Popular games for platform Sinclair ZX81
A unique platformer with twist. While being chased by a giant blob you need to gather fuel and a rocket on the right platform. After this you can fly, over water, to the left platforms to gather jewels. Given the capabilities of the ZX81 an wonderfull game in "high-res".
"Sam Mallard: The Case of the Missing Swan" is a short film noir adventure on the go with 15 different locations to explore and a fantastic 8-bit Jazz noir sound-track.
Tournament Tennis is an early tennis game featuring or even creating many conventions that would become standard features in later tennis simulations. Matches can be played at quarter-final, semi-final or final level - winning at one level automatically moves the player to the next one. They can last for 3 or 5 sets, with a player requiring a 2-game lead to win a set, though a tie-break comes in at 6–6 in all but the final set.
Fantasy Games is a double games pack containing the following adventure games: Perilous Swamp: Deep in a Perilous Swamp, your quest is to find and rescue a Princess held captive by an evil Wizard before escaping out of the swamp. You are presented with a map of your surroundings and text tells you any objects you can see. As you move around the swamp you will encounter various creatures who you can fight, run from or bribe (if you have enough treasure). If you choose to fight then you decide how many combat strength points to use. Spells can be found and used to help you on your quest. Sorcerer's Island: Similar to Perilous Swamp, this time you are on an island and you must attempt to leave it. One difference is you can encounter people like the King of the Dwarves and the Grand Sorcerer himself to help you.
Game-Pac is a compilation of two games and a dice rolling program. Greed is a dice game played against an AI opponent. The objective is to get the highest score by rolling two dice and adding the result of each roll. The game is played in ten rounds and when the player chooses to stop the score is added to the one of previous rounds. Rolling the starting value a second time leads to a crap out and all points of the round will be lost. Brain Teaser is a puzzle game similar to the board game Lights Out. The player is presented with the numbers 1 to 9 shown on a 3 by 3 grid. Numbers are either normal or inverse and the goal is to get an inverse 5 and all others as normal. The player can choose to flip any number but then also all adjacent numbers will be flipped. Super Dice is a program that simulates dice rolls. The player can roll up to five six-sided dice or one four-, eight-, ten-, twelve- or twenty-sided die.
Maze Death Race is a Rally-X variant. The player controls a car and has to drive around a maze and collect a certain number of flags to complete a level. At the same time other cars chase the player's car and attempt to hit it. The number of cars are user defined in the ZX81 version and pre-defined in the ZX Spectrum version. In addition to chaser cars there are various traps on the roads that the player has to avoid hitting such as rocks, oil and ice. Unlike the original arcade game, in this version the player cannot use a smokescreen to confuse the chasers. Both versions allow the player to choose the speed of the AI cars. In the ZX81 version, it is also possible to choose if the car should have momentum while in the Spectrum version this is always the case.
Jungle Maths is an educational game for multiple sytstems. The player must travel through a jungle to reach their home base and safety. To do this, they must correctly answer 10 math questions. A map tracks the player's progress. If the player answers incorrectly, they could fall in a pit, sink into quicksand, or have other animated maladies befall them. Five incorrect answers, and it's game over. Options include numbers from 10 to 1000, subtraction or addition, negative numbers, and time to answer the questions.
You control a base on the bottom of the screen moving left or right, and you have to blast or avoid falling meteors with your laser over five waves. As you avoid or blast the meteors, you also have a panic button which removes all meteors on the screen but using this reduces your bonus. A wave ends when your base is hit and you move to the next wave but with the meteors falling faster. Before you start the game, you can select three levels of difficulty, Slow, Fast and Expert.
Munchees is a Pac-Man clone where you must move around a maze to clear it by eating all the dots. As you eat the dots you have to avoid ghosts and if you touch one then you lose one of three lives. There are power-pills that can be eaten and these allow you to eat the ghosts for a short time. You have a choice of how many ghosts on the maze (1-4).
QS Scramble is a clone of the arcade game Scramble. It's a side-scrolling shooter where the player controls a space craft flying over the surface of an alien planet. Movement is limited to moving up and down and there are two weapons to attack with: forward going missiles and bombs that are dropped onto ground targets. Five missiles can be fired at a time and three bombs can be dropped at a time. Targets include aliens that swoop down from above and rockets that launch from the ground. On the ground there are also fuel dumps. The game goes on until the player has lost all three lives or the fuel runs out.
Namtir Raiders is a fixed screen shoot 'em up. The objective is simply to shoot down as many enemy raiders as possible and save the earth. There are four waves of enemies and each wave has a different kind of enemy. The movement of the ship is a bit different from other shoot 'em ups. Rather than having keys for up, down, left and right, they here lead to diagonal moves (for example up and left, down and right). The player has five lives and earns more when all four waves have been completed. Once they have the game starts over with the first wave. A difficulty level between one and three can be chosen before the game begins. The higher levels run at a higher pace.
