My Gaming Memories

My Gaming Memories from the days of the ZX Spectrum and beyond. https://mygamingmemories.weebly.com/

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Space Raiders - a tasty little game.

You may be wondering why it has taken me so long to finally bring up the subject of space invaders? Surely this must be one of the first computer games that anyone encounters? Well, you have to remember that in our household the Spectrum was bought for education purposes only. So these little guys had to wait for me to catch up to them. Admittedly we did have Arcadia in the very beginning , I still blame this on my father's one moment of weakness , but it wasn't the classic Space Invaders/Raiders game. So although this was released in 1982, it did take me about a year to to play it. This version was Space Raiders from Psion Software. ​Now I'm really hoping I don't have to explain the game play of this game to anyone. Oh, okay then, now are your ready for this? Shoot them, shoot them all, before they get you. On the upside you do have buildings to hide behind and an extra space vehicle zipping along the top to also try and hit.  But that is all there is to it. This was my first experience of this type of game , yes I know that is rather sad. ( It took me even longer to come into contact with Pacman, but that is another story). ​It was a game I  immediately  took a liking to , not so much for the thrill of shooting the aliens but because I thought the aliens looked , well, kind of cute. It's another genius bit of computer design,  we may be defending the world from evil aliens, but for most of the population these wee folks weren't the stuff of nightmares. In fact for people of my generation the top line did look a little similar to the 'Smash Martians' from the mashed potato ad campaign.  

It wasn't long before my father had also made the acquaintance of the descending hoards, his great achievement was to figure out that you could use the buildings as a shield and  shoot through them to gain access to the aliens. Which he gleefully  employed to trounce my high scores at every opportunity (until he realised that they could fire back through the holes - which of course was highly unfair) .  So for a game with a very short plot and ( it has to be said -sorry) quite simplistic game play , why have I included it? Was I brilliant at it ? Nope. Was I addicted to it? Not in the way I was addicted to the Ultimate games like Atic Atac and Sabrewulf. This game is here because of the aliens,  and how they invaded my world during the 80's.  It has to be said that as far as food went the household I lived in had pretty bland tastes ( sorry Dad) , we lived a pretty Ready Salted type of life. Then I discovered the below  and these became linked in my funny little head with this game. To this day I can still taste the chutney flavoured crisps as soon as I look at the screen. ​

For me this game sums up this particular period of the 80's where food suddenly became exciting and full of flavour. Also the fact that I had the choice to pick something other than Ready Salted and in the computer gaming world pick something other than educational software. A game where I could just blast away without thinking of plot or mapping. Although I always felt a little sorry for the aliens, particularly the lower line of red ones , who I always thought might be distantly  related to Horace from Horace Goes Skiing etc.

But does the story end there....well no....in a kind of up to date twist the other day I unearthed my Atari Flashback console and loaded up the Atari version of this. I spent the next hour in utter delight, the Atari version may not bring back the taste of chutney crisps, but it brought back an awful lot of happiness. ​ Sometimes in this very complicated world you need simplicity, not every day is a day for chutney flavour crisps ....

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Underwurlde - Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time ( which is the best way all good stories start) , there was a 12 year old girl , she dreamt of magenta mountains and a large cyan wolf. But that was okay, because her trusty friend Sabreman was always at her side . Their adventures  in the jungle carried on for years, as we have already told , but there is another story.....a story far from the lush forests and lazy rhinos of Sabrewulf . The story from beyond the jungle...... ​ You have to feel sorry for Sabreman, after battling his way through Sabrewulf to that final cave, in a cruel twist of fate , he finds himself landed into the Underwurlde.  The year is 1984 and 'Ultimate ' are not prepared to let Sabreman retire just yet!  With a loading screen to die for , another gigantic adventure was about to start. The first thing that struck me about this game is that the nasty bugs, eagles, jellyfish that fly around in this game don't sap your energy. But don't be fooled, they do something that is far worse, they push you.  So, dear reader, you may be wondering why  that would cause a problem. Well, picture yourself  having spent a good few minutes clambering your way on pieces of furniture to the top of about three screens and then some little , cheerfully coloured jellyfish comes along and ........weeeeeeeeeeee.......splat! You see now ?

Not only that but a lot of the game is spent in underground caverns where you travel by standing on bubbles of volcanic gas.  You can imagine just how much of my early game play was spent watching Sabreman fall to his death. Now, there are crystals that can give him immunity if he can snatch one on his majestic fall and a rope that is attached to the cave roof , but wiggle around too much on that one and a large chunk of rock is dislodged and weeeeeeeeeeee........splat! On the upside at least Sabreman gets a weapon to shoot the little....er.....darlings with. ​ This is a long way from a walk in that lush summer jungle . The goal is to find one of the three exits from the Underwurlde , to do that you need the correct weapon to get past a guardian. Only one weapon works for each guardian , this is not an easy game.  Where as Sabrewulf was forever summer , this game , for me anyway, is a game for  winter. It's a game for firelight and hearing the wind and rain pound on the windows. So, being as the game is fiendishly difficult, frustrating and I never finished it without using a poke why is it here? ​ Is it the lure of my little explorer buddy? I suppose that is part of it, it was an extension to Sabrewulf and I felt obliged to try and finish the story, to almost gain closure for the jungle experience and for the months I had spent trying to finish that game. Being able to boast that I had finished Sabrewulf and then suddenly realising I had only finished part one, I felt compelled  to  do more. But there is more than that.... As a child  I had been bullied through out my school career , whether it was for a speech impediment , lack of coordination or my ability to turn bright red and become tongue tied with shyness if anyone so much as looked at me I will never know. But to see Sabreman , going through what I went through at school, to see him getting pushed around and knocked over struck a chord.  In fact I  often wondered if this game had been written with these sort of experiences in mind.  Where as Sabrewulf had been an escape from reality into a fantasy world , Underwurlde in my mind was like a fantasy representation of a school day. So to come back to the original question, why would I want to revisit something that reminded me of this? ​ I think the phrase is, to rise above. What made the game for me were the bubbles, to escape those who are pursuing  and pushing you, by rising above. (Bubbles, good in a drink, good in a bath and a great way to travel!) .  This game although dark and frustrating was also uplifting , I  know that sounds a contradiction, but somehow 'Ultimate' managed it. I returned again and again , eventually resorting to a poke to gain infinite lives  ( and with the aid of a map from Crash magazine ) I did eventually escape from the Underwurlde. But as there are three exits, there was still reason to revisit, each game Sabreman was  pushed and knocked , but always rising above, floating free on the bubbles. ​ As the years have passed I still return to this game, Sabreman and I still jump on the furniture before plunging into the caverns and riding on the bubbles.  It's a game that still frustrates me but yet still draws me  in.

