Friday, March 16, 2007
Cannon Bubble!
It's done! My first game for the ZX Spectrum is finished, and you can download it from the CEZ GS web page.
What can I say about it? Well, as with every demo, you need to take into account the machine limitations... Don't expect fancy 3D animations, after all it's just a Z80 with no dedicated graphics hardware :). But if you enjoy vintage gaming, I hope you'll like it.
The game was first presented last Saturday at the MadriSX retro meeting. It seems to be enjoying a warm welcome from the Spectrum scene, so I feel happy.
However, the last days before the game was released reminded me of the infamous days of party coding: the game was ready more than one week in advance (wtf!), but getting the turbo loader ready took too much time, and we had some last-minute panic when we started looking at alternative loaders. Fortunately (as in party coding) everything worked at the last moment, and the game was released.
And... one more resemblance with party coding. A few days after releasing the game, we realized that the last-minute changes had hit a nasty bug of some Spectrum models, also known as ULA snow. Well, you can never escape from Murphy's Law :) . It's fixed already, so prepare your hook to be the best pirate of the Caribbean Sea!
What can I say about it? Well, as with every demo, you need to take into account the machine limitations... Don't expect fancy 3D animations, after all it's just a Z80 with no dedicated graphics hardware :). But if you enjoy vintage gaming, I hope you'll like it.
The game was first presented last Saturday at the MadriSX retro meeting. It seems to be enjoying a warm welcome from the Spectrum scene, so I feel happy.
However, the last days before the game was released reminded me of the infamous days of party coding: the game was ready more than one week in advance (wtf!), but getting the turbo loader ready took too much time, and we had some last-minute panic when we started looking at alternative loaders. Fortunately (as in party coding) everything worked at the last moment, and the game was released.
And... one more resemblance with party coding. A few days after releasing the game, we realized that the last-minute changes had hit a nasty bug of some Spectrum models, also known as ULA snow. Well, you can never escape from Murphy's Law :) . It's fixed already, so prepare your hook to be the best pirate of the Caribbean Sea!
