itch.io

Because this has been going on for MONTHS, as is made clear by the numerous posts about it!

Which ALSO makes it clear that a VERY poor decision of implementing a VERY bad new system has been made (since it was working perfectly fine for everyone before that point!), which is now ruining itch basic functionality and impairing users from communicating on your network and using it properly.

So why not simply assume the fact as a professional should, and REVERT that bad decision to how it was before (working perfectly fine for everyone) ?

Or maybe we should all just give up on using itch altogether ? Hmm ?

This post is both an IDEA, a FEEDBACK, and a BUG (the latter being what I regard this situation as), but since I couln't find a way to multi-tag it, I just went with "bug".

I like it! With a bit more responsive (or more forgiving) commands when executing the moves, it'd be as competent a beat-em-up as some we've seen in the Speccy (it's better than the Final Fight adaptation, to begin with!).

Great theme too! I want a sequel where we can beat up vegans, wokes, noisy lgbt activists, people who bitch about bullying, lactose-intolerant people, etc. :-P

(Disclaimer: the above post is non-woke and contains gluten, please stay away from reading it if you're allergic).

I don't know what screen you're using, but on my 27-inch desktop monitor there's certainly a little more than a "slight difference". The text is now twice as crispy, and most of the (very distracting) image artifacts on the smaller version is gone.

From my part thanks a lot for this improved version! There's absolutely no reason for doing any less quality than this for the purpose of using it in any post-1995 PC, and anyone who prefer smaller sizes can easily compress it online if they so wish (while the other way around is not possible for obvious reasons).

Great stuff, thanks a lot guys!

Great content, and the improvement in picture quality and sharper text on this third issue is quite noticeable in particular on a large desktop screen, which is very appreciated. 

Would love if you could re-up the previous two issues with this quality (if you have them).

EDIT - I see now that you had already re-upped a better version of issue #1, I actually missed that! Thanks again to everyone involved.

Hi Luis, I really appreciate the care and detail you put into your games, including the bonus materials which add a lot to the games history and background.

In that note, I really enjoy the posters you come up with. Do you have a higher-res version of the poster above that you could post ? Thanks in advance.

¡Jo, jo, jo, jo! ¡Por fin, el regreso del poderoso Bilbo! ¡Rápido, metedlo en carbonita y clonadlo! ¡Con nuestro ejército de enanos de piés peludos, conquistaremos toda la galaxia spectrumera!

Game's looking cool. I enjoyed ZQ1, and I like this one too - let's wait for Part 2 then. :)

By the way, thank you very much for the "normal" .tap and .tzx files on this one! Now that you got that sorted, do you think it might be possible to convert your previous games to the same format ? 

Besides being more compatible with different emulators, it's better for storing due to the much smaller size (and I'm pretty sure by the time you games get added to external TOSEC/MAME collections and the like, someone else would convert them anyway, so it's better to have them in the proper format from the source/author than relying on third-parties altering the original files).

Thanks for considering, cheers!

There's obviously something very wrong with whatever system you're using to flag pages for this, since (quite obviously) perfectly legit pages are getting in the blacklist. Which is why automatic scripts and systems for things like this shouldn't be used by a wise admin, both in the interest of users and your network. Here's another victim:

https://arnaujess.itch.io/el-expresovam

This is merely a retro-game for an old system, the ZX Spectrum. It's a 38KB .tap file used in ZX Spectrum emulators, and I'm somehow confident that it's incapable of causing a chain reaction to destroy the universe...

Eye of the Beholder obviously, but it's certainly unusual that you preferred WASD as a key combination in the 80's, considering that virtually no game or system in that decade ever used it! It came with the advent of first-person 3D shoot-em-ups on the PC in the following decade.

WASD can be suitable for games that use many keys, which is why and what for it came when it did. For simple games typically using just 4-5 keys as is the case with most ZX Spectrum games, OPQAM/Space is the generally preferred combination - it's no coincidence that over 90% games from that period used it.

In the present case, because it's just 3 keys, QWM/Space works fine too, really. Hell, anything with two keys for movement in one hand and one key for firing in the other hand would work equally fine for 3 keys.