Once upon a time , there was a 12 year old girl, she dreamt of darker places and bullies . But that was okay , her trusty friend Sabreman had one more lesson to teach her, to rise above. ​

[mygamingmemories]

Derby Day - 'aving a flutter

The year was 1983, I had absolutely no interest in horse racing or gambling (being only 11 years old.)  However, my father came home from work one day clutching this game in his grubby little paws. At this point , dear reader, feel free to take a few seconds to try and spot his motive.  Was he perhaps trying to get me interested in horse racing? Perhaps he was trying to use this to negotiate an afternoon at the races ? Or....perhaps....it was educational  reasons. An attempt to make maths fun?   I think by now we all know the answer....educational reasons.  I suppose in a way it was mathematically helpful, you managed your little pot of cash and learnt what decent odds were.  ​ You had to hand it to this game, there was something addictive about it.  You could play it alone, on a rainy Saturday afternoon while you waited for The A Team to come on, or you could play it with a gaggle of friends after school. It was certainly more fun with a gaggle of friends though, encouraging your chosen horse on with ...'terms of endearment' , daring each other to pick the horse with the longest odds and generally horsing around as only a group of 11 year old kids can.  You were also exposed to the below gentleman, look at those eyes, look at that blood red mouth , look at that lemon curd background. This is your bookmaker 'Honest Clive Spectrum' .

Believe me, even after you have forgotten the game play, the horse racing screen and the names of some of the horses, you will remember this gentleman! There was something about this graphic that stuck in the brain, possibly the way his mouth changed depending on whether you were winning or not , or was it those devilishly cyan steely eyes?  Either way this was the one thing that stuck in my mind for years after about this game. But there was one other thing as well, one special feature that up until now I had not come across that added immense value to this game, especially if you were playing in a group of friends. ​ Take a look at those horses names,you will notice that Dr Who, Avon, Mr Stinky, Rat Face and Spock are all racing. Yep, that's right , you could customise the horse names and the odds. Suddenly this game had a purpose , it was suitable party entertainment for 11 year olds, it could lower the tone of a conversation in an instant , shocked parents would assemble at the door as a jubilant child announced that ' Popeye had beaten Poopy Pants'. Weren't we lovely when we were that age?! Singers, cartoon characters , even the school heart throb were all fair game in the naming of horses and it has to be said even the odd parent's name got included. Perhaps maths was being made fun after all! I'm pretty certain that CRL Group who produced this game had not intended the adding of horses names to be the selling point of the software , I suspect also that 11 year old girls were not their target audience. But when Paul Young, is leading from George Michael and Shakin' Stevens is bringing up the rear, you can't really argue!

The little black box and joined the party and proved it could be as naughty as the rest of us. Encouraging us to rename those poor computerised horses, encouraging us to name them after our parents and teachers. ( Alright perhaps the Spectrum didn't encourage us that much, but it gave us the opportunity.) Planting that little spark of anarchy , which  I now realise was present in an awful lot of Spectrum games.

I still remember the afternoons where Batman would race against Mr Stinky, not for the game play, or understanding the concept of  long or shot odds but for the laughter and the anarchy. Another educational choice by my father had beaten the odds  to become a much loved classic.

[mygamingmemories]

Horace goes Skiing-why did the gamer cross the road?

There are many fascinating characters in the world of Sinclair Spectrum gaming, Sabreman, Jetman, Magic Knight, Monty Mole, Miner Willy. But let me introduce you to this little chap.....Meet Horace. Now Horace and I go way back, we've known each other since 1983 ( about a year after he was created by William Tang) . My story of getting to know this handsome wee dude started when I met him trying to cross a very busy road, on a very dull Saturday afternoon in my parents living room. ​ At this stage in my gaming life I had never played Frogger , so playing 'Horace Goes Skiing' was a completely new experience to both me and my father. The game is in two parts, first part ,with  $40 burning a hole in his pocket , our hero must cross a very busy road.  He then must hire his skis  , then return across the busy road before he can ski down a ski course. Should poor Horace get into an accident on the road , an ambulance comes to his aid and for the princely sum of $10 carts him off.

It sounds so simple doesn't it and also very plausible.  There are no jetpacks, aliens, bombs or guns, in fact poor Horace doesn't even get traffic lights  (if I was him I would have written to my local councillor to complain.) The first part of this game was a scene that could be found in any High Street in most towns (and the running across the road with no traffic lights could be found anytime you crossed the road with my father!) ​ It was rumoured there was a knack to this, to slide over to the side of the screen and then belt across the road. Certainly standing there and waiting made life even more difficult as the road got busier and busier. Should  I take the chance and belt blindly across without stopping to watch the road for a pattern ? Or should I wait and watch the traffic build and Horace's dreams of skiing freedom evaporate.  As you can see from the above graphic, I shouldn't have waited! But once you had crossed the road and then crossed back again with your skis, freedom beckoned, the screen changed  from the black of tarmac and carbon monoxide to.... The whiteness and purity of a snow covered forest and the exhilaration of free falling down the screen and weaving in and out of the trees.  Of course danger still lurked and a collision with a tree could mean that your skis were broken . But after all that tension of crossing that road, this part of the screen was a wonderful release. You shared with Horace that genuine joy of movement as he had , albeit only briefly, escaped from the traffic and the city.

