Cosmic Payback from the ZX Spectrum looks impressive on the ZX81

This week has certainly been one to impress, especially with Doom being shown on the Atari ST, and the more recent Turrican 128k remaster for the Amstrad CPC. Now it's time for the ZX81 to get in on the action, as trawling through the latest Twitter posts, we've just come across a game called 'Cosmic Payback' for the ZX81, ported over from the 2020 ZX Spectrum release. A game which originally had "a unique Mode 6 graphics engine that allows for smooth movement and a sense of momentum, with different tiles affecting the player's exploration pod in various ways". To coincide with this news, we've got the latest footage of the game below.

R.I.P. Rick Dickinson, a true icon of British design

RIP Rick Dickinson 1955-2018

Today I learned the awful and sad news that visionary and legendary designer passed away on the 24th April. For those not aware of his work, Rick was behind the design of multiple Sinclair machines including the ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum and Sinclair QL. He also designed the Cambridge Z88 after leaving Sinclair Research and setting up his own company Dickinson Associates back in 1986 and has continued in the industry ever since.

Saboteur spawns sci-fi comedy ebook: The Kempston Interface

It’s an age-old question: where can I find retrogaming inspired fiction featuring a sentient ZX81 and a hi-vis ninja? Well, thankfully, a Sinclair reviewer of this parish Steve Trower, has provided the answer: in The Ambivalence Chronicles - a Sci-Fi Comedy in 8 Bits.

The Ambivalence Chronicles: a Sci-Fi Comedy in 8 Bits

And now for something completely different: The Chip Whisperer - Bit#1 of The Ambivalence Chronicles - is a science fiction comedy story by IRN's occasional Sinclair reviewer, Steve Trower, released as a kindle ebook. The Ambivalence Chronicles: a Sci-Fi Comedy in 8 Bits, is the retrogaming inspired, time-travelling, dimension-jumping tale of an ordinary retro collector who sets out to buy a ZX81 on eBay, and instead finds himself mixed up in the shady shenanigans of the mysterious Assembly of Newly Uplifted Systems.

Hopper - ZX81 Retro Review by Steve Trower

In the early 80s, when video games were just starting their migration from the arcades to the living room, it was common for games programmers to take their inspiration from the more popular arcade games, and so we ended up with a million and one variations on Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Frogger - and landing fairly obviously in Frogger's pond is Hopper, released for the 16K ZX81 by Personal Software Services (PSS) in 1982.

Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair is finally available for the Sinclair ZX81!

During the early part of this year we gave you the heads up over a fantastic interactive animated adventure work in progress port release called 'Dragon's Lair' for the Sinclair ZX81. First demo'd and shown exclusively at the Retro Computer Museum event 2015, wow'd the retro gaming crowd as it pushed the ZX81 to the limits! To have a laserdisc video game originally released for the arcades in 1983 ported to a system with just 1kb-16kb memory was just mind blowing. Many people didn't believe what they were seeing and that just some months later, this month in fact it was to be fully released and fully playable.

Dragon's Lair appears on the Sinclair ZX81!

Now I remember Dragon's Lair very well, from the Amstrad version with the jumping of platforms or trying to stay on the spinning disk without being blown off, or the interactive animated version which appeared as a laserdisc in which you needed to press a specific direction at the right time to survive. Both were simply brilliant games, but what has blown me away today is a ported Dragons Lair by ex-Ocean software coder Jim Bagley, demo'd on the ZX81!

Unkatris - Impressive Tetris clone for Sinclair 1K ZX81

The screenshot above might not look like much but when you think how well Tetris actually plays and looks today you'll be pretty impressed to see that this is a Tetris clone on just a Sinclair 1k ZX81! Developed by antoniovillena and using the original code of a ZX81, "Unkatris" has the same objective of manipulating shapes with the aim of creating a horizontal filled line of blocks without gaps. Not only is it great fun but it's seriously impressive how the developer has made it seem so Tetris and run incredibly well on such an old retro system.