The Unofficial Zombo's Christmas Capers isn't the only ZX Spectrum release this Christmas! There's also this lovely simple arcade game from Steve Broad, which I downloaded and configured for my ZX Spectrum Vega.
I downloaded this generously free game from the author's site at www.stevebroad.co.uk and configured the game as follows:
T:Merry Christmas From Horace
F:Merry Christmas From Horace 2016e.tap
M:48
K:;;;Q;W;EN;SS;EN;EN;0
D:;;;Left;Right;Jump/Enter;Select letter;Jump/Enter;Jump/Enter;Delete letter
The above I typed into a Notepad file and saved it as "Merry Christmas From Horace 2016e.zxk".
Horace is an iconic character but I haven't played many of his games. I know on the Vega that there are several Horace games built-in, namely Hungry Horace, Horace Goes Skiing, Horace & The Spiders, Horace Goes To The Tower and Cousin Horace. I haven't played all of them though.
This game is nicely put together. The loading screen has a beautifully drawn snowy village scene with a church; festive red, green and blue houses; and people enjoying the snow in the background. Horace stands in the foreground by a magenta tree and the opening credit with Steve Broad. The title screen does that crazy Horace flashy text thing with the bipping until it eventually plays a short chime from "We Wish You A Merry Christmas".
Levels are gorgeous with the first ones taking place on a train roof with snow particles falling, parallax scrolling with mountains and trees in the background and also cyan skies and clouds. It's very festive! The other type of stage I got to see were on rooftops before I got a game over. The enemies get very fast and dangerous at that point.
The main gameplay involves moving left and right and jumping to collect enough presents to complete the stage. All while having to deal with enemies. There are also nice bonuses and power-ups too to collect.
One thing I absolutely love about the controls is being able to change direction mid-air! It feels good to aim for baddies heads and it can be a bit of a challenge to aim squarely for them. It always feels satisfying to pull off too.
When I got a game over I scored 3,530 points and ranked on the 4th position of the high score table, which can fit names up to 12 characters long. Steve's name is there as well as Bazza H and Villordsutch from YouTube. They helped with testing and stuff. Maybe the 12 characters are there to accommodate for Villordsutch's name :)
I haven't seen much of Bazza's videos but earlier in the year, Villordsutch took the task of video reviewing the official Your Sinclair top 100 Spectrum games of all time, which was pretty cool and he has made many videos since. It's great to see so much ZX Spectrum activity online in recent times :)
There's a similar game for a legacy system that also came out this year called Kira Kira Star Night DX for the Famicom. It has similar jumping and collecting gameplay, but has its own scoring mechanisms. I haven't played it, but from the looks of it, it doesn't seem have that lovely mid-air direction change that this Horace game has.
So yeah, 2016 was a great year for retro-style gaming! It was also when I bought my Vega :)
Just played a second session and scored 3,140, ranking 5th. Highest score so far is still 3,530!
Horace is an iconic character but I haven't played many of his games. I know on the Vega that there are several Horace games built-in, namely Hungry Horace, Horace Goes Skiing, Horace & The Spiders, Horace Goes To The Tower and Cousin Horace. I haven't played all of them though.
This game is nicely put together. The loading screen has a beautifully drawn snowy village scene with a church; festive red, green and blue houses; and people enjoying the snow in the background. Horace stands in the foreground by a magenta tree and the opening credit with Steve Broad. The title screen does that crazy Horace flashy text thing with the bipping until it eventually plays a short chime from "We Wish You A Merry Christmas".
Levels are gorgeous with the first ones taking place on a train roof with snow particles falling, parallax scrolling with mountains and trees in the background and also cyan skies and clouds. It's very festive! The other type of stage I got to see were on rooftops before I got a game over. The enemies get very fast and dangerous at that point.
The main gameplay involves moving left and right and jumping to collect enough presents to complete the stage. All while having to deal with enemies. There are also nice bonuses and power-ups too to collect.
One thing I absolutely love about the controls is being able to change direction mid-air! It feels good to aim for baddies heads and it can be a bit of a challenge to aim squarely for them. It always feels satisfying to pull off too.
When I got a game over I scored 3,530 points and ranked on the 4th position of the high score table, which can fit names up to 12 characters long. Steve's name is there as well as Bazza H and Villordsutch from YouTube. They helped with testing and stuff. Maybe the 12 characters are there to accommodate for Villordsutch's name :)
I haven't seen much of Bazza's videos but earlier in the year, Villordsutch took the task of video reviewing the official Your Sinclair top 100 Spectrum games of all time, which was pretty cool and he has made many videos since. It's great to see so much ZX Spectrum activity online in recent times :)
There's a similar game for a legacy system that also came out this year called Kira Kira Star Night DX for the Famicom. It has similar jumping and collecting gameplay, but has its own scoring mechanisms. I haven't played it, but from the looks of it, it doesn't seem have that lovely mid-air direction change that this Horace game has.
So yeah, 2016 was a great year for retro-style gaming! It was also when I bought my Vega :)
Just played a second session and scored 3,140, ranking 5th. Highest score so far is still 3,530!
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