Hi Luis, just letting you know that the solution for Chapter 2 in the downloads has a ".pages" extension instead of .pdf like the others, which can't be opened with Acrobat Reader on Windows (or Linux, I believe). Cheers!

EDIT - That would be the same mentioned below by Athanasius. You probably won't notice it on MacOS, since the format is supported there unlike Windows/Linux.

Buenas,

Puedes poner también el original de 1986 (en BASIC o lo que sea) en el archivo ? Es que no lo encuentro en los locales habituales. Seria interesante históricamente y como comparación con la nueva versión en Assembly.

Gracias por considerarlo, saludos!

I've been reading through some of the reviews; fantastic job, guys (including the wacky humour) !

If you'll allow me just one small suggestion: 

While I understand the benefits of reducing the filesize, I do believe that at a whopping 60 pages (or 30 double pages) filled with colourful imagery, you could afford a bit higher quality/resolution in the published PDF. I'm sure that 40-50MB instead of the current 17MB wouldn't break anyone's storage in current systems, and there might be a significant improvement in visual quality, especially in larger screens.

Ta! (<-- yes, I actually just wrote that!)

Hey,

Posting here because comments seem to be disabled on the "Dinki" comics page.

I was just thinking how Dinki fits the bill just right for a game character. How about a Dinki ZX Spectrum game ? Maybe make it a platformer with basic adventure/quest/character interaction elements, in the style of Dizzy. The Hazardous Adventures of Dinki, the Friendly Dinosaur. Or something.

"PuttyCAD has exceeded himself this time, and it shows..." - 95% Crash Smash!

"This game gave me the energy to start writing (at least) 20 reviews a week again" - 10/10 Planeta Sinclair

"Up there with the Dizzies and the Monties... a new series of reference is born on the Speccy" - 9/10 FreezeZX

"¡El viejo ZX Spectrum tiene un nuevo héroe - su nombre es Dinki!" - 5/5 MicroHobby 5 Estrellas

Just an idea. I get these flashes sometimes in the morning - it could be the caffeine. Still, might be a cool game, why not? :)

Cheers.

Well, to fully get to grips with all that you'll need to learn Speccycode, and for that you need to be formally initiated into the Order by a Grandmaster first. Have you met the Gatekeeper, or the Keymaster ?

Fantastic, please accept my humble but full endorsement of this initiative!

We used to have a good half-a-dozen fan magazines on the Speccy scene not that long ago but they're pretty much all gone, and the truth is that ONE great blog and ONE great bi-monthly magazine (no point in naming them, we all know who they are :) ) can't single-handedly do justice to the sheer number of new homebrews released for the ZX Spectrum each year.

I've been struggling to find reviews of many new Speccy releases from the last few years, hopefully this will help fill that gap. Hopefully it'll catch on and attract more people to do reviews, then possibly you guys can go monthly or the like. Cheers!

Hi, what are the differences between the original and the "improved and updated" version ? Thanks!

GBA? What the... and even the C64 got it! Come on! Where's the ZX Spectrum version ?!!

This is to let you know that we, the RZXSUA (Rabid ZX Spectrum Users Association) will not tolerate these insults any longer, and we'll kidnap your little kittens and hold them hostage, until the Speccy version is released!

Will do, thanks a lot for the Portuguese version!

Thanks for letting us know. At least for now that saves me the trouble to go in a key pressing spree trying to find new combinations for the later levels. Cheers! :)

Hello! I wouldn't ask this here if it was a recently released game, but now that it's five years after the fact (if you're still uncomfortable about it please let me know, I'll delete the post):

I was wondering, since the original Manic Miner "level teleport" cheat mode works on this, if there actually are key combinations for the levels after the 20th (given that Manic Miner had only 20) ? Thank you!

Good news then! It figures Portuguese would be easier since it's already there :)

My Spanish is rather poor or I'd volunteer myself, hopefully this reaches someone from Spain who'd be up for it, I do know from posts here and there that there is a Spanish fan base.

Please tell me about JSWA... (damn hard to shoot Maria, too!) :-P :-P :-P

Very cool update to the timeless original., thank you very much for sharing this.

