Although most people will remember the various home ports for ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and BBC Micro, Hunchback was originally released by Century Electronics in 1983 as an arcade machine. The game itself was a relatively simple “pitfall” style platformer, with multiple left to right flip screens, each one featuring a number of challenges to…
A new kind of game for the Spectrum JetPac was one of the first of the games released, in 1983, for the 16k Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer, and developer Ultimate managed to fit a lot into the tiny memory. This game didn’t fit into any easily definable retro gaming genre, as it had a number…
Introducing a pixel perfect clone of Mr Do! Mr Ee! came from a time when copyright law didn’t seem to apply to video games, otherwise this game would never have existed. Imagine taking the latest Super Mario game on the wii, copying it, calling it Super Dave and releasing it on the XBOX. That’s what…
Introduction to the Donkey Kong Game and Watch Nintendo’s most famous (if not the first) arcade game needs very little introduction, but the origin of the Donkey Kong Game & Watch is less well known. Gunpei Yokoi, the Japanese creator of the Game and Watch series, as well as the Gameboy, got his inspiration whilst…
Back in the day, and by “the day” I mean most of the 80’s, the arcade was the place to be. Arcade games development was at its peak with huge amounts of competition from the manufaturers, and there would be new cabinets or upgrades launched every week. Every Friday I would head into Southend (Essex born and…
It’s 1981, and I’m an 10 year old boy fascinated with the emerging world of personal computers. My dad would bring home a Commodore Pet machine from work, the same shape and size as a small car, over the Christmas period. I would spend hours playing Snake (yes, years before Nokia got in on the…