At the time of playing this game in the early 80's it was the character of Horace that fascinated me , just what was he? Regardless of his appearance , he was appealing, he looked friendly , possibly down trodden , you just wanted to help him ( I think it was the big eyes). As someone who never fitted the 'norm ' of what fashionable was I felt a kindred spirit in this wee strange looking guy.  It was worth the torment of the road crossing stage just to get to that impossibly white ski slope and let him speed off through the flags. You could imagine him whooping for joy.

But as all good Spectrum games did, this game came back to me in my 'adult' life , with another meaning. I suddenly realised why the two parts of this game appealed to me. I had to experience the drudgery  of part one, to fully understand the exhilaration of part two. Most of us have to cross that road everyday, for some people it's a dead end job, or a mindless commute , loss of individuality that comes with working for a faceless corporation, or knocks to the ego that no $10 ambulance trip will fix.

But there is always that ski slope. Survive that road crossing and look forward to that ski slope my friends. Let that funny little , big eyed , long legged Horace be your guide .

Why did the gamer cross the road?  To meet Horace and to escape

[mygamingmemories]

Spy Hunter

It is 1985, and according to this game I was a world class spy driving for my life in an ultra-equipped turbo-charged spy mobile. Trying to stop enemy agents on land and on water. In reality I was a teenage girl in a rural part of Somerset , too timid to even drive a bumper car. The game is Spyhunter from U.S. Gold Ltd and along with Deathchase is the reason I became, in later life hopelessly addicted to driving games. ​I don’t recall the exact circumstances on how we ended up with a copy of this , I think possibly my father was to blame. He was responsible for my love of car racing, action TV shows, big budget adventure films with lots of car chases and explosions( my mother would have preferred me to be watching Delia Smith I’m sure!) The first thing that struck me about this game was the colour , the first stage has that wonderful ZX Spectrum green with trees outlined in blue , it’s a drive in the Springtime, it really is a thing of beauty. It was the first time I had experienced a driving game in this type of ‘top down ‘ format , my only games being Chequered Flag and Trans Am. I began to realise something straight away , I rather liked this way of driving a car.

​The game is tricky, other cars try to barge you off the road, even your own lorry that comes laden with missiles and oil slicks and other goodies seems to have a slightly sadistic streak that can land you exploding into the bushes. But the excitement comes when a sign appears telling you the bridge is out. You take to the left hand side of the screen , along a little narrow lane and sploooosh, you are a speed boat (you may notice from my screen shots no speed boat screens….couldn’t quite manage it these days!) The novelty of driving a speed boat was a real buzz and that alone kept me coming back to the game. But as I got better, I got onto other levels and realised that the landscape also changed colour. Please remember this is back in 1985/86 , my mind was blown. The teenage brain went into overdrive, the Spyhunter became Face from The A Team ( my then current crush – yes, I’ve always had questionable taste!) This brought a whole new level of game play , I can’t say it improved my game playing skills though. Returning to play this game a few days ago I did wonder how it would stand up, I’d had years of DOS,  Sega and Nintendo to spoil me. Would this game just invoke nostalgia alone , or would it still have same game play magic that the modern games didn’t have? I needn’t  have worried, that first level, the green grass, red tree trunks and blue outlines still entrances me now as it did then. The ZX Spectrum colours just add a certain something. They add a layer of innocence and beauty, a brightness and newness of landscape that some of the more modern racing games seem to lack. The colours are full of optimism , like brand new lego bricks.

Coming back to it a fresh , I did feel like a fugitive or a spy , sneaking back from the gritty realism of some of the modern racing games into this magical world , a world of optimism and magic . A simpler time , back into the world of nostalgia.

[mygamingmemories]

