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.
Screenshot of Goldorak
Screenshot of Pulzar
Screenshot of Transversion
After a hiatus of nearly four years, Missas is back with reviews of three games:
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
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.
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.)
Galastrad
Screenshot of Galastrad
Ayor61 of GGP continues to churn out new Amstrad CPC games. His latest effort is a space shoot-’em-up called Galastrad. As far as I know, it’s the first shoot-’em-up to be developed for the CPC using Multi-Platform Arcade Game Designer; nearly all the other MPAGD games I’ve seen for the CPC have been platformers. It features an intro sequence, a gorgeous overscan title screen drawn by S_A, and several tunes by SuTeKH, although the presentation in the game itself is relatively basic.
The English version of Pakete Soft’s new point-and-click adventure The Key has now been released. You can download it from Pakete Soft’s site, but like the Spanish version, you will have to solve a puzzle first.
The Key
Screenshot of The Key
Back in 2019, Pakete Soft released a small point-and-click adventure called Escape the ROM as a demonstration of their PAKET tool. Now they’ve released a full game called The Key. You’re at home when a note and a key from your friend Mabus are posted through your door. The note tells you that Mabus is dead and you must go to Carfax Mansion to meet two of his colleagues, Chema and Jorge. Once you arrive there, Chema explains the mysterious events in more detail, and you can then explore the mansion.
Point-and-click adventures aren’t totally new on the Amstrad CPC (think of CPC Aventure and Orion Prime), but in my opinion, The Key is the first one that really captures the spirit of LucasArts’ range of games. It’s currently only available in Spanish, but English and French versions are planned. You can download The Key from Pakete Soft’s site, but to do so, you’ll have to solve a puzzle first – and no, I’m not going to tell you the solution!
The fourth annual Amstream Amstrad Video Game Awards (better known as the Sugars) were streamed last night on Xyphoe’s YouTube channel. As with previous editions, fifteen games were nominated for eight categories, and the results are as follows:
