Adventurer #15 31 июля 2004

Игры

Reviews - Development of exUSSR games (1991-2004 years).

Development of exUSSR games
Chasm / CyberPunks Unity

 Development of exUSSR game
 industry

by chasm / cpu

I think, this article will be interesting especially for our 
foreign friends, and also for all newcomers who know nothing 
about Spectrum ten or more years ago. It is impossible to 
completely review all games that was produced during 1991-2

003 (because most of them weren't
good enough), so I decided to speak
about the most popular games of
this times.

It is known that major development
of Russian Spectrum started in end
of 80th last century when perestroika was going on as quick as 
possible. Some foreign magazines periodically broke information 
starvation, which still existed. But of coz it was hardly to 
get them, except, maybe "Bajtek" from Poland. There

wasn't any kind of links between
spectrum users and the appearance of paper "Zx-Review" had 
exploded the ice, which locked minds of spectrum people. Army 
of readers incr eased from day to day, because

that time there weren't much educated people, and authors looked
pretty enough to be cyber gods.

Some simple BASIC routines started
to appear on pages of "Review"
when authors created a section
about programming and began to teach readers not just to play. 
As the result some people started to make

programs on assembler. Of coz there w ere some good work in late
80th, for example we can take
"Pentis" by Tony Raugas, this game
consists of standard tetris and two
additional pentis and petris. For
comparison it had figures made of
some more blocks. And we can
rightly call it the first Russian game
for spectrum. In early 90th some
other tetrislike games were produced. The most interesting from
bare tetrises were "Stek" by MPF,
"Columns" by Piter ltd and "Tetriller"
by A.C.E. - The conversion from PC.
Another one popular type of games
was strategic and economic. The
best were: "The Euphoria Kingdom"
("Kingdom of Euphoria" - as if we
have some Russian names I'll try to
translate them and in the brackets
there will be Russian letters) by
Silva, "Prezident 2" by Oleg Kirasov, "Super President" by 
Balaganoff, "The kingdom of grain" (Kingdom of grains) by THD, 
"Space Trade "by Pavel Nikitin, and the

first Russian arcade for two players "Cowboy Duel" by DJ 
Stepanenko. 

The most famous Russian gamemaker Vecheslav Mednonogov aka 
Copper Feet started his career that time. He produced three 
games during 1991: "Durak" - the computer release of card game, 
"Videosport" the soviet game console imitator

and "Game Box" - the collection of
minigames, the last two games were
written by his brother Alexej who
would take part in all other works of
Copper Feet. In 1992 he released
"Tankodrom" (Tankodrom) good arcade with elements of strategy, 
and in November 1993 "The adventures of Buratino" ("The 
Adventures of Pinocchio") the first Russian arcade / adventure

game.

1993 brought a vogue for logic
games. And people who did it were
THD 'Fanatic Stas. They produced a
line of logic games: "Slab Age",
"Squares Colours", "Tube Mix",
"Watermill" and also "Russian
Tetris "(" Russian Tetris ").

Among other games produced in
1993 we can call: "King's Bounty" by
Yarosh R., Zelenkevich D. - The conversion of famous game, 
"Power Ball "by Flash - very original version of" Arcanoid "," 
Hell Master "by Paul Nikitin-a-la "Boulder Dash",

"Tetcolor" By Krasnoyarsk Soft -
mixture of "Tetris" and "Columns",
"SexTris" by Russian Soft - the first
logic / arcade game where erotic pictures were used.

But the real sensation of 1993 was the
appearance of several new version
of cult game for all Russian players
"Elite". That time lots of people
tried to improve this game, among
them we can pick out the first remix
from THD, but it was buggy and lame,
so it was hard to play it with comfort. Later Vladimir Kladov 
aka Shadow Soft conquered the minds of all "Elite" players with 
new much much better version of game, it was very

good rewritten, and it contained
some more additional features,
which made it more playable than
firm version. Also its difficulty was
on higher level, because the engine
was modified there appeared plenty
of new gameplay features like new
ships and etc. New equipment was
added to Cobra MK-3, it allowed to
travel from star to star using interstars space and to save 
hyperdrive. It'll took too much space here to count all new 
features and improvements of "Elite 3", it will be

enough if I say that except three
standard secret miss ions author
added another four: "mineral life"
task is to find and explore mineral
forms of life, "Alien Computer" - to
complete this mission you should
get the alien items and new generation spaceship "Cobra MK-4" 
where you can set up more equipments.

Next mission is "Star Wars". It is an
emulation of great war between men
and thargoids including the rescue
operations, cargo delivering missions, missions where you should
bring a squad of troops to the enemy station in the deep space, 
if you agreed to take part in this operations you might get 
military rank up to colonel.


Shadow soft showed his desire to
make "Elite 4. The further modernization of game where secret 
missions would load from disk and so on. Unfortunately this 
project had lost in time.


The publishers of ZX-Review - Inforkom in 1994 started a new 
project called "Author's program" and till

the end of year it had brought some
good results. The side-firm of Inforkom - 'Formak' began to 
sell compilations of games and system progs which had been sent 
to ZX-Review from all over the country and nearby regions, but 
level of programming and gameplay wasn't high. 

However there were some games
which differed from other heaps, like action games: "Main Blow" 
by Chip, "Special Forces" ("Troop

rapid response ") by
Chip'Rocky, "Mini Fly" by Galaxy
and "Fire Gear" by TM'M - the first
Russian action game with multilevel
structure and introduction and final cut.

The love of all Russian players to
"Lode Runner" and all conversion on
other platforms moulded into some
games: "Raise out from Dungeons"
by Vetyutnev Vadim, "Klad" by
Technotime and "Montana Jones 2"
by Home Masters.

The fenomen of early 90th was the
logical game "Colour Lines" which
was written by Russian firm
"Gamos" for PC platform and became the most popular office 
game. In period 93-96 were made almost ten

different versions of this game for
Spectrum. Surdakar, Vadim and
Sergey Grepan, RSC, Michael Kovalev, CWC and Genesis made the
most interesting.

In 1994 appeared mass tendency of
"Intellectual" games it was caused
by Inforkom's popularisation of games of that kind in 
"ZX-Review", so some products were made:

"Destroyer" by Rensoft - based on
"Rebel Star Raiders" and the first
wargam e "The Kulikovskaya battle"
("The Battle of Kulikovo") by WE
group. Fans of adventure games
wasn't deprive, in this period were
made some games on Russian language: "Lenin in October", "Cops",
"The Vice Island" ("Lenin in October", "Mentura", "Island of 
vices") by Sergey Gusev and "The Magic story. Dedication of 
Falkoris. "(" History of Magic. Falkorisa Dedication ") by V. 
Bodrov. 

Like in previous years in 1994 were
produced lots of tetrislike

And logic / arcade games: "Night
Tetris "by Chemist;" Colour of
Magic "by Genesis," Diamonds
Downfall "by Pritula Oleg-another
variant of "Columns"; "Mega Xonix"
by Zaporozhye, "Roboxonix" by
Chemist - variant of "Xonix".

From other releases of 1994 year we
can pick out: "The Dark" by Hanzis
Sergey - spectrum conversion of
Apple 2 game, "Fox hunt" ("Hunting
Lees ") by Computer Rats," The 'Seka'
Club "(" Club Seca ") by V. Bodrov -
computer realization of card gam e,
"Skirmish" by Mas-the first speccy
realization of pC "Scorched Earth",
it has many tunings during game
play, and "Sunny Gummy (" Sunny Gummi ") by Andrey Slabosnitskiy
a quite good game which looked like
"Head over Heels".

But the mostressive brakethrough
in game industry was in 1995. In
March Copper Feet had released
spectrum version "UFO: Enemy
Unknown "by Microprose. In Speccy
version tactic part was replaced
with arcade, so instead of step by
step controlling you had opportunity to control one soldier and 
run over the level and kill aliens. But

economic and science block was made same as in the original.

"UFO" wasn't the single strategic
game this year, Pan Code released
the game "Scorpions: Die Machine"
and Domen Soft finished their game
based on novel by R. Zhelazny "Warriors of Amber". "Country of 
Tales" (Country of myths ") by Fantasy was

an other game made in 1995, it was very interesting, made in 
the style of "Kings Bounty". Another strategic

game was "Pirates" ("Pirates") by
Nicodim, it was conversion of famous table game.

In middle summer, electronic magazine "Spectrofon" opened a 
championship dedicated to game "Virus" (And later "Virus 2") 
which was written by S. V. Kukoviakin, it was a

sequel of famous "Life", where you
could create and program you own
viruses. On battlefield the most
full-blown virus survived and
destroyed other weaker opponents. Anyone could join 
championship, but closer to the end of year mass interest began 
to fade. 

Epidemic passion of Russian players
for Dizzy series and quests brought
results in form of game "48 Irons"
("48 Iron") by Galaxy, a team
from St.Petersburg. And of course
this game became a megahit. Russian language, lots of humour, 
and some uploading levels made this game glorious. By the way, 
Phantom family during a couple of years is

trying to translate this game into
English. The game engine was rebuild and it gave a chance to 
save some space, which was occupied, by le

vels. And to make language closer to
original English humour, authors
choose Agony ^ CC for translator.
Authors are planning to release it in
. TAP and may be in. TRD.

Russian Dizzymania gave a way to
many different sequels. Of course
there were a lot of low level works,
but we can define some quality games such as "Dizzy-X Journey to
Russia "and" Dizzy-Y Return to
Russia "by Speed ​​Code," Home Iceland D zzy "by VS Prog, and 
also the game which was released at Chaos

Constructions'01 game compo "Dizzy Underground" by Gogin.

Lets go back to 1995 year. After some
announces in "Zx-Review" and in
their own "Spectrofon", Step creative group released national 
megahit "Star Inheritance" ("Starry Heritage "). This arcade / 
adventure game has everything - a good

graphic, good thought scenario,
plenty of quests and original game
engine.

So it took minds of players for a long
time. A few time later some games
were made on same game engine,
such as "Time Cop" by MoonSoft,
"Mirror" ("Mirror") by AWCG,
"Chainik: Horror in the flat" by Optical Bros, "Sea Quest" by 
Taras, "Plut onia" ("Plutonium") by Twin Peaks and "Virtue. Da 
dirty soul" by C-Jeff. In 2001 "Star Inheritance"

was transferred to GBA by R-Lab,
there were redrawn gfx, English
language of course with full spirit of
Russian version and etc. Nowadays
Step creative group are working on
pC where they also trying to produce quests. There were 
released some small game projects during this year "Regeners" 
by Reserve (in style of "Life"), "Piton" ("Python") by 
Surdakar, a couple of verions of "Battle City" - game from Dandy

consol (it would better to say NES,
because Dandy was made later and
it was NES clone, so I suppose
Battle City or TANK 91 was made for
NES. - Remark of translator), so in
period from 1993 were made at least three
releases. Adventure games "Svyatogor knight and Karachun wizard"
("The Knight and the Sorcerer Svyatogor Karachun") by Demiurge 
Ash. "Talisman" ("Talisman") by Ray and

"Oragon" by Evgenij Bernikov. In 1995
Appeared two different versions of
Russian clone of TV show "Wheel of
Fortune ", (" Field of Dreams ") by
Softland and Outland. Also we re released some nice logical 
games: the conversion from pC and Amiga "Turn

or Xor'em All "by Mad Max," Minesweaper "by Simple Company (the
most good made transfer) and "Pipe
Dream "by Infosoft," Hearts "by
Barrisoft, it was original logic
game, "Open It" by Hazard Dreams.
Of course programmers didn't forgot about tetrises, "SexTris" 
by Silicon Brains - with stimulating erotic pictures between 
levels, "Trubis" by Sunny Tram - conversion from pC, "Magic 
Block" by DAB Lab - ano ther one "Columns", and

the most fluent tetris from all which
were done "Amiga Tetris" by Navigator.

Success of 1995 inspired gamemakers, and in the next year many 
quality games were released. Another one large project was 
released that year, "UFO 2: Devils from the Deep"

from the gamemaking monster -
Copper Feet, for that time Slava
didn't make any improvements imagined by himself and just made 
quality conversion to Spectrum. O f course there were some free 
interpretations, like aliens ship interception, he made it in 
form of arcade shooter, but in everything else Copper Feet was 
more correct. He used original graphics in ufopedia. Naturally 
he refined main part sprites, but shape and content

of aliens ship remained unchanged
and looked like original.

Passion of the majority Russian players to strategic games was 
satisfied in a sufficient measure. Except for mentioned already 
"UFO 2" were published: "Kings Bounty 2" by EJB -

conversion of the same game from
pc, "Murk 3320" by Wanderer and
"Last Battle" by Hacker's Squad -
quite good step-by-step strategy
In style of a mix "Laser Squad" and
"Nether Earth", in this game for the
first time on Speccy was made a
"Fog" mode which not allowed to
watch movement of enemy forces in
unexplored space. By the way, now
the author works on conversion of
"Last Battle" to PC, release is planned by the end of 2004 year.

It is possible to name one more sensational game of the 
beginning of that year "Prince of Persia" by Nicodim - very 
close to the original conversion. The gfx of game and

smoothness of movement of the character were close to version 
for Ami ga, whence was made it conversion.


Remembering the last year's success of "Virus 1,2", Ivan Gudkov 
issued "Soldier of the Future"-logic continuation of above 
named programs. In his game it was possible to program 
behaviour of several soldiers and to let out them on a 
battlefield. Personally to me, 

It was very interesting to look at
attempts of my creatures to exterminate enemies in the 
confusing labyrinth; especially some part of gfx and the 
interface in "SOF" were borrowed from favourite "Laser

Squad ". You can also save your robot t hat enabled to play 
with creations of your friends. 

Also this year was plentiful on logic
games and logics with arcade elements. To the first group it is 
possible to relate "Hexxagon" by We, "Fifteens" by Greedy Guys, 
"Heavy Metal Mover "by UCM," Rings of the

Magic "by Global Corp," The
Hundred "by X-Master," Grab of
Territory "by Free Group," SquareHead "by Outland," The Magic of
Logic "by VVS," Russian Time Treaser "by World Eyes," Filler 
"by ZC, "Squards" by Spark, "Dizzy Warehouse" by Yury Schapov - 
on this time the auth or has forced Dizzy to

move washing machines in game a-la
"Socoban", "Passiance Klondike" by
Digital Reality, "Dice - poker"
(Bone-poker ") by Auryn," Gold
Fever "by SM - computer variant of
desktop game, "Corners"
("Corners") by Electrical Brain and
"Donkey" ("Donkey") by Devil. Remakes of "Lode Runner" with 
much more extended logic component were released by two groups: 
"King Valley "by We and" Klademiner "by

Bitmunchers. Also to logic / arcade
division it is possible to relate
"Tank War" by Interceptor, "Double Xinox" by ZX Masters, "Dr.
Mario "by Romantic Warriors,
"Blockus" by Bitmunchers,
"Trubes" by Panc and "Home Tetris"
by Russian Bear.