The Hobbit ....You wait time passes

This game entered our life, as most games did , in a sleek black box  We knew this was something special, the box didn't even have a picture on the cover. It was when we opened the box we knew it was something special. ​ There wasn't just a cassette inlay, there was a manual AND a paperback novel. See, if it had a novel to read this HAD to be educational and good for you. It had cost us £14.95 (admittedly if you take away the price of the novel it meant the game was the same price as most other games of the time). The manual was a world of information including a dictionary at the end , telling you which words you could use to interact with the characters ( dear reader , please remember that sentence , it will come back to haunt us).  The novel was handed to me to read, let us not forget that this is the quest for education.  We loaded up the game and very much like one of the key phrases in this game ...you wait ...time passes as it did take about 12 minutes to load. But the wait was worth it, plus it was the perfect amount of time to brew a cuppa to fortify yourself for the coming adventure. I'm not going to explain the plot to this game, I'm sure you all already know it...dwarves...dragons...gold...more gold...singing...quaffing...singing and gold.  Instead I will focus on the experience of two people who, very like Bilbo Baggins, had never been on an adventure before. It all started off  so well. ​ You are in a comfortable tunnel like hall , with a wonderful magenta carpet and a green door. See , Melbourne House invented the colour combination that has reignited the career of Michael Portillo! We are joined by Gandalf and Thorin ( Gandalf likes to skulk off by himself and Thorin has a tendency to sit down and sing about gold )and it's off we go . To start with we managed quite well. East...East...East...( beware trolls , but I had already read this far in the book) SouthEast...wait...wait...day dawns and that is all the hints I am giving you.  I have to admit I found the game really easy to play, I could always explain what I wanted to do with the limited words at my disposal ( in the manual they give this language it's own name, Inglish). I was able to go in the compass directions, talk , examine and carry items, what more could a girl ask for? ​ But when I had retired for the night , after once more being killed by the wood elf, a whole new adventure started. Enter the Dad Hobbit....Remember that dictionary page, dear reader? With all the words you could use? Imagine that being kicked subtlety under the sofa , as Dad Hobbit began his quest to find the dragon. Very early on he found out that attacking either Gandalf or Thorin was a bad idea and resulted in your premature death, sometimes even before you had left the Hobbit hole. My father's relationship with Thorin was fraught with difficulties, to the point it is possible they may have needed counselling , or a restraining order. His relationship with Gandalf was no better , in fact he got on with the three hideous trolls better , at least he could run away , wait until daylight and then return when they had turned to stone. Suffice to say , the programmers had not taken into account the Dad Hobbit and his utter frustration with strong and silent Gandalf and Thorin the impatient, who had a habit of trying to hurry you up one minute and then sitting down and singing about gold the next. Fortunately the program didn't recognise requests placed in more colourful language. This was a game written with children in mind, thank goodness. Eventually the sheer impossibility of this game stopped us from playing it , there is only so many times you can get locked in the wine cellar. Even after reading the novel we were still unable to get the characters to do what was needed and we both eventually conceded defeat after only completing 22% . But this is one of the few games my Dad still remembers clearly now he is in his 80's and it was ground breaking in it's day. As it is a text adventure it is still now very playable on an emulator , no need of joysticks or strange key configurations.

More importantly it showed us naïve adventurers  something more about the Spectrum , it could compliment things that had already been written , it could act as your guide to interact with new worlds and lead you to new interests. There was an alternative to TV and Cinema and it's name was the Sinclair Spectrum.

P.S. What about Dad Hobbit? I think he is still trapped in that wine cellar to this day! ​

[mygamingmemories]

Flight Simulation - Come fly with me (just don't ask me to land it)

We have talked about educational games ( boo , hiss) and fun games ( yay) . However there was another category on the ZX Spectrum , the 'let's have  an experience game, the simulators .  My father had served his National Service in the RAF , so when he heard about Flight Simulation ( Psion 1982) he just had to have it. Unlike his experiences in the RAF  there was no simulation for towing Lancaster Bombers around an airfield with a tractor and then getting in trouble with a superior officer for speeding in the tractor , but , still, he had his heart set on flying. With his love of sporty cars I did wonder just what he thought this little 48K box was going to present him with. ​ I did have a few goes on this , but it was certainly Dad's game. If I was playing it , he was my co -pilot  ( press this, do that, pull up...pull up....PULL UP...) and, indeed, when he was playing some of the time I was his co pilot ( are you finished yet Dad?, Dad, can I play Pogo?, Dad, Mum says get off the floor and dry the dishes ....that sort of thing ) . This program took patience, you didn't play it for the wild times and excitement. Other than the cockpit there wasn't much to hold the mind of an 11 year old , with no real interest in flying a plane. There were lots of exciting gauges and dials and you could fly around , you could also take off , or land. You could try putting your landing gear down in mid flight and even try to pull yourself out of a nosedive (possibly caused by putting your landing gear down in mid flight!) .  Here we come to my Dad's obsession, to land the plane. Taking off and flying we could both do , it even had a nice yellow map so you could see where you were going , as you flew through these impossible clear and uncluttered skies.  ​ My father was determined to land this beast. After I went to bed he would stay sat on the floor , in front the TV, fixated, this pixalated runway getting closer and closer and closer and then .....kersplat . Every morning I would be greeted by tales of his progress from the previous evening, how close he had got, nearly, oh so nearly...but still kersplat. We would have other families over for meals and once us kids had exhausted our supply of games, the Dads would gather around the TV, in a serious manner, heads bowed , fingers on the keyboard, hushed muttering, brows furrowed....kersplat.

My Dad will tell you he never landed that plane, however, in my memory there was a morning where he told me he had landed it (perhaps this was wishful thinking). He certainly lost interest in the game , the airport was safe again ( however, dragons guarding hoards of gold were not , neither were fellow dwarf adventurers .) We rarely revisited the game, possibly because Fighter Pilot had been released and this meant the plane now had a gun. I want to believe , in the early hours of one morning, he did land the plane , he beat the computer , he succeeded. As an older family member once said 'Our family may not be the first across a finishing line, but they will always cross that finishing line'. Possibly ,whether he did or not doesn't really matter to this narrative, what matters was he was hooked, beguiled by this little black box. It had found his weakness , it could amuse an adult as well as a child. It had now become well and truly a part of our little family and the adventures could now really begin. ​

[mygamingmemories]

Pogo a Go-Go

Our next Sinclair game was Pogo. Somewhat educational as it did promote logical thinking as you had to outwit the computer. I remember the day my father brought this home from the little local computer shop in our town, I saw the cover and immediately  felt rather sorry for Pogo, hiding away in his little house. Persecuted since birth and chased from planet to planet , only to now land on the Planet of Steps (nil points for imagination there Ocean Software) , to still be pursued by his arch enemies , the glass ball , the scorpion and worst of all Hiss the wily snake. What does Pogo decide to do about this? Well he/she/it decides to paint every tile on the board. Now, even at the age of 11 I did think that in this futuristic land Pogo might have designed a spray gun attached to a jetpack and saved itself a whole world of pain. Especially as it had already got access to helipads it could jump on, to be taken back to the top of the screen, but I suppose that would have made the game much shorter and far less of a challenge. ​ You had to feel sorry for Pogo, blessed with a face only a mother could love, he had little of the machismo of some of the other Spectrum heroes that were around at the time. Horace, who also had unique features was busy tackling spiders, running across busy roads and skiing. But poor Pogo was stuck on the  Planet of Steps painting the pavement. In my 11 year old brain I hoped these two were cousins and perhaps exchanged Christmas cards. 'Dear Horace, painted another level of steps today , regards your cousin Pogo' , you know, that type of thing. But I digress ... This was another really colourful game, simple but yet strangely addictive , you just wanted to help out the wee little magenta guy. The sound effects were rather limited through the  ZX Spectrum but connected to the Ferguson Radiogram they became far more humorous, poor Pogo , with that sort of dietary upset I would have stayed inside and hid as well.  But now I see this was just another ploy of that wily ZX Sinclair Spectrum to get it's feet ( or interface possibly? ) under the table.

