scratch at the show. It is of course completely unrealistic to expect to complete a game in a period of what will probably turn out to be no more than five hours or so, and even armed with a set of library source files from which I can rip keyboard and sprite routines, it's optimistic to think anything other than a very basic affair will emerge before the end of the day. The more I think about it the more crazy the idea sounds, but I'm going to give it a go anyway. If all else fails I can always finish it off the following day, and post the final version on this site.
26.10.04: The day from hell, as my car broke down at the top of a slip road on the M42. Because the battery had given up even the hazard warning lights weren't working and I just had to stand by the road watching frustrated motorists queue up before realising the car in front had broken down. With rush-hour traffic rumbling past it's difficult to hear anything on those orange emergency telephones, and the situation wasn't helped when the operator sent the breakdown patrols to the wrong place. I don't need many more days like this.
27.10.04: Today was spent working on the demonstration game to distribute with PGD, an excellent way to test the program for bugs. Space Hopper isn't the Manic Miner style of platformer you'd expect to be given away with such a package, it's very different indeed, and thinking up new themes for each screen is proving to be a challenge.
07.11.04: Well, that's ORSAM done for another year and I'm pretty tired. Originally it had been my intention to arrive at 9 o'clock to set up my development equipment, but crawling along unfamiliar roads in the speed-camera hell of Leicestershire ensured my arrival was slightly delayed. Still, I managed to accomplish what I set out to achieve by 4 o'clock, and the resulting game, basic as it is, is now available on the downloads page.
20.11.04: The updated version of the ORSAM game was finally uploaded yesterday, a few days later than planned. Were it a Commercial release I'd want to spend a lot more time on the game, adding more levels and maybe one or two more features to the gameplay, but for about 15 hours work - plus the time Matt Westcott spent composing the music - it's not a bad little game.
21.11.04: Still waiting for Javier to finish the graphics for More Tea, Vicar? but there are plenty of other things to do. Some graphics need adding to the Trigger Happy level editor, and I've started moving things around in Area 51 with the intention of producing another 16K game as a free download from this site. I don't think Cronosoft will be short of platform games to publish once Platform Game Designer hits the streets.
18.12.04: You wouldn't believe the difficulty I have had in drawing and animating a flying pig in a 16x16 pixel sprite. A quick search on the internet for inspiration drew a blank, and trying to draw things from memory never seems to work somehow. No matter how hard I tried my sprite was looking more ursine than porcine, until I remembered that pigs' ears tend to point forwards. Perhaps a dozen pints of lager will help refresh my memory, I just hope it's flying pigs and not pink elephants that turn up tonight.
19.12.04: I hate Christmas shopping and the game of human dodgems that accompanies it, although this year seems to have been slightly better than last. It would be nice to do all my shopping online, but I'd never find the inspiration for gifts, so the trawl around the shops isn't something I can avoid. Thankfully it's almost over for another year now so I can relax, play a few old games, and get on with some development over the "festive season". Humbug to Christmas, this old cynic will be squinting at numbers on a Spectrum or Amstrad screen instead.
31.12.04: 2004 has been a good year for retro gaming, with the launch of Retro Gamer magazine and the success of the UK Classic Gaming Expo. The Spectrum scene in particular is looking more healthy than at any time since Your Sinclair closed in 1993. Orsam was well attended this year, ZXF goes from strength to strength, and who would have thought we'd see a new special one-off edition of Your Sinclair on the shelves in 2004! Let's hope we can build on that success in 2005. I'll be doing my little bit of course, my next big Spectrum game is just days from completion.
08.01.05: Just a few loose ends to tidy up, and the game should be finished. Any memory left at the end will be taken up by Easter Eggs, I might even code an intro if I can be bothered. It's probably about time I posted a screenshot of the nearly-completed game so here it is, a multi-directional scrolling platformer which goes by the name of Higgledy Piggledy. Simon thinks it's a bit piggin' difficult, he's probably right. I've squeezed in a couple of easy starter levels at the beginning at his request. Oh, and don't be put off by the background colour scheme, not all the levels are this revolting.
16.01.05: Higgledy Piggledy is finished, the instructions are written, and after a short break I'll be returning to some of my neglected projects. It's doubtful whether I can stay away from the assembler for very long, but I'll try.
26.02.05: Javier sent the final batch of level graphics for More Tea, Vicar? a few days ago, and they need to be assembled into a level editor. Unfortunately I have a million and one things to do at the moment so it might be a week or so before I can find the time to do this, but at least things are moving again. There's just a bottom panel graphic and a few other things I need now, and then the ball is entirely in my court.
