TWOFER #22: Horace Classics (Sinclair Research Ltd, 1982)

Hungry Horace and Horace Goes Skiing:

Developed and written by William Tang (Psion/Melbourne House) for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 16k.
Published by Sinclair Research, Ltd. in 1982.

Commodore 64 conversions by Gregg Barnett. Published by Melbourne House in 1983.

Dragon 32/64 conversions:
Programmed by D. Jansen (a.k.a. Denver Jeans; to be confirmed). Graphics for Horace Goes Skiing by Russell Comte and Greg Holland. Published by Melbourne House in 1984.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS, PLURAL

The little blue ghostly armless character, well-known particularly in the Spectrum community by the name Horace, was one of the first home computer mascots, and deserves to be honoured with his very own entry here at FRGCB. To be honest, I never really considered the Horace games interesting enough to even consider they might be worth doing a proper comparison of, but on further thought, the character's historical value is enough to give it the full works. So, although I have listed this as a two-fer - mostly because the first two games are all that I'm actually able to compare versions of - this entry will feature chapters for the other available official Horace games, and some of the best fan sequels out there. So, despite its origins, this is going to be a (relatively) big one.

Retrogame Talkshow makes a comeback!

After a largely unplanned sabbatical year, Retrogame Talkshow is back with a new episode! As was planned in late 2019, episode #7 is a tribute to the late, great Ben Daglish, a master game music composer most of us retrogamers know and love from his work on all the major 8-bit and 16-bit computers. Mr. Daglish passed away on the 1st of October in 2018, so the episode is a bit overdue, but as they say, better late than never, and his music is always worth listening to.

There you have the YouTube video version of the episode, and as a more traditional audio podcast format, it's available on iTunes, Spotify, Spreaker and practically every other podcasting platform available. You can also find Retrogame Talkshow on Instagram (@retrogame_talkshow), Facebook and Twitter, but Instagram is where we mostly operate outside of the actual podcasting. Thanks for listening!

Split Personalities (Domark, 1986)

Developed for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Ernieware:
Programming by Ruud Peske
Graphics by Ernest Peske
Music by David Whittaker
Other credit by Mark Strachan

Commodore 64:
Programming by Mark Greenshields
Graphics by Richard Naylor
Music by David Whittaker

Amstrad CPC:
Programming by Darren Pegg
Graphics by Jason Pegg
Music by John Brozovsky

The Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad versions all published by Domark in 1986.

Commodore Plus/4:
Programming by Mark Greenshields
Graphics and music by Richard Naylor
Published by Domark in 1987.

Rewritten for the Nintendo Game Boy as "Splitz" by Richard Naylor for Enigma Variations Ltd.,
and published by Imagineer Co., Ltd. in 1993.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

One of my favourite puzzle games of all time has always been Split Personalities, and it's also one of the rare games I managed to play on the three main contestant platforms in their own time. The Plus/4 version was unknown to me until I decided upon making a comparison of this game. Learning about its origins was a long time coming, though - the latest bits of information have, indeed, only surfaced last year, which makes this a particularly interesting game to talk about right now, particularly as the animation show it was originally based on has made a bit of a comeback lately, after an absence of almost 24 years.

4x4 Off-Road Racing (Epyx, 1988)

Designed by Ogdon Micro Design Inc.

Commodore 64:
Programming by Paul Nickels, Joe Simko, Ed Schoenberg, Steve Thomas and K-Byte
Graphics by Paul Vernon
Music by Jennell "Paul" Jaquays

Sinclair ZX Spectrum version written by Steve Marsden and David Cooke.

Commodore Amiga:
Music by Chris Grigg
Miscellaneous stuff by Mark Riley

IBM-PC compatibles:
Programming by Ed Schoenberg
Artwork by Matthew Sarconi
Music by Jennell "Paul" Jaquays

All other credits are currently unknown.

Published for Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, IBM-PC compatibles, MSX and Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Epyx for the North American market, and U.S. Gold for the European market in 1988.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Since restarting the comparison blog in late 2019, I've been trying to avoid writing about games that are bound to be heavy work for a comparison. But now that the comparison of Exploding Fist is done, the next logical step (if such logic exists) would be an Epyx game, but I didn't want to write about any of the other sport games quite yet, nor about Impossible Mission, because I've never really understood it, and there are just too many versions to bother with it. So, this presented a puzzle for a long while, until the answer was presented to me by a reader called Zaltys on the 5th of June 2020 - thanks again for the suggestion, and sorry for the delay! Not only does this bring another game into the numerals in the comparisons archive, but it also gives me a chance to really dive into a game I've long meant to, but have always postponed it due to lack of inspiration and time. Besides, it's about time an Epyx game, that is not part of their multi-event sports series, is featured on the blog.

The Way of the Exploding Fist (Melbourne House, 1985)

Originally designed by Gregg Barnett and written for the Commodore 64 by Beam Software:
Programming by Gregg Barnett and David Johnston, Graphics by Greg Holland, Music by Neil Brennan. Published by Melbourne House in 1985. Also published as "Kung-Fu: the Way of the Exploding Fist" in North America by Spinnaker Software (UXB).

Conversion for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum: Programming by Gregg Barnett, William Tang and Stephen Taylor, Graphics by Stephen Taylor and Greg Holland. Published by Melbourne House in 1985.

Converted for the Amstrad CPC by Gregg Barnett, Cameron Duffy and Dam, and published by Melbourne House in 1985. An upgraded version called "The Way of the Exploding Fist +" was released for the Amstrad CPC in 1986.

Converted for the Acorn BBC Micro and Electron by Michael Simpson, and published by Melbourne House in 1985.

Converted for the Commodore 16 by Richard Costello, and published by Melbourne House in 1986.

Unofficial (?) Sharp MZ-800 port written by Michal Kreidl, and published by MikrSoft in 1987.

Unofficial Commodore Plus/4 port "The Way of the Exploding Fist +4" written by Thomas Sasvari in 1993.

Unofficial port of the C16 version for the Atari 400/800 written by Fandal and Miker in 2017.

NES version was originally developed by Beam Software, with the last prototype being from 1990. The prototype was modified to be finishable, and the final release was made in 2019 by Piko Interactive. The Piko version has also been released for the Evercade handheld console in 2021.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

If you have been following this blog for longer, you might remember I did a comparison of the much more adventure-oriented sequel to Exploding Fist for the Reset64 magazine many years ago. My excuse for putting off writing about the original game must be the lack of confidence in giving this classic game the high quality comparison it deserves, but since this comparison was also requested many moons ago, I have since started to make video accompaniments, which enables me to finally take the plunge and just get on with it. And while it's not particularly seasonal, I figured this would be a good way to begin 2021 with properly, so... Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2021 + special video about modern media storage devices

 

Merry late Christmas 2020 and best wishes for the year 2021, all you readers and YouTubers out there! Here's a little late Christmas thing for you to watch, although it's not a particularly Christmas-themed video. This video was constructed upwards from a request from a fellow on the Lemon64 forum, which hopefully gets his approval.

FRGR #12: Zamzara (Hewson/Rack-It, 1988)

Designed by Jukka Tapanimäki for the Commodore 64.
Programming and graphics by Jukka Tapanimäki.
Music by Charles Deenen for the Maniacs of Noise.
Loading screen by Martin Godbeer.

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HISTORY, DESCRIPTION & STATUS

For the first time in a long while, I'm getting back to the "computer of the state" on my traditional Finnish Independence Day entry, and this is also the first time since 2016 that I'm writing about a game by Jukka Tapanimäki, one of the original heroes in the history books of Finnish C64 game development. Mind you, it will probably also be the last, too.