pls help to identify cpc6128 games


timothee

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Hi there,


I managed to identify most of the games I used to play in my cpc6128 days by browsing various cpc archive and screenshot sites, but there are a few I cannot find again :( . These were clearly not the best of the platform, but I did spend significant amount of time on them. If anyone has some clue on these, I'd much appreciate it:

  • Snake-like game: you're a snake in a maze and you grow as you eat stuff, you must not get stuck and touch your tail. once you've eaten everything, the game starts again in the same maze (lame, I know). I can't remember much except that the snake body was made of distinct unit parts which were literally '@' characters (i.e. the snake was not drawn continuously like in Python); you could not stop, once the game stars the snake is in continuous motion; the game was significantly harder than the description may suggest because the snake was quick and the maze was small.
  • Pengo clone: typical game where you're a penguin and must line up 3 diamonds to win, there are blocks you can push to kill the various bears on the stage. I know there are tons of pengo's clones out-there, but some characteristics of one I am looking for are that, the game looks like the action takes place is on the ice sheet (not inside a cave) and the blocks look like ice cubes, not stones; the bears do not re-spawn once you kill them. The enemies are really bears, not fluffy monsters, or whatever. the bears become significantly smarter and more aggressive at the levels progress. The graphics were quite nice.
  • plane game: this game is extremely basic, you see a side view of a city with buildings (super blocky). All buildings have the exact same width and are of different height. The screen does not scroll, instead you are a plane which start at the top of the screen, and flies across the screen, above the city. At each pass, the plane's altitude decreases, getting ever closer to the buildings. At each pass, you may drop bombs (with space bar, which is the unique control of the game), one at a time, which, if it falls on a building will destroy a unit of height of that building. You must destroy all buildings such that the plane can land on the ground. Speed of the plane increases at each level, making it hard to aim when/where to drop a bomb. The bomb's width is the same as the buildings.


These could be France-specific, I'm not sure.


I hope some of you were playing these too!


Thanks in advance,


Tim.
 
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These were all Type-In games from ACU (Amstrad Computer User) IIRC hence why you can;t find them on those sites, as they weren't commercial software (and they don't even have all commercial software listed - I was looking for a CPC game (The Covenant) on CPCReviews recently; it isn't listed)


The last was based on the Vic20 game Blitz. I remember it well


blitzscreen.png



Vic 20 version.


Here are some of the Type Ins from ACU - http://cpcwiki.eu/in...hp/ACU_Type_Ins Your games may be in there, somewhere. Amstrad Action also did Type Ins - http://www.cpcwiki.e...php/AA_Type_Ins


I'll let you go through them all ;) :p


Actually, looking through found this - http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ACU_October-November_1984_-_Type-ins


Was that the one you were thinking of? :)
 
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Actually, looking through found this - http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ACU_October-November_1984_-_Type-ins
Was that the one you were thinking of? :)

yes! Yes!!! YES!!!!!! That *IS* the one! :) Many thanks!


Now, I'll check the other issues of AA and ACU for my other games, thanks again!


PS: back then, my dad purchased our amstrad 6128 second hand, and the seller already had a whole bunch of floppies and games. I had no idea where these originally came from, and in fact I had no idea these magazine existed at all :wacko: , so great many thanks for the info!
 
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I've checked all the other mags now (that was a right trip back through memory lane) and i couldn't find the Pengo or snake games, but they don;t list or show every game from every issue unfortunately. :(


BTW I read every single issue of ACU and AA and typed in every single Type In back in the day =D
 
I've checked all the other mags now (that was a right trip back through memory lane) and i couldn't find the Pengo or snake games, but they don;t list or show every game from every issue unfortunately. :(

Thanks I just did the same. Some of the disk images are not on that wiki at all, which means some could be lost forever :( . That wiki site is awesome btw! Boy, do I remember the bad experience I had with tomahawk with this horrible piracy control device: http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Lenslok

BTW I read every single issue of ACU and AA and typed in every single Type In back in the day =D

Wow, that's impressive! I deduce that you must be a few years older than me ;)
 
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I deduce that you must be a few years older than me ;)
Possibly! I was there at the time and it's made me what I am now. My love of coding stems from getting a CPC 464 for Christmas in 1984 and not having any games with it. It came with issue #0 of ACU, which had Type-Ins in. The rest is ancient history! :p


Ahhh - the infamous Lenslok. Remember it well!
 
Found the snake game!! It's called Meynaupede, and can be played online here: http://www.comeplay....upede-game.html


The game ... errr ... doesn't quite match my description above :p ... I swear in my memory the body units were '@'! :lol: Anyway just to correct my initial description:

  • there *are* multiple mazes (I'm actually not sure if I ever went past the second one! <_< )
  • the snake *can* stop when directed to a wall or at a corner
  • the snake's body units use a custom sprite, not '@'


One note though: that online version does not accurately represent the controls: in the cpc version, you must instruct the snake to turn precisely when it's needed, in the online version, you are able to instruct the snake *in advance*, which makes the game significantly easier! I can tell you the cpc version is *not* easy!


K, just that pengo clone left and I will be really back like 22 over years!
 
