Red Sunset


Screenshot of Red Sunset
Screenshot of Red Sunset
ESP Soft has released a playable demo of their forthcoming game Red Sunset as a Christmas gift for Amstrad CPC fans. It’s a vertically scrolling shoot-’em-up in the style of 1942 or Flying Shark, with the action viewed from an overhead perspective. You can download Red Sunset now from ESP Soft’s site. Merry Christmas!

Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death


Box artwork of Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death
Box artwork of Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death
The highly acclaimed text adventure Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death can now be pre-ordered from poly.play. The CPC version can be purchased on cassette or disc, and if you buy the cassette version, you’ll also receive the ZX Spectrum version on the other side of the cassette. The package will also include goodies such as a poster, patch and stickers, and you’ll also get a bonus game called Eight Feet Under (and the author, Stefan Vogt, has tweeted images of the beautiful title screens, drawn by Railslave).

Hibernated 1: This Place Is Death costs €20 for the cassette and 3½″ disc versions, and €25 for the 3″ disc version (excluding shipping). Sadly it isn’t expected to be available until mid-January 2019. If it had been released during December it would have made an excellent Christmas present.

New reviews


Missas has reviewed Black Land.

I have reviewed two games:

Missas has reviewed two games:


I’ve changed the links to the NVG archive site so that they now use HTTP instead of the older FTP. This should make it quicker to download the ZIP files when you click on a game’s title.

Missas has reviewed four games:

The results of the 2018 #CPCRetroDev competition were announced on Friday evening, and here they are:

PRO category


  • 1st place: Operation Alexandra (4MHz) – €300 prize
  • 2nd place: Jarlac (Retrobytes Productions) – €200 prize
  • 3rd place: Legend of Steel (TOD Studios) – €150 prize
  • 4th place: The Adventures of Timothy Gunn (CNGSoft) – €100 prize

UA category (for games developed by students of the University of Alicante)


  • 1st place: 77 Attempts (Unknown Design) – €135 prize
  • 2nd place: The Rookie Thief (CPZenon Games) – €75 prize

Special mentions


  • Best music (awarded by Gominolas): Operation Alexandra – €135
  • Most enjoyable game (awarded by Carlos Abril): Operation Alexandra – €135
  • Best technical development and artificial intelligence (awarded by Pablo Ariza): Jarlac – €135
  • Best global product (awarded by Jon Cortázar): Operation Alexandra – €135

As you can tell, 4MHz dominated the awards with Operation Alexandra, receiving €705 in prize money, and it’s a deserving winner. You can download all 41 games from the #CPCRetroDev website.

As with the previous competitions, I offer my congratulations to all the winners!

Entries for the #CPCRetroDev 2018 contest closed on 31st October, and this year saw 41 games (count them!) submitted – a new record! Now we all wait in anticipation of what the final results will be. The results are due to be announced this Friday 9th November at 18:30 CET (17:30 GMT). There is a playlist with short clips of all 41 games on YouTube, and some of the more ‘professional’ developers, for want of a better term, have their own separate preview videos that you can watch:

Chibi Akuma(s)


Screenshot of Chibi Akuma(s)
Screenshot of Chibi Akuma(s) (V1.666, Plus version)
Keith Sear released version 1.666 of his bullet hell shoot-’em-up Chibi Akuma(s) a couple of days ago, in time for Hallowe’en. The game received a rating of 10 out of 10 on this site, and further improvements have been made. The game now uses the improved engine that was used in the sequel, Chibi Akuma(s) Episode 2: Confrontation!; a 2-player option has been added; there are additional background graphics, and if you have a Plus machine, the game makes much more use of its enhanced 4,096-colour palette.

You can download Chibi Akuma(s) from the official site, and you can also buy a physical copy from poly.play for €20 for the 3½″ disc version, or €25 for the 3″ disc version (excluding shipping). I’ve already bought my copy and the packaging and artwork are lovely!

New review


Missas has reviewed Mike the Guitar.

The Trap Door


Screenshot of The Trap Door
Screenshot of The Trap Door
Some of you may know of the game The Trap Door by Piranha, based on the classic animated children’s TV series. It turns out that a bug exists in the Amstrad CPC version of The Trap Door, which makes it impossible to complete the game – and for 32 years, it seems to have gone unnoticed.

One of the tasks you have to complete is to prepare ‘boiled slimies’. You do this by putting the slimies in a cauldron, and releasing a green robot-like monster from the depths of the Trap Door. What is supposed to happen (and which can be verified by watching walkthroughs on YouTube of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 versions) is that the robot can be made to breathe fire on the cauldron and boil the slimies – but on the CPC version, no matter how many times the robot heats the cauldron, the slimies remain uncooked.

I will not bore you with the technical details, but after a lot of digging in the code, I have fixed the bug, so after 32 years, The Trap Door can now finally be completed on the Amstrad CPC! You can download the fixed version of The Trap Door from NVG, and there is also a discussion on the CPCWiki forum which prompted my decision to create a fixed version.

YouTube user Novabug has wasted little time in creating a walkthrough of the Amstrad CPC version, which you can watch below.

Walkthrough of The Trap Door on YouTube

Missas has reviewed Xifos’ 2018 remake of Ghosts’n Goblins.

I have reviewed Behind Closed Doors Seven. This is one of two text adventures that have recently been released by Zenobi Software for the CPC (the other one being Ramsbottom Smith and the Quest for the Yellow Spheroid). Zenobi Software is much better known in the ZX Spectrum community for its huge catalogue of homebrew text adventures, so it’s great to finally see a release for the CPC 32 years after the company’s first ZX Spectrum release.

I have reviewed three games: