itch.io

Fancy having a go at making your own Spectrum game in Kwyll? Now you can. The K-Spec1 jam includes a license for Kwyll to use during the jam so anyone can have a go. I'll be on hand to help people get up to speed quickly, and make your game idea come to life.

Kwyll is a visual game-creation tool for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k. It allows you to design graphics, build rooms, place objects, and create game logic using a node-based system. Kwyll handles the underlying Spectrum code, leaving you free to concentrate on making the game.

Kwyll currently creates games specifically for the ZX Spectrum 48k machines, so the limitations are part of the challenge, and part of the fun.

You will be working with:

• A wonderfully small screen
• A gloriously restricted colour palette
• Very (VERY) limited memory
• The possibility of attribute clash and all the fun that brings
• Sound effects that may alarm nearby pets
• More creative freedom than any of those limitations suggest.

https://itch.io/jam/k-spec1

Should I keep quiet about the name attributed to "Head On"? :D

Perhaps it would have been better if I changed my name, sorry :-)

Thanks  :-)

Thanks for the great review of Mined Out 2, and I'll forgive that you got my name wrong for the "Break Space Ace" award :-)

that would be a demand thing. Building additional platform support is  costly undertaking, I can only justify the expense if the market is big enough to warrant it.

hi,

The plan is to support not only other Spectrum models including the Next, but also other platforms of a similar type, such as the Amstrad CPC, BBC, C64, MSX, etc. possibly even platforms like the NES and Gameboy.

There are plans underway for a possible Kickstarter to fund this advanced development, see here for more..,

https://www.kwyll.com

Paul

Yes, on the first release I had left in my “test” mode, if you press D on the intro screen it showed the mines so that I could test it as it’s very hard, intentionally, to complete normally. Oops 🤪

The new release with the end game fix also turns off the test mode 😀

I have found the issue and uploaded a new version that is definitely now completable.

firstly, well done for reaching the end, secondly, deepest apologies, it appears you have discovered a bug that I will look into and get a fix out asap.

Wonderful, so glad you're enjoying it, it's good to know the old games can still be entertaining.

they are, unfortunately, I wrote this post some time ago, but neglected to publish it until I noticed today that it hadn’t been published. The files are the latest version.

Thanks for the great feedback, so glad you're enjoying Kwyll, it's all about enabling, if you have fun making games with Kwyll for your favourite platforms of yesteryear, then that's mission accomplished.  😎

Welcome, join the discord if you haven't already, that's the best place to get help.

The latest release, v0.1.3.2 includes an experimental Linux ARM-64 version, it is untested, please let me know if it works.

Hi,

I will investigate the possibility of an ARM-64 Linux version for the next release, but I have no way to test this, so it'll be an experiment until it's validated by someone with suitable hardware to test it on.

Paul 

consider it done

Love this magazine, thanks for all your hard work and dedication to the platform. 

While I absolutely applaud your decision to offer it for free, do you have a means to support the production? A donation option, KoFi, Patreon or something like that?

1. Not currently, 128k support including AY sound is planned.
2. It is possible to create games with a significant number of rooms, but due to the memory limitations at the moment, it requires some extra work. You cannot just draw the tile map for each room, there wouldn’t be sufficient space for that. But you can use the logic to dynamically draw tile maps, allowing rooms to be procedurally constructed as is often typical of Spectrum games with lots of rooms. Happy to elaborate, or there’s a slightly out of date set of video tutorials on YouTube that demonstrates how to create an Atic Atac like game.
3. Not really, although the logic is very flexible, it’s not really setup for that sort of game, not without jumping through hoops.
4. Yes, any combination of width and height in increments of 8 up to 32x32.

Happy to answer any other questions, perhaps pop into the Discord and ask.

Thank you for your support. Of course, other platforms are in the plans for Kwyll, it has been designed and engineered to support other platforms to a degree, so the order of which platforms get supported is down to interest and my ability to support that platform. I'll add Game Gear to the list.

Thanks, it was really just a quickly put together example, with more time Kwyll can do more.

The project file is available for Patreon and Ko-Fi subscribers right now and will be widely available for everyone soon. There’s also a “making of” video on my YouTube channel.

kwyll 37 - The Making of "Santa's Lost & Found"

Yeah, the z-fighting is because it uses the actual Driller datafile to create the areas, and Freescape used a different method for sorting than Z-Buffer because there isn't enough memory or CPU power to do a proper Z-Buffer on a Spectrum, so a Z-Buffer implementation is going to struggle, I could look into ways to fix that, possibly.

I've just updated mine to 1.03 and it still works fine, so I'm not sure what is going on with yours. I've tried with and without the 48.rom, with and without extended colours, can't think of any other setting to try to see what might be causing it. Have you tried a factory reset?

EDIT: PS. make sure to try the latest version from here, so we're testing exactly the same version.

I've just tried it on mine using the Retro Games Ltd. ROM and it works fine. I'll try with the original ROM, can't see why it would be an issue.

Edit: Seems to work fine with the Sinclair 48.rom too. Although I'm running with v1.0.0-electron firmware, so probably should update at some point.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

Sorry about that, fixed. For reference, the link is...

https://discord.gg/Yn3vSbTn7P

Excellent, very tough, but definitely one to keep you coming back for "just one more try". 

Yes, I believe I describe the process I went through, which was "fun" and "challenging" in equal measure, in the video post on my YouTube channel for this remake. In the description, because I wasn't doing camera/voice stuff much at this point in the process.

thanks, glad you enjoyed it, it was fun going back in time to revisit this from my childhood.

Very atmospheric, the audio really adds something extra, not just an afterthought, nicely done.  Didn't realise at first that the mouse rotated, my first thought was that it would be nice to have a rotate option :-) 

Nicely done!

Agreed, I had planned to have a tutorial or some instructions, but time ran out. I do plan to return to this after the jam though, as I have a lot of ideas for new directions to take it, just the beginning.

Fun challenge, kept me entertained for a while working out what I was supposed to do, enjoyed it.

Nicely done, controls are simple, concept good, fun and very playable.

Great fun, really enjoyed the unusual mechanic, using the flamethrower to propel yourself up, took a moment to work out, but really nicely done.

Very nicely done game, looks fab, sounds nice and the mechanic is innovative and fun.

I don't want to be the grumpy old so-and-so (although I am :-) ), but does anyone else feel that a lot of the submissions are basically "I've got a game, if I say it's hard and therefore "overloads" your senses, then it fits the theme" as opposed to "ok, the theme is overload, what can I come up with that revolves specifically around that theme?" ?

Maybe it's just me, I personally love the part of taking a theme word or phrase and spending a few hours brainstorming how to make a game around that theme, I use it as a way to come up with new ideas, that's the fun part for me.

Nice, very innovative take on the theme, if stressful  :-) I'm clearly not very good at reading manuals.

I’m on chrome macOS and they seem to kill the entire browser, not even a single tab, I have to force close chrome.

It's a real shame, I can't review many of the games submitted because they were built using 4.x and deployed on web (the only platform I can really test on) and the 4.x web deploy is fatally broken (still) and crashes the browser, hard, after a short period of time. 

I really think it's time for the organisers to make it clear that 4.x for web deploys is unsupported.

Nicely done, plays well. Took a moment to get used to the controls, I'd definitely play it again, great fun.

Looks like fun, but unfortunately, couldn't run it for long, it killed my browser like so many others after a few minutes of play.