The ability to be able to create such cute characters , in friendly colours. Indeed characters that had a vulnerable edge,  (those haunting eyes both on the cassette cover and also the loading screen ) and through this magic black box you were able to help them. It was now not only a tutor but a friend. There were games around that were far less friendly and dear reader we will get round to them , but in this particular snapshot of 1983 , girl and Spectrum had bonded. To Be Continued .... ​

[mygamingmemories]

Jet Set Willy - If I Were a Rich Man

Sometimes there is a game that just hooks you right from the starting screen, that even after all that time just one look at that screen and all the memories come flooding back. Are you ready for that screen? Are you sitting comfortably? ​

Look at that cool impossible triangle , at the age of 12 I loved optical illusions so I was immediately  fascinated by this screen . Also the anti-piracy measure of having to enter a code from the cassette inlay's coloured sheet made you feel you were entering a special place. A place of infinite possibilities  , a place of magic.

The year is 1984  and this is Jet Set Willy courtesy of Matthew Smith (Software Projects) . You remember Miner Willy, in Manic Miner? Well, this is what happens when you splash all that cash you got from those strange mines and can afford a big house and a grumpy housekeeper called Maria. Willy has had a party and Maria won't let him go to bed until the house is clean. (Hmm, if I was Willy I would fire her and hire a new housekeeper!) ​The mansion is huge ( 60ish screens) , some rooms with one item to collect, others with lots of items to collect and each screen has a name ( from the straightforward The Bathroom to the more obscure We Must Perform A Quirkafleeg .) Some are very easy, others will have your tearing your hair out. For my father and I back in 1984 it was a house we would come to know very , very well.

Our first few attempts were all about trying to find all the items, but after a while my excitable little brain realised that we didn't need to collect objects to go exploring.  Besides as a child you would spend  large amounts of your time being instructed to clean your room, dismantle your Lego , get your toy farm animals out the bath (or was that just me?) . The last thing you wanted to be doing while having computer time was to be doing what you should have been in real life!  So I decided it was my duty to make Miner Willy rebel , sleep, ha , who needs it! My initial exploring sessions were somewhat hampered by reaching stages I couldn't get past, but a quick read of Crash Magazine taught me a little trick , if I went to the staircase leading to The Chapel I could type WRITETYPER and then entering any  number would send me to a different screen. Suddenly there was a whole new world out there for me!

Now I feel at this point I should make a confession. My father and I were having a little competition on who could get to the most rooms, there was even a notepad and a list . It has to be said I had been lagging behind some what. Dear reader, what would you have done? Shared the secret word with your father, or kept it secret for your own advantage? .....Suffice to say pretty soon I was logging rooms my father had never heard of! The great thing about this game is that there is just so much to explore, each room is full of strange exotic creatures, beautifully coloured walls and little touches of humour like the Nightmare Room above where you have become a flying pig. You could lose yourself in this game, a whole afternoon would zip by as the little men down the bottom of the screen danced along to 'If I Was A Rich Man ' at least in the earlier versions. This was another reason I loved this game, I loved that piece of music and could bash out a fair rendition myself on the electric organ. ​ Neither my father nor I ever finished this game, we didn't want to , we were having far too much fun finding all the rooms, exploring the house , looking at the fantastic creatures ( and that horrific face in The Chapel ) . Most mornings would start with a whispered conversation behind my long suffering mother's back about what room my father had discovered the night before , whispered instructions that I would memorise and try out later on to find the same room.  We may have been inside a two bedroom semi-detached bungalow but we had a much bigger house to explore.

Over the years , as is often the case , more advanced games came along with more to explore,  but little pieces of Jet Set Willy kept popping into my brain to remind me of it. In fact going to places where there actually is an Orangery still makes me smile and I  associate 'If I Were A Rich Man ' more with this game than with Fiddler On The Roof.  It was the first game that I came across on the ZX Spectrum where I felt the sheer excitement of exploration, the feeling that I had no need to play the game objective to get enjoyment.

I may have been stuck in a small town, in a small bungalow  , where my world consisted of  6 rooms, but through Jet Set Willy I had an escape, to a world where you could live on a beach , own a ballroom and have your own orangery.

In fact Miner Willy, sack Maria, employ me instead!

[mygamingmemories]

Manic Miner - Just a jump to the left..

​It is time , dear reader, to come to one of the giants of the Spectrum gaming world.  Let us enter the world of Manic Miner . This is probably one of the most well known of the ZX Spectrum games, ( poor humble prospector Miner Willy falls down a long abandoned mine shaft and discovers untold riches, if only he can get out alive.) It was the first real platform game I played and had the novelty of music played through out the game and some wonderful music on the start up screen. Let's start with that screen, it's colourful , it's bright , it just screams optimism and the clincher for me , it had a piano keyboard . Having learnt to play the electronic organ this drew me in. Plus the fact it was playing the Blue Danube , one of the tunes I could play. This was really starting to look good before the game even started. Now, by today's standards you might think the game play a little tame, just left, right and jump. Nothing to shoot, complete one screen and on to the next. Wrong...Each screen had colour, humour and was fiendishly difficult in places  and every screen had a time limit. The music playing through out also added to the experience, the cool little sound effect when you finished , that I can't in anyway replicate was unique.   Each level was a mental aerobics session, you needed brain power and not just quick fingers to do this game. Sometimes it was just a jump to the left and then a step to the right....In fact.......that was just what this game was, you had to choreograph your moves.

