Coloco


Screenshot of Coloco
Screenshot of Coloco
A new game called Coloco by Tuxedo Games has just been made available for downloading. It was originally released for the ZX Spectrum in 2020, and physical copies of the Amstrad CPC version could be purchased, although they have since sold out. Now all CPC fans have the opportunity to try it out!

Coloco’s gameplay is quite similar to Lunar Lander. On each of the 30 levels is a pilot who has managed to crash his rocket, and you must guide yourself through each level to rescue the pilot and return him to your starting point. It isn’t easy, as the controls are quite sensitive and you have to use your thrusters carefully to maneouvre yourself through narrow gaps and avoid crashing into walls.

I never heard any news about the physical edition of Coloco when it was released, so it’s great that it’s now available for everyone to play. You can download Coloco from Tuxedo Games’ site.

Trasgo


Screenshot of Trasgo
Screenshot of Trasgo
It’s fair to say that Spanish Amstrad CPC games have a reputation for being tough. Take, for example, Abu Simbel Profanation, Army Moves and its sequel Navy Moves – especially on a green monitor! Well, if you found them to be insufficiently challenging, 21bloques has released a new game called Trasgo that aims to test the abilities of the most accomplished CPC gamers.

You are a young elf named Trasgo, and you have to rescue your family from an ancient curse. Trasgo is a simple platform game, but the screens are full of deadly obstacles. You don’t have any energy, but you do have infinite lives, and when you light a torch, it acts as a restart point when you lose a life. However, getting from one restart point to the next is certainly not easy at all!

If you feel like taking on the challenge, then you can download Trasgo from itch.io.

Missas has reviewed two more recently released games:

Urok


Screenshot of Urok
Screenshot of Urok
Tartessos Games has released their second game for the Amstrad CPC (the first one was El Culto, released in December last year). There is a legend that a malevolent being who ruled the world in times gone by is buried at the top of a hill to the west, and he has been waiting for the right moment to return and take revenge... This is a platform game in three parts, with the second and third parts requiring you to enter a password before you can play them. Unlike El Culto, the graphics use the CPC’s four-colour Mode 1 rather than the more colourful Mode 0.

A few people have commented that the game bears strong similarities to the Game Boy game Gargoyle’s Quest. You can judge this for yourself by downloading Urok from itch.io.

Missas has reviewed two games:

Three new games have just been released in quick succession:

Goldorak


Zisquier, Éric Cubizolle (aka Titan) and Pulsophonic have been working on and off for the last year and a half to bring you this space shoot-’em-up for the GX4000 and Plus machines. Yes, it’s a cartridge game inspired by the Japanese anime of the same name, and it features very smooth scrolling and digitised speech, and it makes good use of the enhanced palette. The game, along with all the graphics, can be downloaded from Éric Cubizolle’s site.

Pulzar


Latvian developer Snauts has converted a second game from the ZX Spectrum to the Amstrad CPC, following on from Zlalox, which was released for the CPC only two weeks ago. Pulzar sees you trying to escape from the Galactic Police by entering the titular Pulzar – a series of swirling circular patterns that you must not touch. The only direction of movement is clockwise or anticlockwise, and dodging the swirls becomes increasingly tense as you progress! You can download Pulzar from itch.io.

Transversion


Dave Moore has converted the ZX Spectrum 16K game Transversion to the Amstrad CPC. It was originally released by Ocean in 1983 – one of their earliest releases. You are captain of the Eliminax, and you have entered the Galactic Grid to clear it of alien pods. Each screen contains a pattern of pods, and you manoeuvre your spaceship over the pods to clear them. However, the Guardians are armed with lasers that move along the edges of the screen and fire at you. With the playing area being relatively small, the action is quite frantic as you try to dodge the laser beams! Transversion can be downloaded from GitHub; look for the ‘Releases’ section once the page has loaded to download it.

After a hiatus of nearly four years, Missas is back with reviews of three games:

Zlalox


Screenshot of Zlalox
Screenshot of Zlalox
A fun little arcade game called Zlalox has just been released for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC by Latvian developer Snauts. You control a tiny sprite that consists of a pair of vertical lines, and you have to manoeuvre it through various obstacles in 15 vertically scrolling levels. It may have simplistic graphics and sound effects – and for some reason, the CPC version is named Xlaloc on the menu screen – but it’s addictive, if a little too easy to complete. You can download Zlalox from itch.io.

The Heart of Salamanderland


Screenshot of The Heart of Salamanderland
Screenshot of The Heart of Salamanderland
Juan José Martínez has released his latest game, The Heart of Salamanderland. It’s a platform game set in the 1870s, in which you are the great explorer Patton and you have to explore a hidden dungeon to find an ancient relic. You are equipped with a whip that you can use against the various denizens of the dungeon, and you must find the nine tears of the guardian and kill it before you can retrieve the coveted relic.

The Heart of Salamanderland can now be downloaded from usebox.net.

I haven’t been playing games much for the last few months due to studying for exams, but now that I’ve sat the exams and got them out of the way, I spent the weekend playing and writing reviews for some of the Amstrad CPC games that have been released this year:


(Actually, The Elves of Maroland was released last year in Spanish, but the English version was released in 2024.)