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I've only seen this one mentioned by name, and can't even seem to find any screenshots, but is the Pengo-clone "Penggy" by Chip Software, by any chance? Or am I completely off-base, and it, too, is a type-in that may be lost?
 
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I've only seen this one mentioned by name, and can't even seem to find any screenshots, but is the Pengo-clone "Penggy" by Chip Software, by any chance?

Thanks prometheus! The game is unfortunately not "Penggy", nor is it "Penguins". I've checked these 2, but the way I remember that pengo clone, was that the stage was much bigger, meaning the sprites (penguins, bears, ice and diamonds) were smaller.


BTW, one problem I had with the cpc archive sites I initially browsed was that many of the screenshot are automatically taken, meaning often you only see the startup screen with some lines of text, or a text-based menu, which rang no bell for me whatsoever. I found this pdf instead yesterday: http://www.pressplay...log_2010_01.pdf , where it seems the screenshots are manually taken and are *in-game*. That makes it much easier to identify games. A true work of love in fact, given there are over 3600 screenshots!!!!! Anyway, so in that pdf I found both Bomber and Meynaupede, but I still can't find the pengo clone I am looking for :( .


I must say this is hard anyway, these color-screenshots don't always evoke a connection for me: I was playing a monochrome green screen back then :p

Or am I completely off-base, and it, too, is a type-in that may be lost?

I hope not. I called my dad yesterday do ask if we still had our cpc and the disks. Turned these were given away in a spring cleaning a few years ago :(


Interestingly on that game, I can't remember the sprites very well. The penguin/bear combination has been too mixed in my head with other games (like with penguinland of the master system), but I do remember the sound effects of that pengo clone (especially when you squash a bear :D )
 
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Nice find for that screenshot PDF :)


It's a shame that so many good games don't make good screen images though :(


There's a couple there I've not seen before that I'm going to have to try now.


I presume you spotted the "4 spiele 1 diskette (1985)" Pengo type image on your .PDF, as well as gusanin (1985)?
 
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Nice find for that screenshot PDF :)


...


There's a couple there I've not seen before that I'm going to have to try now.

Cool! I hope you have good fun :)

I presume you spotted the "4 spiele 1 diskette (1985)" Pengo type image on your .PDF, as well as gusanin (1985)?

Yup, unfortunately, that pengo-type game is not it either :( , but then again "4 spiele 1 diskette", means there are 4 games on that disk, there should be 4 screenshots to be exhaustive, maybe I should check the rest.


gusanin is a snake game, but I'm not longer looking for that one. The snake game I used to play is Meynaupede, which I posted about up there in the thread, for a snake-type game, it's really quite challenging, I recommend it! :)
 
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I'll have to have a look at that then. I only mentioned the other snake game as you stated that the one you remember seemed slightly different to that one, but memories can be funny things.


As for the four games on one disc - yeah, it's a shame that they didn't use a separate screenshot for each one. They've used multiple screenies for the same game in some cases (4 for Sacred Armour Of Antiriad for example). I doubt the other games are Pengo based though.


There are still some missing games on that .PDF but there are also ones on there that I never expected to be (eg several Type-Ins that I fondly remember :) )
 
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I'll have to have a look at that then.

I'm obviously biased, but I do like it. I must say the dpad control is not ideal on the pandora for this game btw, I wish the dpad and the ABXY buttons could both be configured to act as the direction arrows in caprice32, now THAT would make it rock :)

I only mentioned the other snake game as you stated that the one you remember seemed slightly different to that one, but memories can be funny things.

Indeed! and I realized I was being confusing, the game I was looking was indeed Meynaupede, and I recognized it instantly when I saw it. Just that my description in my original post of the game wasn't quite accurate after all... memory fail :p

There are still some missing games on that .PDF but there are also ones on there that I never expected to be (eg several Type-Ins that I fondly remember :) )

So on that note, by following the link on the first page of that pdf and crawling my way up a couple of sites, I ended up on a site (can't paste link) which offer a CDrom iso file containing:

  • screenshots (both title screens, and in-game) for each of the games from the pdf
  • the disk images (which is why I can't paste links)
  • all the metadata for the games (year, publisher, category, etc.), in machine and human readable format (good old DBase files)
  • a nifty front-end utility that allows for browse and search through the game DB (it's windows but it runs fine under wine) and optionally launch some emulator on the disc (which didn't work under wine)


The pdf was in fact derived from that resource.


Anyway, I was thinking about what we said: that some games are still missing, and that some screenshots are crap or not representative, so I *might* try to bring that project (screenshots and metadata only) to a site online, perhaps with the option for some people to upload new screenshots and/or add missing game data.


I say "I might" because procrastination usually takes the better of me, but in this case I have an ulterior motive: perhaps someone will eventually upload the screenshot the game I am looking for :)


Anyway, we'll see, I'll update here if I eventually do anything.
 
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Found it at last! The Pengo-clone game I used to play was called "Ice Strad". I found it on cpc-power's website (they have a "style: pengo" group :) ).


It was indeed a type-in published in Amstrad Magazine #23 (June 1987).


6103.png
 
Me too :D


BTW, still got my CPC6128 manual (the book that taught me to program :D )... IIRC the bomber game was published there as a type-in. There were others too, but I can't remember what they were.
 
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