​It was a game about patterns, timings and rhythm. Three steps to the left, wait for the penguin to move, jump , land , two steps to the right. It was a dance and once you knew the steps for that level you  could complete it. For the 11 year old Julie this was fantastic, as young Julie danced a lot ( teen Julie danced quite a bit and older Julie still dances -just when no one is looking!) I even went to the trouble of writing these moves down and with practise you could repeat your performance time after time. You had to use patience , some moves couldn't be carried out until a kangaroo or a toilet seat had made their move first. In places it had to be timed to perfection, you found yourself counting under your breath , waiting for your turn to make Miner Willy bounce across the cavern floor.  

There was something almost hypnotic about this game, having to watch the other characters on the screen drew your attention, locked you into the game.  Corny as it sounds , you became one with the game, the dance went on.... While I was dancing my way across the screens , pirouetting around Penguins and Pac-men , my father also encountered this game. He became obsessed with it, long after I had gone to bed he would be sat on the floor , pounding the keyboard, jumping on bushes, bashing into penguins and swearing at a particular yellow robot.  I often wondered why he persevered with the game ( my father has very limited 3D vision and lives in a mostly 2D world) . Other games that he had not managed to get the hang of were left by the wayside quite quickly, so why not Manic Miner? ​ Well, I think the clue was in the title, Dad had come from a mining family, although he had avoided the mines himself , his father had been a miner as had his father's father ( who had lost his life in a mining accident.) Just perhaps Miner Willy had been transported to the coal faces of Wales and was giving my father the chance to connect with his family history. Or possibly my father was just refusing to be beaten by the little black box.     Manic Miner had touched two generations, as all the best Spectrum games did. The father perhaps seeing a life he had avoided , imprinting the coal mines of Wales over the futuristic gamescape. And the daughter dancing and twirling her way into a future of platform game playing

[mygamingmemories]

Welcome to the Jungle...Maths

It had to happen, my father found a shop in our small town selling educational computer games. His number one target was maths , in particular my inability to add two numbers together ( or for that matter to subtract, multiply or divide them. These days we call it dyscalculia. ) I was introduced to the world of Jungle Maths.  As you can see from the cassette inlay it was a jolly jape across a jungle infested with snakes, piranhas and bogs for ages 5 - 13. We were a very brave generation back in the 80's ( I blame the food additives). ​ It starts off innocent enough, a nice friendly blue - sorry cyan and green screen , no warning of the bloodshed and gore that lies ahead for the hapless traveller ( particularly when the hapless traveller was me, who had to count on their fingers to solve even the most simple maths problems) .  But it can't hurt just to type in your name, can it? ​ ​Here is the jungle  along which I must pass ...seems innocent enough? Let us answer some questions ....

Argghhh!!!  It's a blood bath, those coconuts are a bit lethal, I've chosen to omit the graphic that shows you getting constricted to death by a snake and the line dripping from the box marked 'you' that states this is blood. This game was more graphic than your average game of  space invaders. It certainly focused the mind ( unless , like me, you wanted to see all the horrible deaths that could befall you , luckily once you made it to the base , that's just what they did.)

Although perhaps looking back we did see about the same level of cartoon violence on Hong Kong Phooey or Scooby Doo ( I must have missed the episode of Ivor The Engine where Jones the Steam was caught in a forest of deadly coconuts!) It certainly made maths interesting , which was what it was meant to do. Did it help me? I went on to get A Levels in both biology and chemistry so perhaps it did some good. Besides a few maths questions never killed anyone ...did they?  

[mygamingmemories]

Sabre Wulf - Caution Hippos Crossing

I'd like to think that in every game player's life there is a game that enables them to leave behind the troubles of the present and just escape. No matter what is happening in the current reality this game can transport them to a place of peace and calm (or a mass blood bath depending on the player's mind set!)

​Let me introduce  you to my happy place, it's a jungle , far, far away....

Sabre - man is trapped in a jungle and has to find the four parts of an  amulet  ( or omelette as I used to pronounce it ) to get past the shaman and escape the jungle . This involves 256 screens , featuring a multitude of wild animals , stampeding hippos and rhinos and bad tempered tribes-people. It features jungle orchids which can poison Sabreman , lakes and native huts.  It also features beautiful magenta mountains and a very deadly cyan wolf. ​ It controls smoothly and once you understand that killing either tribes-people or stampeding hippos and rhinos can't happen, instead you have to employ a little dance step called the Do-Si-Do and side step round them (whilst encouraging them to keep their distance with your sabre) the fun can really begin.

The first time I saw this game in action was in 1984, in a small independent software shop in Yeovil ,Somerset. The owners's daughter was playing the game in the back office and she had just reached those bottom magenta mountains for the first time. It was love at first sight ( for me and the game , not for the shop owner's daughter!) I sat at her side transfixed as she introduced me to the cyan wolf and those wonderful , beautiful jungle borders. I watched as strange creatures materialised, parts of the amulet were found, a little tune played and then even more strange creatures were introduced into the mix.  Needless to say we bought a copy. Don't be beguiled by this game's pretty appearance , dear reader, it is difficult. This is no 15 minute jaunt, this is the full rainy Sunday afternoon expedition with kitkats and orange squash. In fact there is the first reason I love this game, no matter what the weather is doing outside, this game feels sunny. It can be raining cats and dogs (and cows,pigs and chickens for that matter) but this game still grows pineapples, melons and orchids. It is forever summer.