To be perfectly honest, the only change I don't appreciate is the 2x speed; I'd love to see an alternative .tap with all the other improvements, except this one.

Would also be cool to see this Deluxe version in the original Portuguese language, and I suspect there might be a public for Spanish too. Maybe someone could volunteer for the translation? Just an idea.

Other than that... when is Paradise Cafe 2 - The Revenge of Damatta coming out ?! :-D

Hello Marco, is there a changelog for v1.3 ?

Was that the fruit collecting bug reported below, or other stuff ?

Thank you very much.

Los Mojones... VIVEN!

Tocad las gaitas escocesas y adelante muchachos, que los enemigos vienen por el bosque a buscar a Cheril y Nanako! Gloria y honor para el clan Mac Mojon!

--

Google translation to English: 

Cool game guys, looks damn funny too! Thanks for another great Mojon Twins production. :)

Thanks for replying, I was thinking about the ZX Spectrum one, but from the screenshots they all suffer from the same...

¡Hola! Veo que hay una nueva versión, ¿qué ha cambiado? Gracias.

They fixed it now - re-download (v1.2) :)

Acabo de probar la versión 1.2 en ZX Spin. Ahora parece que funciona bien. ¡Gracias por la versión corregida! =:)

¡Acepta mis felicitaciones por la excelente aventura! Noto una pequeña diferencia de bytes entre la versión originalmente presentada para el concurso de Bytemaniacos y esta de aquí. ¿Puedes decirme que ha cambiado? ¡Muchas gracias!

Y... ¿Para cuándo la versión "Nutca Enhanced" enriquecida con gráficos, para el 128K? Ya sabes, a los niños pequeños como yo, siempre les gustan los muñequitos bonitos con el texto... ;)

Why are the images completely squashed ?

If they're taken from a 4:3 source, then they should retain the correct ratio by being enclosed with lateral black bars, in the same way one would watch a 4:3 film on a modern 16:9 set...

Hi, I notice the game has been updated a couple days ago. What has been changed ? A changelog is always welcome. Thank you!

¡Una gran secuela de un gran juego! Predigo nominaciones entrantes de GOTY en el futuro.

Además, acepta mi agradecimiento por la versión de colores alternativos en nombre de la A.V.T.C. (Asociación de Veteranos Traumatizados por el CGA)... :-P

-

A great sequel to a great game! I predict incoming GOTY nominations down the road.

Also, please accept my thanks for the alternative colors version on behalf of the C.T.V.A. (CGA-Traumatized Veterans Association)... :-P

Hi! The different gameplay from the usual text adventures make this game fresh and interesting; I do believe the claustrophobic, rushing, stressful "Alien" feel you have created here brings potential for it to be used again in future games.

By the way, I can't help but notice you have a (very good) loading screen ready at the top of this page, why not use it in the .tap files ? Just a suggestion. Cheers. :)

He he, thanks for the update. It's an interesting read regardless.

Buenas, esta nueva versión parece estar realmente corrompida. No puedo cargar con ZXSpin tampoco. Testados los .tap Badajosense y Gringo, con el mismo resultado. Ponle más jamón en la sándwich, mang...

Muy agradecido, abrazo!

Hello there!

Say, the above v2.13 files are not available... the download button redirects to the main download version, which is v2.12.

Unless you uploaded it somewhere else, it stands to reason that no one ever actually got to play v2.13 ? 8-|

Thanks, regards.

Felicidades por estos jueguitos, me parecen muy bien. ¡La mejoría en la versión compilada con Boriel de Dandy Cowboy comparada con la del concurso es fenomenal!

Una pena por el downgrade de los gráficos en la versión 1.1 con las 4 máquinas - se me permites una sugestión, qué tal una nueva versión con 2 .tap separados, cada uno con 2 de los juegos, y así sin la necesidad de limitar sus gráficos? Sería como una casete de dos caras, 2 de los juegos en cada cara!

Saludos, abrazo.

Hola, me gusta mucho tu juego - gracias por compartirlo y al código fuente. ¿Tienes el código en un fichero de texto simple o .bas en vez de PDF ? Muchas gracias.