The Spectrum Show EP48

Welcome to episode 48 of The Spectrum Show. In this episode we take a trip through the news from December 1986. I look at and listen to some B-Side content. I review Pssst, Lightforce and Wunderchars. The development diary continues and Geoff brings us another hidden gems. I finish with some serious software....

Read more »

DCR - Update

DCR (Deep Core Raider) update.. Again time is against me, but I did find time to go through planet 1 and tweak the graphics and level design to make it much more playable. I also had a quick glance back through the file history to see where it all started, and to my surprise the first saved file is dated 26th October 2014. This version though is far removed from the game in front of me. It is an ideal candidate for a 'making of' feature. With level 1 complete, my attention will be on the rest of the levels, but as the next episode of The Spectrum Show is looming, my time is limited. Once the show is published, I will try to give this game some time so I can at last release it. More news as it happens....

Read more »

Deep Core Raider

I haven’t had much time to test the recently found game due to work and personal stuff. From what I have seen so far though, it may not be 95% complete as first thought, but probably around 80%. That’s still not bad. The control system is fully working, with a nice gravity effect and a rocket flame. The collisions with enemy missiles and lasers works, but a few of the moving aliens don’t kill the player yet. That should not be too difficult to add though. The scoring, planet count and lives seems to be in tact but the fuel limit check is not yet there, and there is something decidedly odd with the fuel consumption! I suspect the same variable is being used for something else, somewhere deep in the code. There are five planets consisting...

Read more »

New / Old Game

During a trawl through my old Spectrum games folders, I have located what appears to be a 95% complete Speccy game that never got released. I think, judging by the date stamps and the design of the game, and checking back through the WOS forums, I decided to shelve the game because someone else released something very similar.  Having had a few plays, the game stands up quite well, so I will have to spend some time checking everything and finding out what was left to do. There is certainly some debug stuff there (like 99 lives) and some disabled collision detection, but all things considered it looks pretty much complete. It's a kind of Lunar Lander game mixed with Thrust.. and the game contains five planets to explore...  I...

Read more »