The sound effects of this game are wonderful and varied, no music playing all the way through but upon finding a piece of the amulet you are treated to a short little ditty as a reward. There is something so soothing about the sound effects from Ultimate games of  this vintage, it's the audio equivalent of a big fluffy blanket and a giant mug of tea. Over the next few weeks and possibly months I played this game constantly , even Atic Atac was given a well earned rest (I'd like to imagine the Serf, Knight and Wizard went to  Weymouth for a well earned break!)  I learnt about the magic of pokes , feeding in numbers during a break in loading of a game to gain infinite lives , this then enabled me to fall deeper in love with this game. Some people would argue that this is cheating, but for me it enabled me to discover more and it enriched my experience . Sabre-man and I had become inseparable. After many more weeks of exploring , poking hippos and dancing round tribes-peoples, I did finish the game albeit by cheating/enriching my gaming experience.  ​ But I still returned to play it time and time and time again. In fact still today it remains ( along with Atic Atac) my go to game.

When I am down, when I am despondent , when the sensory processing disorder I suffer from drives me to want to scream. I do one thing....I go to the jungle , to meet my special little guy , where it is forever summer by those magenta mountains and we escape.

[mygamingmemories]

Atic Atac - Once in every lifetime, comes a game like this

A knight, a wizard and a serf walk into a castle....a bit of a corny start for a joke , but let's meet one of  the truly great Spectrum games, Atic Atac.

I wish I could tell you dear reader about the first time I played this game. I wish I could tell you that when the loading screen appeared wind machines switched on, strobe lights flashed , eighties power chords echoed from some giant synthesizer and a heavenly choir ascended from the sideboard.  If fate had realised at the time how much of an impact this little game would have had on my life , I'm sure it would have arranged them. But let us start at the beginning. The loading screen itself was a sheer feast for the eyes, the use of colour was fantastic . I loved that magenta robed figure, especially against the dark blue of the stones. It held so much excitement , surely no game could live up to the excitement of the loading screen? Straight into the game and already there is an interesting twist, a choice of three characters , each character being able to access a different secret passageway. ( My Famous Five senses were tingling already, the Five always had secret passageways.) You had a knight, a wizard and a serf  ( a low level farmer who cannot leave the land where they work) , I immediately felt a certain empathy with the serf and we began our long friendship. The aim of the game was more complicated than I had played before, find coloured keys, open coloured doors with the keys, collect objects that kill/stun other characters and ultimately find three pieces to form a key that lets you escape from the castle .( Phew...any questions?)

So off we went,  zipping in and out of wine barrels ( the serf's  secret passage of choice) , through decorated rooms, some had pictures, some had suits of armour, some had rugs and others had trap doors . Now, to the 11 year old this was an amazing game, so many rooms, so many flying nasties and  one of the best bits, if your energy was getting low you could eat things to refuel. Yes, if you played carefully you could make this game last for a whole side of an LP (younger readers may wish to google that term!) And....no, I'm not finished yet...your life force was represented by a chicken that gradually got eaten away. I'm not entirely sure why I found this so funny as a kid, but it was one of the unique points of the game. ​ Within a few days this game had me hooked , there was just so much to explore, with every key found you unlocked more doors, so more to explore. There was a great sense of achievement with every key found, and greater achievement with each part of the big key found. Yes folks, my name is Julie and I had an Atic Atac addiction. No other game got a look in, I played this so often I could play it on a black and white TV! (Although  I feel  should make a confession, the reason I played it so often on a black and white TV was that I could get away from the main living room and use the TV to gain illicit glimpses of Saturday morning TV in-between playing. Mike Read , you have an awful lot to answer for.)  

But surely Julie, when you finished the game and escaped the castle this addiction ended? Hmm, not really, because then I played as the other characters, then I decided to see how fast I could finish the game, how near to 100 percent could I achieve  (98% in case you are interested). This game had well and truly captured my imagination.  ​ But why should this game have been so addictive, and still so endearing? It could have been the wonderful Spectrum colours, it could have been the clean animation, the options for exploration, the simple puzzle solving , the fact that it could be completed in about 30 minutes. It was all of these but also the fact that when we got this game it corresponded with my final year of primary school.

Just as the serf , wizard and knight were exploring their haunted castle, carrying out their quests, discovering new rooms and new items. So was I, a new school, new classrooms, new things to learn. But as someone who back in those days was usually shy and tongue tied, how would  I make friends in a class of completely new people?  Funnily enough, it was usually just one sentence , "Hello, I'm Julie, do you like Atic Atac ?".  Although I'm no longer that shy or tongue tied , this game is still an ice breaker  , a conversation starter , a friendship igniter.

Those of us who played it in the early 80's talk about it with a sense of reverence , a sense of love , to most of us it's a dear friend from a far more innocent time.

A knight , a wizard and a serf walk into a castle......but that's okay, there is a whole generation of Spectrum gamers in there to welcome them .

[mygamingmemories]

Arcadia - Look At Those Spaceships Go

But , Julie, I hear you ask, this is an arcade game, why did you father buy you this along with the computer. It was supposed to be for education? Well, all work and no play makes Julie and her father rather dull folks. I’m still not entirely sure why Arcadia was chosen , but this was our first proper game. I still do have the cassette for this , as you can see above.  The game consists of flying a spaceship and shooting down aliens and then continuing to do this. By today’s standards this sounds fairly tame and pedestrian. ​ But for me, living in a small town in Somerset this was something brand new, I had no access to arcade machines ( we had a small fair once a year that had fruit machines in the back of a truck in a muddy field ) , I had never seen space invaders, let alone played it. But it has to be said, I think my father got far more enjoyment out of this game than I did. I soon discovered that the hand eye coordination needed for this was sorely lacking ( especially as this was before we had a joystick), however my father was soon blasting away like a pro.  