10.04.05: As promised last year, I've been working on a few improvements to Anno Domini. There should be a new download available within a week or two, but bear in mind that this is an on-going work, so while it's a complete game rather than a demo, it will probably be updated every few months or so. Work on Vicar is still chugging along slowly as the level four layout is complete, but work hasn't yet started on the attack waves. How the bottom panel information will be presented is also still to be decided.
17.04.05: Seeing as most of my Spectrum games are once again commercial titles (how odd does that sound?) and are no longer available from WOS I felt it was time to update one of my remaining freely available games. A new release of Anno Domini is now up on the Downloads page, it's a .zip file masquerading as a .txt so as usual you'll need to rename it.
04.05.05: As Luke Skywalker might say, May the Fourth be with you. Blimey, it's my birthday again already. Is it just me or do they seem to come around more quickly every year? Anyway, to celebrate I thought it would be a good idea to finish off the full version of Area 51 and post it on the downloads page. Go get it now!
27.05.05: Twelve days into the development of another game, and this one's a bit odd. After all these years of developing games I feel increasingly compelled to wander off on a tangent. Just for the record, this game has a working title of The Fantastic Mister Fruity, and with elements of both a fruit machine and Bomberman it's unlike anything I've seen before on the Spectrum. Higgledy Piggledy was just the beginning folks, it's going to be a very interesting ride from here on in.
16.06.05: Mister Fruity is now all but finished, the plot written and the loading screen drawn. The only piece of the jigsaw left to go in is the music, and once that has been added the software will be ready for release.
19.06.05: The Fantastic Mister Fruity is written, Matthew Westcott has written some music which suits this odd little game perfectly, and barring any last minute bug discoveries the .tap file is ready to roll. There's no rest for the wicked yet, I'm now frantically banging out code for a shoot-em-up which is going to feature as a hidden Spectrum game in a PC shareware game. On top of that there's still Vicar, Trigger Happy and the CPC version of Fun Park to finish, plus half a dozen ideas for strange new games.
23.07.05: The CPC version of Fun Park has an arcade, and by investing money the player can research new machines to place inside. The more machines the player has, the higher the takings. There's also a facility to play a couple of the machines, currently the player can blast away in a simple Centipede sub-game, or gamble away his profits on a fruit machine. A toilet block has also been added to the game, with separate entrances for ladies and gentlemen. It's inevitable that some guests will want to vandalise these facilities so I'll be adding code to that effect this weekend.
24.07.05: For some reason guests are choosing not to vandalise the toilet block, and are choosing to attack the public house instead. I'm mystified by this behaviour, as park visitors have not been programmed to do this. Maybe the beer is flat or something. Actually, it has given me another idea.
28.07.05: A series of bizarre thoughts combine to form another unusual game concept, and I find myself having to resist the urge to break off for a few weeks to write it. I dare say I'll give in tomorrow and start work on a Spectrum version. When you get an idea for a game which features a sentient locomotive playing bingo with exploding trucks you just know it's going to take priority over everything else.
31.07.05: The new project is now underway, and so far the weekend has been a very productive one. The game will eventually make use of well over 400 individual sprite frames, of which 380 have been drawn in the last 48 hours. Finding inspiration for the rest may be difficult however.
12.08.05: The eve of the CGEUK, so it'll be an early start in the morning. No work is done on the Spectrum game today, and although progress has been good to date there's still a long way to go. Most of the basic game engine is written and it feels pretty nice to play - as I knew it would. There are a number of issues which are yet to be addressed, such as the time it takes to complete a level which is several minutes - far too long.
21.08.05: Wow, this game is really starting to take shape and it's looking like a good one. The difficulty level has been tweaked so that it no longer takes quite so long to complete the early levels, plus there's a bonus sub-game between each level. Wandering around the CGE last weekend convinced me of the need to incorporate a demo mode in my games from now on, a feature I shall be working on this very afternoon. It's also about time that I wrote a decent 128K sound driver for my games too. A working sound card would help, but I really need a new machine.
18.09.05: It's been a busy weekend, but I finally managed to get around to some programming this morning. The good news is that Loco Bingo is but a few hours from completion, the bad news is that because Mister Fruity was only launched one month ago it might be a good idea to sit on this one for a few weeks. There are other good reasons for waiting, but I won't go into those here. Let's just say that November sounds like a good time to release it.