QS Asteroids is a fairly basic conversion of the original arcade game. The action starts immediately after loading (no title or options screens here) and players finds themselves in a space ship in the middle of the screen with numerous asteroids passing by. To control the ship, two keys are used for rotating it, one for shooting and another for thrusting it forward. Shooting can be done in eight directions. On an unmodified ZX81, the ship is represented by a number which changes with rotation (For example 0 means it's pointing up, while 4 is down) and the asteroids are o's, while users with a QS CHRS board get graphics more similar to the arcade original. The player starts with three ships and after 10,000 points a bonus ship is given. Asteroids appear in waves. The first one has two large ones and the number increases with each new wave.
Thro' The Wall also Scramble is a double games pack that contains: Thro' The Wall: A Breakout clone where you control a bat on the bottom of the screen moving left or right, to hit a ball upwards and remove bricks above. If the ball goes past the bat then you lose one of three lives. There is a choice of the speed of the ball and they are Normal, Fast and Superfast. Scramble: You view your craft from the side as it flies from left to right horizontally constantly, and you must avoid or shoot ground installations and enemy craft with your missiles. You can use a smart bomb to destroy everything on the screen but you only have one and if you hit the ground or any enemy then you lose one of three lives. You have the choice of ten speeds (1-10) with one being the fastest.
Artic Computing's take on Reversi
ZX Asteroids is based on the arcade game where you are a craft sitting in the middle of the screen surrounded by large asteroids moving about the screen. You have to blast all the asteroids, and when one is shot then it splits into smaller asteroids and keeps repeating the process until the asteroid has gone. You can turn your craft left or right 360 degrees but you can also move forwards. Occasionally an alien craft will appear and when shot gives you bonus points. If you are hit by an asteroid or the alien craft then you lose one of three lives. Two players can play and each player takes it in turns when the other player loses a life and there are five levels of play (1-5) with one being the easiest.
In what is possibly the most baffling text adventure ever devised, navigate a surreal landscape with the aid of the Pi-Man in an attempt to discover the (real world) location of a golden sundial. Originally published in 1982.
A maze game made by Jeff Minter from Llamasoft. The maze was a cube, and you could go through holes in the floor and ceiling as well as left and right
Kids TV favourite Postman Pat aims to stamp his authority on the games scene by delivering a first-class licensed game. Your job is to guide Pat and his van around a particularly busy day of work.First you go to the post office where Mrs Goggins will give you the letters or parcel to be delivered.You will also have to help herding Peter Fogg's sheep, and do all this against a time limit. The game includes a rendition of the show's music, as well as two difficultly levels - according to the inlay the easy version is for children, and the harder one for 'the serious gamer'.
Program Pack 4 is a double games pack that contains: Breakout: Based on the arcade game where the aim is to remove all the bricks at the top of the screen by moving a bat left or right below and bouncing a ball upwards. If you let the ball pass your bat then you lose one of three lives. Brikthru: Moving a bat left or right and bouncing a ball upwards, you clear the screen with a ball going through a shaded area and bouncing off the top and sides of the screen. If you let the ball pass your bat you lose one of thee lives.
Arcade Action is a collection of five games which include: Overtaker: The aim of the game is to drive up the screen passing as many cars as you can in two minutes to get the highest score you can. You can move your car left or right, and increase your speed but you can't slow down and the faster you drive the quicker your score increases. If you hit other cars then you stop which also stops your score increasing. Missile Man: Based on Galaxians, you must move your craft left or right at the bottom of the screen to blast and destroy the aliens above moving left and right. The aliens will drop missiles on you and occasionally an alien will move down the screen. If you are hit by a missile or an alien then you lose one of three lives. Spacefighter Pilot: Your crippled Mothership is orbiting a planet but the planet residents are firing missiles upwards to destroy it. You control a crosshair at the top of the screen and you must move left or right and hit the missiles. If your Mothership is hit too many times then it is game over. Greedy Gobbler: In this Pac-Man clone you must move about a maze eating all the dots while avoiding ghosts who are out to kill you. If you touch a ghost then you lose one of three lives but there are four power-pills that can be eaten to allow you to eat the ghosts for a limited time. Extra Terrestrial: Your mission is to destroy the whole world before a timer reaches zero. You move across the screen to the right above a map of the world. Pressing keys 1 - 8 fires a missile and the number you press determines the range of the missile.
Timex Sinclair 1000 release port of Frogger.
