One of the less lauded games from Ultimate, PSSST! was one of my first experiences of a really slick and addictive Spectrum game. It was launched around the time of Jet-Pac, prior to the later and more popular isometric games. I remember cutting out the coupon in Sinclair User to order the game, paid for with a postal order for £5. No downloadable content and PayPal for us back in 1983! Back then you had to rely on a grainy screenshot if you were lucky, and the idea of Youtube to view gameplay was a fantasy.
PSSST! Loading Screen on the ZX SpectrumPlaying the role of “Robbie the Robot”, your objective is to patrol your garden and protect your green shoot from invading insects long enough for it to grow and flower. The insects would crawl or fly towards the flower, and could be killed by using the right kind of spray for the insect – either a puff of gas, an electric zap or a water spray. The cans were dotted in alcoves by the side of the screen, and you could only carry one at a time, which forms the main game mechanic. You will encounter a number of different bugs as you progress through the game, starting with caterpillers and moving through bumble bees and wasps, each with a different attack pattern, and requiring different spray types.
Survival of your flower was a frantic battle to keep swapping sprays and killing insects moving at different speeds towards your flower.
Not the best or deepest game from Ultimate but a taste of things to come, and a world away from the clunky amd jumpy character animation of most early Spectrum games.
JetPac was one of the first of the games released for the early 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 of elements, being part shooter, part action-platformer.
Jetpac forZX Spectrum Cassette InlayWhat it did do was deliver to early adopter Spectrum owners the arcade experience they had been looking for in their humble home computer.
Due to the memory constraints of the basic Spectrum model, JetPac did away with mutiple screens and stuck to a very simple formula. Use your JetPac to collect space ship parts that fall from the sky, kill the aliens that try to attack you, build a rocket from the parts and take off in it when its complete. Then do it all over again, repeatedly, until you die. And that’s it.
JetPac loading screen for the ZX Spectrum
Despite the simple premise, one which would not hold the attention of many 10 year old game veterans today, Ultimate managed to build a sense of achievement into JetPac, as well as a desire to progress further through the game. You were pushed to tackle just one more screen, in order to see a new alien type with a different attack pattern. Every few screens you would get a new rocket, starting with an Apollo 13 style vehicle, and ending with a space shuttle (Tetris on the Gameboy also did this as a reward for completion).
There was also a great sense of colour in the game, from the garish alien designs to the multi coloured laser blast, but again due to memory limitations the only sound was the squeak of your laser and the plop when the aliens were destroyed.
JetPac screenshot on the ZX Spectrum
JetPac was a masterstroke of packaging in a time when memory was incredibly expensive. Developers Ultimate had to think about not only the gameplay but how they could most effectively fit it into the space available, and maximise the number of Spectrum owners that could play the game.
JetPac Sequels
A sequel to JetPac was later released entitled Lunar Jetman, this time for the 48k Spectrum, with better graphics, a lunar buggy to ride around in, and more varied gameplay. It was also incredibly hard, and as such not as fondly remembered as the original.
JetPac was also released on the Commodore 64 and the BBC Micro, but was most popular on the ZX Spectrum, and with this game Ultimate set a new standard for gaming on the home computer platform for other developers to follow.
Well before I discovered Atic Atac, my first experience of Spectrum gaming was from Sinclair’s own game label. It was a fairly lumpy product called Horace Goes Skiing. Whilst a world away from the silent black and white ZX81 which I had just graduated from, I soon got bored of these early Spectrum offerings, which had no depth and very little replay value. Loading Screen for Atic Atac
Atic Atac Game Development
Soon developers began to unlock the full potential of the little rubber buttoned machine, and at the head of this movement were the Stamper Brothers, and their company – Utimate Play the Game. Early games such at Jetpac, Pssst! and TransAm games were massively addictive, with smooth scrolling graphics, large colourful sprites and novel gameplay, with that all important replay value.
After these initial successes, Atic Atac was the first in a series of action adventure games, featuring larger play areas and huge puzzles to solve, providing a much deeper game experience. The game was set in a haunted castle, your mission to find the parts of a key that would allow you to escape, without first eing overcome by the many monsters therein.
The castle setting of Atic Atac was spread over 5 floors, including subterranean dungeons, and the haunted attic of the title, and was riddled with secret passages that had to be learned in order to progress. You could play as a Knight, Wizard or Serf, with each character having their own unique weapons, and the ability to use specific secret passages. Atic Atac was quite punishing, with your character faced with a continuous onslaught from the various monsters, some of which could be destroyed, some just avoided. Life in the representation of a roast chicken could be restored by eating food found lying around the dungeon. Not that food found on the floor should be eaten anyway, but mushrooms were very dangerous and actually drained life.
Picking up coloured keys allowed access to different coloured doors, and you could also climb up and down stairs to access different levels, or use a trap door or other secret passages mentioned earlier. Once you had the levels of Atic Atac mapped, you had the solution and it is possible to complete the game in 3 minutes or less, but the fun was in mapping your route. With the 3 characters having different skills and routes to complete the game, Atic Atac certainly had some replay value after completing the first quest.
Retro games reviewed, including 80's arcade machines, classic consoles and early home computers