There were also a lot of quests.
1996 has begun with such serials as
"Crime Santa Claus" by ETC and
"Smagly" by Crystal Dream, by the
way, the third part of "Smagly" represented in style of "Astro 
Marine Corps ". Except for the first series

of these Games it is possible to mention "Adventures of Vinny 
the Puh" ("The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh") by

Softland, "Sliders" by MSD and
"Freddy McNeford" by D.J. Hooligan
it was an interactive comics rather
than quest.

Lovers of Russian language adventures this year also have 
received in order some quite good games:

"Ivan Tsarevich" ("Ivan Tsarevich")
by G'M, "Last Rider" by Kit, "Alien"
by Terminator, "Medieval story"
("Medieval History") by Human So ft, "Apollo" by Jockersoft.

Cloud soft and Precision published
"Magicians Land". It was impossible
to characterize this game as pure
RPG, most likely it was the advanced
quest, as in "ML" were absent opportunity of hero 
characteristics development and save of the cu

rrent condition, however game was
very interesting.

As manufacturers of Spectrum games were not constrained by the
law on protection of copyrights, so
trademark and characters from
other platforms were widely used,
therefore some commands have
declared release of demoversions
and the beginning of manufacture
such products as "Dune 2"
"WarCraft" and "Mortal Kombat".

On a pique of new stream, XL-Design
published the demoversion of "MK",
in which were used large converted
sprites of characters from Amiga,
however the given product has evidently shown, that using of
high-grade converted gfx makes impossible to create full 
conversion (Banal shortage of memory). Therefore AWS have gone 
a little bit other way and have decided to reduce size

of sprites and made them
handdrown. Certainly it became a
minus in recognition of characters,
but in t he given version were realized all super strikes of 
all of twelve heroes, fatality, babylity and also a

digital sound which was converted
from Amiga and game has remained
very dynamical and difficult.

The genre of arcade / action also was
represented this year by games
"Ice Climber" by VDV Soft-conversion from game console, 
"Crusher" by Playgear - a variation of "Arcanoid", "Humanoid" 
("Humanoid") by Shock - the author of the given product was 
obviously keen by "Boulder Dash", labyrinths: "The New Year 
story "(" New History ") by Binary Masters and "Dungeon" 
("Underground") by Ivan Krut, and also quite volumetric

"Return to Home 4: road into hell"
by K. Kav Soft. It is possible to name
this game, fashionable at that time
word "doomlike". Certainly, there
wasn't any kind of three-dimensional gfx, it is possible to 
compare this game with "Hired Guns"

(Amiga), but for one player.

1997 year was less productive, in
comparison with previous, however
this year were released a few absolute megahits.

In the beginning of the year "Operation R.R." was released - 
devilishly amusing and interesting game in

style of arcade adventure from Galaxy, who already made a name 
on "48 irons". Closer to the middle of

year one more game in the similar
genre was released, it was based on
popular fantastic novel of brothers
Strugatski "Picnic at the Roadside"
("Roadside Picnic"), foreign readers could see film from cult 
Russian director Andrey Tarkovskij "Stalker" ("Stalker"), that 
name used Jam ^ XPJ for the game.


Among other appreciable projects
it is possible to note "Elopment. Way
to Earth "by OHG it is can be related
to a genre of arcade adventure too
and compared with a well-known
"Saboteur", though in product of
OHG the quest component is more
expressed, "Fizzy" by Speed ​​Co. -
basically unremarkable game, So we
remind it because Unbeliever took
part in this project, "the Wizard of
OZ Country "(" The Wizard of
Oz ") by Famous Faces Factory,
"Mystery of an Ancient Castle" by
Art Studio, and also "Escape to
Kharkhan "(" Escape to Harhan)
by AIR.

Due to occurrence in Russia of
"Quill" package, in 1997 year have appeared a few quite good 
adventures in Russian: "Island of Darkness" by

Paul Moscow, "Diamond" by Dr.
Laser, and also "Examination investigation" ("Examination
investigations of ") by Demiurge
Ash.

