Popular games for platform Sinclair ZX81
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.
Breakout 3 is based on the arcade game Breakout but instead of the bat on the bottom of the screen, the bat is on the left side of the screen. The aim is to hit bricks on the right of the screen to make them disappear but if you let the ball past the bat then you lose one of three lives. Before the start of the game you can choose whether to play with one or two bats, and playing with two bats has them parallel to each other a small distance apart. There are also three types of games to play and they are: Practise Game: A normal game with the choice to choose the speed of the bat (1-4) with 1 being the slowest. Progressive Game: Every time you hit the ball it speeds up and also removing a set of bricks makes the ball faster. Acceleration Game: The ball will speed up for every 10th brick disappearing and it speeds up when all the bricks have been removed.
Artic Computing's take on Reversi
J.D. Arcades is a collection of three games that contains: UXB: You have to move around a maze to catch four tumblers, which are numbered and must be collected in the correct order. Once you have collected them all then you must get to the detonator before a fuse reaches it. If you collect the wrong tumbler or hit the fuse then it is game over. Strategic Invaders: A Space Invaders clone where you control a base moving left or right, blasting aliens who are above in formation, moving across the screen, slowly descending downwards dropping bombs. Between your base and the aliens are shields which lose parts every time you hit one or the aliens do. One unique feature is that each position on the screen your base is on, only has nine shots. It is game over if you get hit by an aliens bomb or you allow them to land. Laser Patrol: A side view shooter where you must move a spacecraft up or down to either avoid or blast asteroids that move across the screen from right to left. if you hit an asteroid then it is game over.
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.
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.
Gunfight is an unofficial port of the classic Atari VCS game where a cowboy at either side of the screen, moving up and down for the Sinclair ZX81.
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.
A space invaders clone. Plays the same as the original.
Galaxians is a clone of Galaxian. The player's goal is to destroy a matrix of enemy spaceships which is gradually descending on the screen. Single ships will sometimes leave the formation and bombard the player with multiple shots. There's only a single scenario with a single type of spaceship. The process repeats itself when a squadron is completely eliminated, but the difficulty increases.
You are marooned on a strange planet and have to repair your space ship in order to get back home.
Released in 1982, Adventure B: Inca Curse is the second in a series of eight interactive fiction adventures made by Artic Computing. The aim is to explore an Incan temple in order to find golden treasures. There are eight treasures and only six items can be carried in the inventory, so the correct treasures must be collected in order to leave the temple with the maximum score.
Never did like office parties... Christmas eve, and the staff at Macrobiology Industries Limited were having the usual office party, with all the usual hi-jinx and tears, but something very unusual was happening in the biohazard containment fridge. The predicted pandemic had never occurred, and so the fridge was full of unused swine-flu vaccines, but that night it jostled for space with the secretary's cucumber sandwiches and the boss's - sorry, not his, a friends - Viagra supply, all stored there for safe keeping until the party really got started. But the disco lights overloaded the generator, the fuses blew, the fridge shut off, and the staff all went their separate ways home to sleep off the excesses. January 2nd, happy new year! The security guard, first on site that morning, was slowly working his way around the offices and labs, tripping the fuse boxes back to life. He shook his head, bemused by the broken hinges on the doors, but the smashed containment fridge, and mucus-like stains on the walls and floor scared him enough to grab his SHARPS pistol, as strange things moved just out of sight...