But in his eyes something was lacking, it was an increased amount of sound. The game’s sound out put was limited to some wheezing and popping noises but with a glint in his eye, my father knew how to improve this. With the aid of the below and it’s giant wooden speakers. ​ ​He connected up the Spectrum to the output of the Ferguson Radiogram and the game went from wheezing and popping to the realms of  galactic flatulence . ( Please remember I was only 10!) Game play was soon forgotten as we laughed our way through the first level, I’m not sure what the next door neighbours thought , or what my ever patient , very understanding mother thought. I’m pretty sure Imagine who produced the game had not intended for it to provide amusement in this manner. But the ZX Spectrum had brought father and daughter together , in merriment .

​Most of the alien spaceships were left undefeated, perhaps they realised the error of their ways   and reformed and went on to better things. We returned to the game rarely , but, to this day it’s the laughter I remember and that can only be a good thing…..To Be Continued

[mygamingmemories]

Arcadia - Look At Those Spaceships Go

But , Julie, I hear you ask, this is an arcade game, why did you father buy you this along with the computer. It was supposed to be for education? Well, all work and no play makes Julie and her father rather dull folks. I'm still not entirely sure why Arcadia was chosen , but this was our first proper game. I still do have the cassette for this , as you can see above.  The game consists of flying a spaceship and shooting down aliens and then continuing to do this. By today's standards this sounds fairly tame and pedestrian. ​ But for me, living in a small town in Somerset this was something brand new, I had no access to arcade machines ( we had a small fair once a year that had fruit machines in the back of a truck in a muddy field ) , I had never seen space invaders, let alone played it. But it has to be said, I think my father got far more enjoyment out of this game than I did. I soon discovered that the hand eye coordination needed for this was sorely lacking ( especially as this was before we had a joystick), however my father was soon blasting away like a pro.  

But in his eyes something was lacking, it was an increased amount of sound. The game's sound out put was limited to some wheezing and popping noises but with a glint in his eye, my father knew how to improve this. With the aid of the below and it's giant wooden speakers. ​ ​He connected up the Spectrum to the output of the Ferguson Radiogram and the game went from wheezing and popping to the realms of  galactic flatulence . ( Please remember I was only 10!) Game play was soon forgotten as we laughed our way through the first level, I'm not sure what the next door neighbours thought , or what my ever patient , very understanding mother thought. I'm pretty sure Imagine who produced the game had not intended for it to provide amusement in this manner. But the ZX Spectrum had brought father and daughter together , in merriment .

​Most of the alien spaceships were left undefeated, perhaps they realised the error of their ways   and reformed and went on to better things. We returned to the game rarely , but, to this day it's the laughter I remember and that can only be a good thing.....To Be Continued

[mygamingmemories]

The First Game - Thro' The Wall

The first game we had actually came with the ZX Spectrum on the 'Horizons' cassette , this was a rather lovely cassette that featured lessons on one side and demonstration programs on the other ( to prove how useful and resourceful your new best buddy was). The first of these was Thro' The Wall. ​ You see that? That is COLOUR, even the  screen after the program loaded was cyan ( yes, that's the official name for that colour , sounds better than dirty turquoise doesn't it? ) When you had a ZX Spectrum , you saw a LOT of cyan. The loading screens ,when the cassette player was playing into the computer were a jolly cyan and red ( to this day I love this colour combination and use it frequently in the adult colouring I do  ) this alternated with a blue and yellow striped screen ( also a colour combination I love using in artwork) . But back to the game. True, it did just consist of hitting a ball with a bat and knocking bricks out of the wall , but the thing that entranced me was the colour.  The ZX Spectrum had a lovely magenta colour as well, not quite purple but not quite pink. After the monochrome of the old TV game this was a sheer feast for the eyes.

​But it got better , if you pressed the break button ( I think caps lock had to be pressed as well) , you could see into this basic program. Picture For a curious ten your old this was mind blowing. It was like the secret world at the back of the wardrobe, or the blue police box that made a strange noise. I was able to change shapes in the program and they changed on the screen. Now, this may sound very mundane these days, but in 1983 this was amazing. Especially for a 10 year old to be able to change something that was 'official', possibly written by big  people in a posh office somewhere! I had changed  something electronic  ( I'll stop going on about it now, but for me it was a big step, as it was for probably hundreds of kids!) We could even turn the ball into a letter or a copyright sign. Not only was the game fun, but so was finding ways to change it ( and occasionally destroy it ). ​ I was hooked, but....could it do anything that would be classed as useful in the eyes of my parents? To be continued ​

[mygamingmemories]

The Beginning - The Unwrapping

It happened before Christmas , if I remember correctly. We never intended to get a Spectrum, Dad had his heart set on an Oric 1 ( white , plastic and very small keys) . He bought one , we unwrapped it , connected it to the TV and it started spouting forth random numbers , possibly it was possessed , we will never know, it went back to the shop.  

While at the shop the assistant recommended the 48K Spectrum instead, it had more software available, it came with it's own introduction on cassette and a programming manual. Just what my Dad wanted, something educational. So around my birthday in December we unwrapped this magic little black box , it had jolly black rubbery keys that smelt wonderful (yes, I am weird ) , it had rainbow stripes on it and lots of interesting words on the keys. ​ ​We then found out it would work with any old tape recorder and having a father obsessed with home Hi-Fi we had plenty of them !  We loaded in the 'Horizons' cassette that came with the computer and over 6 friendly easy lessons our new best buddy introduced itself to us. That's the thing about the Spectrum , it's friendly, it's stylish and you never really looked at it as something that would tick away quietly in the corner of a horror movie to detonate a nuclear warhead.  To be continued ....