24.09.05: Well, Loco Bingo is finished barring the loading screen and playable demo versions so I've had a bit of a marathon coding session on a brand new minigame today. It's posted on the downloads page, but it probably won't be there for long so download it while you can and don't forget to let me know what you think.
02.10.05: With less than one month to go entries for the annual minigame competition were looking a bit thin on the ground, with not a single Spectrum entry submitted. I couldn't let that state of affairs continue for much longer, so managed to find a few hours on Friday and Saturday to knock up a 1000-byte entry which could eventually be developed into a full 16K Spectrum game. I ought to finish boarding up the loft instead, but then that would be boring. Maybe I'll put it off for a few more months.
30.10.05: As the deadline approaches I've given up on the idea of writing another entry for the minigame competition as other stuff has gotten in the way. For a start I had hoped to finish another Spectrum game this weekend but lost the whole of yesterday morning with a puncture so it'll have to wait another day or so. It's a full 16K affair, and will be posted here the very moment it is finished.
27.11.05: A weekend catching up with little jobs that needed doing has meant little time for game development, not that I really need a lot of time anyway. About a week ago I started work on another odd little Spectrum game provisionally titled Gamex - the Games Exchange. It's basically a share dealing game, where the player buys shares in games rather than companies, then plays them to receive a dividend. All the time the share prices are listed at the side of the screen, fluctuating as you might expect while the player gobbles the dots/rescues the scientists/blasts the undead or whatever. 40K of RAM should be enough room for plenty of games.
06.12.05: Five games have been more or less written, but there are many more to go with 27K of memory left. This is clearly going to be a difficult project. Due to the sheer amount of program code needed for all these different games the source file is already over 200K.
17.12.05: Game number six took more than a week to write, which is fairly unusual for a minigame but as it's my first 3D game I had to write a lot of routines from scratch. Number seven will only take a few hours and should be finished this evening, so I'm starting to think about writing some tiny microgames to play between minigames. There's a lot of work still to be done...
26.01.06: Infuriatingly, due to permissions issues I haven't been able to update this website for several weeks so things have moved on a bit since my last entry. Work on Gamex is ongoing with eleven sub-games written to date, still a few short of the minimum I had in mind. Memory is running down so quickly I don't know where it's going and there still isn't any sound or menu system yet, so the micro games have been put on the back burner just for now. It's been a hard slog getting to this point and there's still no sign of light at the end of the tunnel.
16.02.06: With much of the bonus code written this week, game fourteen is underway this evening and I'm starting to feel a little happier about the way things are going. The main problem seems to be deciding what games to write, given that they need to be two-minute playable sprite games capable of fitting into a very tiny amount of memory. I really hope there isn't room for too many more of the things.
05.03.06: Work commences on game number fifteen and there's a little under 6K remaining. It's looking like there'll be room for a sixteenth, with possibly a bonus sub-game after that. The latest game is inspired by Anteater, an obscure arcade game which I don't remember having been written for the Spectrum. I considered doing something along the lines of Mr. Do, but I understand there's now a Spectrum version in development. Ideas for a sixteenth game on a postcard please...
25.03.06: I'm about half-way through game sixteen and have taken a short break to play around with a few ideas for another game. Egghead's fourth outing is on the way, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Easter is almost upon us.
21.04.06: Egghead Entertains is now on the downloads page, and a cassette version should be one available from Cronosoft in due course. Right, that's another game out of the way and I can return to Gamex.
27.04.06: Things are a bit frantic at the moment. There's a 128K/+2 friendly version of Egghead 4 to finish, Gamex has a number of hard-to-find bugs and then there's the latest chapter in my guide to writing Spectrum games which is half-written. In addition there are one or two other little projects with which I'm involved, and all of these are very demanding of my time. I could do with a break, which is handy because I'm off to Barcelona for a weekend soon.
25.05.06: Gamex is finished, and six months of development hell are over. It's been a massive undertaking and I must have been mad to attempt it, but now it's finally over I can take a break from the retro scene.
31.07.06:I haven't written a line of code in nearly 3 months now, but today had an idea which looks likely to result in a third outing for Izzy. The character's previous two affairs were quite different - Haunted House was a standard collect-em-up and Gloop was a straight arcade platformer. This idea is different again, but will use a few Gloop sprites for continuity, along with some new ones. The question is, should I give Izzy a detachable head?
16.09.06: The new game, Izzy Wizzy, is close to completion. The basic idea is that the player goes around collecting items to cast spells which have a number of effects on the nasty mutants. Some spells only work on certain types of mutant though, so the player is going to have to figure out which does what to whom. In order to complete the game the player will need to banish all the mutants.
