Popular games for platform Sinclair ZX81

Traffic is a flick-screen game where you have to move across lanes full of various vehicles for as many points as you can. The vehicles move left or right across the screen and you have to move upwards through gaps while avoiding getting hit by the vehicles or it is game over. If you move downwards then your score decreases. There are 3 skill levels and you can choose the speed of the game (1-255) with 1 being the fastest.

An unofficial port of Atari's Centipede made by Jeff Minter in the early years of Llamasoft.

Get the frog from the bottom of the screen to the top. You'll cross a road with trucks and cars and then you'll cross a river with logs and crocodiles.

Software bugs are destroying Micro Mouse's programs and you have to help him to debug the software.

"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.

Endurance is a motorcycle racing simulation game released in 1985 for the Amstrad CPC and Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Up to five players compete in turn-based races across various tracks, managing speed, endurance, and strategy. The game features alternating turns and was praised for its realism and challenge.

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.

Pac Rabbit is a Pac-Man clone where you take the role of a rabbit and you move about a maze eating all the dots to clear the maze. As you eat the dots you must avoid the hounds that are hunting you but you can eat magic carrots which enable you to eat the hounds for a short time. If you touch a hound then you lose one of ten lives. There are six mazes split into two parts, Rabbits Revenge and Run Rabbit Run and you can choose the speed of the game (0-9) with zero being the fastest.

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.

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'.

Aventuras na Selva is a text-based adventure developed by Renato Degiovani and published by the magazine Micro Sistemas.

Blow up as many boxes as you can before the guard sees you. Or play as the guard and try to find the saboteur.

O Aventureiro is a text-adventure where in search of an adventure, you clandestinely teleport aboard a cargo ship whose crew is made up of exotic beings from various planets. Your objective is to accumulate all the money you can by searching the ship's rooms.