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Early ZX Spectrum Games - 16K ones!







16K Games? Surely not! Here are some classics, but if you like you can check a pretty comprehensive list right here

I need screenshots so maybe I shall make some myself to improve the look of this page huh? Perhaps I should do peculiar javascripts for each game? Thats ambitious!

Planetoids
Asteroids was an arcade classic, Planetoids was Sinclair Research's brave effort to get in on the act. Solid rocks, a shaky space ship, tiny little 'bullets' and we're off of a surprisingly playable little 16k variant. Thanks CLive!

Tanks3d
Dk'Tronics' effort to train the next generation of artillery specialists? Oh no, there were 3 lanes of tanks in front of you, you have an artillery gun, a vague idea about momentum and gravity and hey presto you're blowing these tanks away! Problem is they have same neat ideas about artillery so it was a test of skill. Well, its fun for a while anyway.

Escape 3D
New Generation Software! A '3d' maze seen from a sorta top down angle. You control the little fella and your spectrum controls a variety of dinosaurs which chase you round. It was ok for 1982 and whats more you could break into it easily and study the BASIC code!

Hungry Horace
Sinclair Research strikes the big time. Pac Man? No no no, a head n legs alien in the local park chased by the disembodied heads of park keepers - now thats what the kids want! They did too, excellent game as were the follow ups, Horace goes skiing and Horace and the spiders. Any one remember the bell 'bug' which allowed you to rack up the points?

Galaxians
Artic Computing made this good version of the Arcade classic back in 1982! It played well and even managed to sound right! Well done Artic.

Gulpman
Campbell Systems produced this rather simplistic pac man clone. It didn't look good but it played great and you had more mazes than dots! Great stuff. Like Escape 3D, you could break into this and study the code.

Armageddon
Ocean software had to start somewhere and an early foray was this missile command clone for the 16k. Played well, I really rated this 1983 effort and had some amazing high scores!

Slippery Sid
Silversoft's £5.99 effort was a great little 'snake' game. Eat stuff, grow longer, try not to crash into things. Good game and very LOUD for a Spectrum!

Tunnel 1 and 2
New Generation were obsessed by 3D games! So much so they had to make 2 versions of their 'tunnel' game. Mock it you may (it wasn't all that playable) but in these games lies the seeds of classics like Descent for the PC.

Pool
CDS made a nice 16K pool game, very LOUD again! Nice music from the movie 'the sting' and reasonable ball physics. I used to play this one a lot in 1984.

Space Walk
By 1984 Mastertronic were building up a library of games. 16K games were getting rare and this offering was peculiar. You're a space man who has to do some stuff in space. I played it a bit, it looked good for a 16K. Big thanks to Mastertronic for keeping the 16K possy up to date with a £1.99 game though

Pheenix
Megadodo made a phoenix clone with the tune, the levels and everything. It played really well too. If you liked the arcade game you'll like this

Jungle Trouble
Infuriatingly difficult and very original 16k platform classic by Durrell, was a best seller at the time - play it and see why



Please follow a link....

Trans Am, what it was and why I liked it
Get a kinda sorta feel for Trans Am with this Javascript trickery! Play web trans Am two!
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Contribute! Tell us your memories, your favourite games and what that halcyon period meant to you!
Links! Other than the webring, here are the five major links for spectrum fans