Popular games for platform Sinclair ZX81

Scram - 81 is a clone of the arcade game Scramble which is viewed from the side with the screen scrolling left to right constantly. You have to fly a spaceship above the surface of a planet bombing ground targets while shooting or bombing missiles with your laser. As you fly, your fuel level decreases but you can bomb fuel dumps to increase it. If you hit a missile or the surface then you lose one of three lives.

Pinball recreates a pinball table where the aim is to keep hitting a ball to score as many points as you can with two flippers. The table is equipped with bumpers and letters spelling TIMEX, as well as two lanes that when entered give bonus points. There are also two outside lanes that when entered lose the ball and if the ball also passes the flippers then you lose one of five lives.

During the American Gold Rush you are digging for gold. While excavating gold you must be aware of giant rats and a vicious Gremlin which comes to infest the mine. Snakes can be used to eat the rats. This a 16K program which uses "high-resolution"graphics.

3D space shooter

Subespaço is a game for the Sinclair ZX81 where you are the commander of the subspace ship Pegasus and your mission is to dismantle the enemies' supply network, depriving them of their vital supplies.

You have five days to escape from the Oracle's Cave and gather as much treasure along the way as possible.

To clear the level, you must destroy all the UFOs while avoiding falling bombs and blocks. Blocks cannot be destroyed by your own bullets, but will disappear if hit by an enemy bomb.

The game is cleared when all the stars are taken. The cracked floor disappears when you pass over it, so you can only pass through it once.

Casca a Cobra is a strategy game where you need to chase a snake and eat its body up to the head.

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.

First Steps with the Mr. Men is a Mr. Men video game for multiple platforms.

Game based on the notes of the Graf Spee expedition to South Atlantic Ocean.

USS-Enterprise is an unofficial strategy game based on Star Trek, where you are James Kirk, and your mission is to destroy all Klingon ships in the galaxy.

In this surreal platformer, released in 1985 for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum, you have been transformed into a bird, and must fight to save the human race from the invading Kremins by exploring an expansive world and collecting useful items.

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".

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).

An illustrated text adventure game for the ZX Spectrum and Sinclair ZX81.