Popular games for platform Sinclair ZX81
Piramide Inca is a game for the ZX81 where your mission is to explore one of the sacred pyramids of the Incas where, according to an ancient legend, one of their greatest chiefs was buried along with all their fabulous treasure.
You have to defeat the Lords of Chaos in this action adventure.
Dodgems and Connect 4 is a double games pack that contains: Dodgems: You move a vehicle around lanes eating dots while avoiding another vehicle because if you hit it then you lose one of three lives. Your vehicle is always moving forwards but you can change lanes through openings of the lanes. Before the game you can select the speed of the game (1-9). Connect 4: A strategy game where a player either plays the computer or another player on a 7 x 6 grid dropping counters down each column. The idea is for a player to make a row of four counters in a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line to win the game.
An unofficial port of Atari's Centipede made by Jeff Minter in the early years of Llamasoft.
A compilation of 4 quiz games
Alerta Vermelho is a game where you need attack the enemy planet using the lasers and bombs you have and, at the same time, defend yourself.
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.
Aventuras na Selva is a text-based adventure developed by Renato Degiovani and published by the magazine Micro Sistemas.
The Tomb of Dracula is an arcade adventure where the aim is to explore vaults over various levels of Dracula's Tomb to find the Vampire's Treasure worth half a million pounds.
3D Monster Maze is a computer game developed from an idea by J.K.Greye and programmed by Malcolm Evans in 1981 for the Sinclair ZX81 platform with the 16 KB memory expansion. The game was initially released by J. K. Greye Software in early 1982 and re-released later the same year by Evans' own startup, New Generation Software. Rendered using low-resolution character block "graphics", it was one of the first 3D games for a home computer, and the first game incorporating typical elements of the genre that would later be termed survival horror. 3D Monster Maze puts the player in a maze with one exit and a hostile monster, the Tyrannosaurus rex. There, the player must traverse the maze, from the first-person perspective, and escape through the exit without being eaten.
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.
Asteroids (Silversoft) is a clone of the Arcade version which sees your craft in the middle of an asteroid field and you must destroy all the asteroids to survive. The asteroids start off large and when you shoot one then it splits into two, and shooting an asteroid this size splits it into two again before being destroyed with another shot. Occasionally an alien craft appears moving across the screen and this can be destroyed for extra points. If you are hit by an asteroid or the alien craft then you lose one of three lives. You are able to turn your ship 360 degrees as well as move forward.
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.
If you ever felt sorry for the ghosts, the orphans they left behind, and wondered what would happen when Pac-Man became the ruling elite, then this is for you. Whilst researching to see if the ZX81 was capable of doing justice to an isometric game along the lines of Ant Attack! or KnightLore, Bob's Stuff coded a program to display a single height map of tiles, and it looked a bit like a maze. Along with the code examples, he'd also been experimenting with the graphics required for such a game, and produced a cute little ghost. An idea then began to germinate... a maze, and some ghosts? Why not try a scrolling isometric Pac-Man? He's still not sure if a full isometric game is possible (that's for another day) but a scrolling flat one certainly is, and he's really pleased with the results. It looks good, is fluid and responsive, and features most of the aspects of the original - including the (slightly bugged) A.I. and attack patterns. Having a ghost as the main character means that I've had to supplemented the concept of 'lives' for 'spirit' - I mean, a ghost doesn't have a life, does it? - which introduces a slight twist on how you play the game.
A top down view space battle against the Klingons. You can rotate your ship and fire rockets to the Klingons but make sure not to hit them. After defeating all the Klingons you can use a wormhole to go the the next galaxy. You can configure the speed and whether the Klingons move or not and you have three ships at your disposal.
A compilation of 6 games for a ZX81 with a 16K memory expansion module. Lunar Landing The lunar excursion module starts in a atable lunar orbit. You can control it to bring it a soft landing on the moon. Twenty One The card game of Twenty One Combat You are in a spacecraft equiped with 12 missiles with which you have to fight of aliens. Substrike Within a grid you have to fight of submarines using depth charges. Codebreaker A Mastermind like game Mayday You have to find a person lost in space (7x7x7 grid).
Em Busca dos Tesouros is a platformer developed by then 15-year-old Tadeu Curinga and published by the computer magazine Micro Sistemas.
Inspired by the 1983 ZX Spectrum game.
Serra Pelada is a text-based adventure game developed by Renato Degiovani and published by the magazine Micro Sistemas, based on the peak of gold mining in Serra Pelada in the 1980s.
Croaka-Crawla is a clone of the arcade game Frogger where the player must control a frog and get him to the other side of a road and river. The game is viewed from above and the first thing to cross is a busy road full of traffic scrolling across the screen. You can move left, right or forward as you dodge the traffic to reach a river bank. Once the road has been survived then a river must be crossed by jumping on logs or the backs of turtles that scroll across the screen as well. Once you reach the other side of the river you must jump into a gap and occasionally a baby frog or flies appears for extra points. If you get hit by a vehicle, fall into the river, or touch the sides of the screen then you lose one of three lives. Before the game you can change the speed of the game (1-100) with 1 being the fastest.