30.09.06:Here's a screen shot.
29.10.06: Seeing as there were about 500 or so unused bytes just above the BASIC area I've written a minigame to fill the gap. There's not much memory left now, what there is will be used to cram in an extra screen or two. Then it's on to the next game - yes, I've already started work on another...
16.11.06: Although the modern "games" industry doesn't realise it, originality is very important in gaming. I'm always worried about doing something that's been done before without twisting it in some new way. For that reason it's nice to read comments on message boards, or those in the ZX Shed review of Loco Bingo suggesting some of my ideas may have been aided by chemical substances. For the record I'm too busy getting drunk to bother with drugs, though I did have an Absinthe trip about a year ago. It was a little disturbing to witness the universe apparently collapsing in on itself before my eyes, but it makes you wonder how such an effect might make it into a Spectrum game. Maybe an alternate universe is breaking through into this one, and it's up to joystick-wielding Spectrum owners to plug the gaps.
26.11.06: Surprise! There's a new single-level demo on the downloads page.
06.01.07: Happy new year everybody, I hope it's a good one. Here work on Blizzard's Rift is ongoing as I'm looking to cram in extra levels for the 128K version. Meanwhile I've updated the version of the document on writing spectrum games which now has chapters on background graphics and alien movement.
27.01.07: Having reached the limit of what is possible in 48K I decided that Blizzard's Rift wasn't the game I really wanted it to be. Simply moving sequentially through the levels was not satisfying enough, and merely adding a few extra levels for the 128K version would not have significantly improved the game. With some reluctance I have now decided to make it 128K only, meaning the game can be properly reorganised around my preferred design.
02.03.07: Blizzard's Rift is now very close to completion. It's simply a question of tidying up any bugs, then adding a few bits and pieces to conveniently fill lower RAM. Expect an announcement on this site VERY soon.
05.03.07: The bugs are fixed and the game is finished. Once the instructions have been written I'll be releasing the game on this site as a freebie. Well, I had to do something to celebrate the Spectrum's 25th birthday.
15.03.07: With Blizzard's Rift out of the way I've had a few days off. In this time a few ideas have starting to form for another quirky Spectrum game, although they're not making much sense at the moment. There's no ordered simplicity to them, just chaotic nonsense which might in itself make for an unusual playing experience. Perhaps I should just start implementing these ideas anyway then worry about joining them up later?
16.03.07: Finished work at lunchtime and after a visit to the barber I started playing around with some sprites. Not a lot got drawn this afternoon, but it has helped to clarify a few gameplay ideas. It's another oddball game, and it could be risky. Then again, taking risks is what game development is about - modern console developers please take note.
25.04.07: A belated happy 25th birthday to the ZX Spectrum! Apologies for not posting sooner, but I've been pretty busy working on the new game. Anyway, after six weeks of hard work it's finally here. It's called Quantum Gardening, and it's not like anything you'll have played on any games machine before.
09.06.07:So a few more weeks pass and I thought it was about time for an update. I'm not planning any new games in the next few weeks, but have started work on something which might be finished sometime around the autumn. November the 29th sounds like a good target date, it gives me plenty of time to enjoy the summer, finish boarding up the loft (It's taken me years but it's nearly there now) and spend a lot more time boozing it up and generally misbehaving. More details will follow in due course.
12.08.07: Time to come clean. The 29th of November is Egghead's 18th Birthday. To celebrate, Egghead is off on holiday with his mates. Naturally, he has an enormous yacht with a couple of bars, a cinema, a casino, a ballroom etc. and will be taking a tour of the Mediterranean and possibly some other locations too. Meanwhile, work has begun on a new Platform Game Designer utility.
19.08.07: Egghead has his work cut out this time, make no mistake. His largest adventure to date has been Egghead Entertains at 53 screens. The new game has 62 so far, and it's nowhere near finished yet. The screens are generally a little harder to navigate this time around, so Egghead might start the game with a good supply of extra lives. There'll be a few hidden rooms too, containing bonus extra lives to collect.
02.09.07: It's no easy task designing dozens of new screens for the Eggy fellow's Mediterranean tour and keeping them different and challenging. I'm up to 97 now, and running out of ideas fast. Spain, Greece, France and Egypt have been covered, so where next, I wonder? Italy? Gibraltar? Turkey? They all have to be researched before I start designing screens.
09.09.07: Spent half an hour putting in a new item - a clock - and a bit of logic which prevents the player progressing beyond a certain screen without it, but not much more than that today. I'm off to pick blackberries and elderberries to make some more wine.
