ZX Spectrum 2015 Calendar

Well 2015 is just round the corner so I thought it might be nice to make a calendar for the new year. So I collected a couple of my favorite images from some of the games I used to love to play, plus a couple of other iconic pictures and made a nice calendar which you are welcome to download.

Most of the images are from early in the ZX Spectrum's life including some of my favorite games like Manic Miner, Deathchase and Atic Atac.

I had to include lots of 'ULTIMATE Play The Game' screens in the calendar as well as a nice shot of the 48k keyboard which remains iconic to me.  Also check out the score in the 'Football Manager' screenshot! 

Please feel free to download the PDF version here:

Somewhere Only We Know - Beepola Music - ZX Spectrum

Somewhere Only We Know - Beepola Music

I recently thought how nice it would be to make some music for the games I have been creating on the ZX Spectrum and started playing around with Beepola, a fantastic free collection of machine language music engines for the Spectrum beeper.  The 16k and 48k machines only sported a single channel beeper and in the early days that was pretty much all that came out of the speaker, but my first recollection of something different was on first playing Manic Miner by Matthew Smith.  Not only did the game have a multi-channel into theme but the game also played music continuously whilst playing the game! Unheard of!

My first recollection of 'real' music in a game!

Flash forwards 30 years and in-game music has come a long way, lots of games featured in-game music and the the 128k Spectrum and everything that followed were endowed with a three-channel audio via the AY-3-8912 chip.  Well I haven't got round to playing with the 128k and it's sound capabilities but instead I downloaded 'Beepola' and had a go at creating a multi-channel tune using the original beep.

There are lots of different 'engines' built into the program, which runs in Windows, each having different capabilities and each sounding different to each other because of this. Some are designed to play 'in-game' music, others for better quality sound and effects.  I programmed 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane using one of the engines which supports 4 channel sound and drums.  The program can export to TAP file and even creates a simple loader for you.  I created a loading screen and edited the TAP file to accommodate it.

I loved the version Lily Allen recorded for the John Lewis 2013 Christmas advert so I used an image from the advert for the loading screen.

Download the TAP version here:

Download the Screen$ here:

Download the MP3 Version here:

ZX Spectrum - Page's Castle Quest

New Software - Page's Castle Quest

The Story

An alien spaceship has crashed into the castle and scattered the treasure all around the castle and beyond. It's our hero's job to collect as much of the hoard as possible before finding his way out. Beyond the castle lies an unfriendly Jungle, maybe he can find safety in the caves which lie beyond... but don't go too deep, there are tales of terrible things lurking deep below ground!

Guide our hero through 30 levels picking up objects along the way, if you miss one you can come back later. There are a few powerful amulets scattered around which can restore a life, but be careful not to waste a life trying to recover one!

 Controls

‘Q – Left’      ‘W – Right’       ‘SPACE – Jump’

You can also select either Kempson or Sinclair Joystick at the start menu.

Download

Page's Castle Quest TAP

Pages Castle Quest SZX

Map

RZX 

Cassette Inlay

Credits

This game was created using Johathan Cauldwell’s brilliant Arcade Game Creator (V4.5 and V4.6). 

I followed the tutorials provided by Paul Jenkinson which were also brilliant.  In fact the first 2 levels may be a little reminiscent of Paul’s levels in the tutorial… This is an intentional homage.

Thanks to my children Luke Pagett (12) and Ethan Pagett (8) for you help, you are both the next generation of Spectrum users and your enthusiasm and encouragement helped see this project through.

© David Pagett (2014) T.D.F. micro-visions

Coming Soon...

ZX Spectrum - AGD (Arcade Game Designer)

AGD (Arcade Game Designer)

As with most kids who grew up with the ZX Spectrum I enjoyed programming in BASIC and dreamed of creating games to match the commercial releases of the day.  But it didn't take long to realise that without knowledge of machine language, this was never really going to happen.  That didn't stop me from trying and I still have lots of bits of paper sketching out ideas and graphics for games that only ever existed in my head!

Back in the day several companies released games designers, some were designed for creating adventure games and others for creating arcade games.  the one I remember is H.U.R.G. from Melbourne House. It was announced late in 1983 but was delayed and despite the company announcing a £3000 prize for the best game created using H.U.R.G. I can't remember if I even bought the package in the end.

Roll on 30 years and I happened across AGD (Arcade Game Designer) by Jonathan Cauldwell.  It's a games development package which runs on the ZX Spectrum or an emulator and for me it does everything the old  packages claimed they could do and more, also games created with AGD can run standalone, unlike H.U.R.G. which still needed the engine loaded to run.

I can't praise this enough, it sparked my interest in programming as the built in language is very similar to BASIC making the learning curve nice and easy.  There are several demo games included which can be loaded and experimented with but the most useful guide was a set of tutorial videos by Paul Jenkinson available here at his website.  These videos are brilliant and perfectly paced and by following these I started to create my first 'proper' game which I later called 'Page's Castle Quest'

There are other modern development tools out there, some which run on a PC and compile to work on a Spectrum and others which run on an actual Spectrum or emulator.  But my vote goes to AGD, have a look here for the latest version, discussions and tips.

T.D.F. micro-visions - What's it all about?

Me and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum

My name is David and this little blog is about my love of a small 8 bit computer released in the early 80's by Sir Clive Sinclair.  Of course there is not much to add to the wealth of information already on the internet about the history of Sinclair and the Spectrum, there is a wealth of information out there about the inner workings, modifications and a thriving community dedicated to preserving software and publications relating to this wondrous little machine.  So this is a more personal blog, recounting my personal memories and experiences relating to the ZX Spectrum.

I started school in the 1970's and moved to senior school in 1979 which made me about 14 when the Spectrum was released in the UK in 1982.  With a paper round money and pocket money in my pocket I was part of the generation perfectly positioned to help shape the popularity of the machine.

Sinclair originally intended his machine to be a business computer but kids like me had other ideas. Not only did the spectrum make a great little games machine, it also had a simple to pick up programming language, BASIC... and it wasn't long before children all over the country were running their own programs, writing their own games and of course scrolling swear words the TV screens in Currys!

TDF over for 30 years! Here's something from 2005

Like lots of others I was inspired to write my own programs, more of that later and more about a 30 year dream to make a game as good (in my opinion) as what was been released by the big software houses of the day.  So what is T.D.F micro-visions?  Whenever I wrote a program on the spectrum I always called my 'software house' Tour De Force micro-visions! or T.D.F micro-visions.  Seemed cool at the time!