Popular games for platform Sinclair ZX81

Three symbols appear in the centre of the screen as a vertical column and the player has to move them to one of 4 sets of 3 columns by pressing up, down, left or right. The idea is to build up lines of 3 matching symbols horizontally or diagonally to score points and gain a little time. The faster you make decisions the longer you will last, but the more mistakes you will make. The author's personal best score is 9600, can you beat that? Inspired by a video game popular in Belgian bars. Features a high score table and redefinable keys. Joysticks and Zon-X sound supported.

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.

You have to take the keys and go to the exit, avoiding enemies.

Cassette 50 is a compilation of 50 games that was released for a variety of 8-bit home computers, albeit with different selections of games on different computers. The majority of games within the collection were programmed in BASIC and are widely considered to be of poor quality.

ZX Compendium is a collection of six games and programs that contains: Alien Intruder: During a long space voyage to Earth, you have been woken from cryogenic suspension to find, to your horror, the rest of the crew devoured by an alien lifeform. To prevent yourself being the next item on the menu you have decided to collect enough essential supplies before escaping in a shuttle. The game is a text adventure with some graphics where the screen is split into two. The top half shows a map of one of the three levels of the ship with your location and the aliens if on the same level as you, a map showing your immediate surrounding area and any exits, and finally the supplies you need to collect which are oxygen, cells, water and food. The bottom half of the screen has text describing your current location and you type in commands with the keyboard to interact with each location. If you enter a location with the alien then you die but if the alien enters your location then you need to deal with the situation. Wumpus Adventure: A text adventure that allows one to four players to move around an area hunting for creatures called a Wumpus to kill. Before you start the hunt you have a number of options and they are, choice of caverns (Novice, Random Cave Pattern and Professional Hunter), number of players, and if you hunt to the death or kill a certain amount of Wumpus. The actual game sees text on the screen describing each location of a player and the current player types in commands to interact with their surroundings. Each player gets one move before the next player has a turn. The players are armed with five arrows but more can be collected, and as well as Wumpus there are other creatures like Goblins and giant serpents that need to be dealt with. Numerology: A program that allows you to enter your name and birth date to receive a reading about your personality and find out your lucky number, colour and day of the week. Hangman: Based on the pen and paper game, you can compete against the computer or another person as you try to guess a word without being hanged. A word is generated and you have to select a letter at a time to try to make the word. If you guess a correct letter then it appears in the word but get one wrong and a man being hanged on a scaffold starts to appear. The computer has two levels (1-2) to choose from. Hieroglyphics: You have to decipher 39 Hieroglyphics by placing a letter or a vowel combination under the correct symbol and the computer will give you a word to help you decipher them. You must be careful in your guesses though because each wrong guess sees trapped explorer Wullie Makeit's tomb slowly fill with sand. Movie Mogul: A management game where with a limited budget you have to buy a script and attempt to make a movie and make a profit with it. After buying a script you decide which type of movie to make as well as hiring a director, actor and actress. You decide on each day of filming how much money to spend on various options watching your budget levels decrease. Once you have completed filming you are given a final score as a profit or loss for the finished movie.

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.

The ZX Spectrum port of Boulder Dash.

Backgammon for the ZX81 with 16K memory expansion module or for the ZX Spectrum.

3D space shooter

3D Grand Prix (for the ZX81 with 16K memory expension module) is a racing simulator with a first person view. You race against others on random generated track. You have to accellerate, brake, steer and switch (6) gears.

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.

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.

The classic Defenders (Atari 2600 and other platforms) but then in a first person 3D perspective. This game is to be run with a 16K expansion module. You fly over a planet and have a proximity radar indicating where (left-right) an enemy is. Your radar can show false hits when meteorites fall down. The enemies go down and you get points (250) if you shoot them before they reach the ground. The enemies will shoot at you and you will have to try to prevent being hit. If an enemy reaches the ground and can fly up and away again you loose points (50). You have a shield which can take take 10 hits. With either one of the keys q-t moves you left-down. y-p right-down. a-g left-up, h-newline right up. z-m shoots the laser. Using two keys at once allows you to move non-diagonal.

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

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".

Chess game developed for home computer Sinclair ZX81. Game code takes up only 672 bytes in memory, but implements all chess rules except for castling, promotion, and en passant, including a computer opponent. It was the smallest implementation of chess on any computer at the time.

An obscure compilation consisiting of six games for the ZX81.

Aeroporto 83 is an action shooter game developed by Renato Degiovani and published by the magazine Micro Sistemas, it is considered to be one of the first Brazilian computer games to be commercially released.

You have to defeat the Lords of Chaos in this action adventure.