09.10.07: Work is progressing very slowly at the moment, the odd screen here and there. On the plus side, I've updated my MYSPACE page if anyone wants to take a look.
11.11.07: Despite being knocked for six by a 'flu-like illness I've managed to keep adding screens, and the odd piece of logic here and there. Egghead 5 now has more screens than Egghead 2, 3 and 4 put together. Yerzmyey has contributed another funky soundtrack and the game is finally starting to come together.
02.12.07: Egghead 5 was released on Friday, and I've been monitoring the response pretty keenly on forums here and there. Judging by the people coming in through this site's front door interest seems to be significantly down compared to Egghead 4, and even compared to Blizzard's Rift the numbers are far lower than expected. I'm guessing that a lot of Spanish visitors are going straight to the download page as There is a direct link there from on the CEZGS forums, but it could just be that people have had enough of Egghead. Or perhaps I should be doing more to publicise the game?
07.12.07: The results of the 4K minigame competition have now been published, the winner being Pacman 4K for the Atari 2600 - congratulations are due to the author, Dennis Debro. My own game, Big Baps, managed a respectable 4th place and I'd like to thank my fellow contestants and all those who voted this year. Regrettably, it appears that the level of interest in the competition has all but disappeared completely, so plans for my next 4K "god sim" have been abandoned. On the plus side, interest in Egghead 5 hasn't tailed off too quickly and the game now seems to have generated at least as many hits as Blizzard's Rift. :)
09.12.07: In all the years I've been writing Spectrum games, I've never done anything with a Christmas theme. While it is something I would like to do, it would be completely absurd to start such a game now, with Christmas being so close. I'd perhaps only have a few days to knock something together, and I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet.
31.12.07: Oh alright, so I was only joking, hope you enjoyed the Christmas game. Anyway, happy new year and all that. 2007 has undoubtedly been the best year for Spectrum games since the commercial era ended in 1993. Let's see if we can't better it in 2008. I suppose I'd better put my thinking cap on and come up with another game design.
05.01.08: The Loco Bingo demo has gone now, and there's something else in its place. I really ought to update these irregular demo downloads more frequently.
18.01.08: I've done a little more work on Shoot-Em-Up Designer, and posted the latest demo on the downloads page. It's almost workable now, although you may have to experiment a little to discover which keys perform which actions.
02.02.08: Work on SEUD is progressing well, and it now boasts the ability to change the game's logic in a large variety of different ways. There is a small table of events, to which a list of actions may be attributed. For example, you could dispense with the lives counter and have an energy bar instead, or limit the player's ammunition or fuel, or bring in bonus items which can be collected to give power-ups or extra ammo, or extra lives, or bonus points or... well, you get the picture. It's all very flexible and I'm getting rather excited about it.
24.02.08: SEUD is effectively finished. Testing has thrown up a large number of bugs as one might expect, and these have mostly been pretty simple to fix. The only thing left to do now is to keep going through the whole program looking for ways to increase the amount of RAM available to the user.
04.03.08: So, now that SEUD is complete what's next? Well, I have a vague idea for a scrolling platformer which needs a bit more wine to develop, and promised someone an article or two related to my next game so that's high on the list. I've also started to play around with some code for an Arcade Game Designer, which is what became of some of the code for PGD 2. I'd like to produce a free tool that evolves and improves over a long period of time, and that others would be able to use as I develop. Let's see how SEUD is received first though, shall we?
29.03.08: AGD is now a workable little utility. It's not as easy-to-use as SEUD or PGD, because it's more of a simple programming language. Not a particularly powerful one, I'll grant you - it's sort of like GAC for arcade games - but it's more of a blank canvas than a template. My favourite aspect is the ability to define different types of sprites, then write code specifically to deal with each type of sprite.
29.04.08: Following feedback from the WoS forums I've updated AGD, version 1.0 is now on the downloads page. That's all for now though, I'm off to Spain for a few days of drunken debauchery.
15.06.08: Another game drifts into view from who-knows-where, and I haven't a clue what it is going to be called. I was originally asked to write a shooter, but once the scrolling and display routines were written the project started to mould itself into something else. If you can imagine the illegitimate offspring of Moon Patrol and The Great Giana Sisters you'll have a rough idea. I usually hate my own games, but for some reason this one has me hooked to the extent that I am spending too much time playing it, and very little on development. That doesn't happen often, the last time was on Mister Fruity three years ago, but it's frustrating when it does. Development at a snail's pace.
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