In 1997 the tendency of not losing of
interest to manufacture of logic games has brought: "Magic 
Stripes" by Vitrual Bros, "X-Reversy" by

XL-Design, "The Puzzle" by Taras,
"Marrow in the World of Wisdom" by
Reflection, "TeSo" by Ivan Krut,
"Digital Tetris" by Batsoft, "Hexxagon 2" by Style Group, 
"Lightly Fields" by Magic Moon, "Genius House "by Jupiter77 - 
conversion of game "Poly Peg" from Macintosh,

and also electronic versions of popular in Russia Puzzles, 
pocket and desk top games: "Rubik's

cube "(" Rubik's Cube ") by Phantom
Family, "Goat" ("Goat") by Accept,
"Trinja" ("Trine") by RND, "Pasyance 'Four Row's'" by Studio 
Rubicon and "Ouths and Srosses" ("Tic, Tac Toe") by SHCG.

Perspective Group have gone a little
bit other way and have released
"Last Courier" - game on a joint of
arcade and puzzle.

Star Group has gone further and have released classical shooter 
for two players "Chopper Duel", where

players were killing in realtime the
helicopter of the opponent. thanking to not bad design and 
speed of engine, the given process become s

fascinating and grasped for a long
time. In the next year by team Alliance was published logic 
continuation: "Choppers Deathmatch", however, "deathmatch" 
wasn't so dynamical as a produc `t of Star group.


An absolute arcade game (what appears from the name) became
"Arcade Volleyball" by Rome'r - it
was conversion of "Headball" from
PC. By the way, in 98 year ZX-Masters released another one 
conversion of this game with better engine and more quality 
gfx, and also with nice sound effects (using General

Sound).

But the most important event of
that year became occurrence of absolute megahit among speccy 
games "Black Raven". ("Black Crow")

Basically, Copper Feet planned to
name the game with more
well-known brand - "WarCraft", but
when he has de cided to engage in
this project, brand "WC" was already taken by one of Petersburg
teams, the work which have declared on the beginning of game 
with this name. Changing of the name of

project only has untied Copper
Feet's hands, as it was n ot necessary to copy levels of a 
source completely. As to gameplay of

"Black Raven", it has taken all the
best from "WarCraft 1,2" and under
the right can be considered as the
best strategy in real time on
Spectrum.

It is necessary to notice that game
occupied two disks and had two various companies with 16 levels
(People and kungs) and also rendered twenty minutes introductory
video and two various versions of final cut.

A little bit later, already in 1999,
Compu-Studio recompiled "BR", released the powerful editor of 
levels, and also a disk with new missions

for game. Due to occurrence of the
given editor, in 2002 year Metallurg
published one more disk wi th 15 levels, And in 2003 by the 
unknown author two disks with missions were created, which 
differed by increased difficulty. 

"Technodrom" by Real Soft was
another good step-by-step strategy of 1997 - roots are going to 
"Laser Squad "and" Nether Earth ", so as in

"NE" - with the help of robots made
on bases it was necessary to grasp
all bases of enemy. I must note, that
despite of external similarity, gameplay differed from "LS" in 
the better side. Long-term attachment

of gamemakers to unforgettable
"Kings Bounty" embodied in one more remake "Feudal Wars" by
X-Studio.

Manager game "Diller" by D.J. Hooligan has returned me ten 
years back and put me in atmosphere that was

on our "flea market" where I traded Speccy programs. This game 
offered you to become the seller of software on the market, and 
the chro nology of game events is based

on real facts of 1993-1997 years.
So, it gave you an opportunity to be
a regional dealer of Copper Feet,
Step, Magic Soft etc. and to support
and expand your business, and of
course to deserve general love and
respect as the best seller of
spectrum software in city.


From other releases of 1994 year we
can pick out: "The Dark" by Hanzis
Sergey - spectrum conversion of
Apple 2 game, "Fox hunt" ("Hunting
Lees ") by Computer Rats," The 'Seka'
Club "(" Club Seca ") by V. Bodrov -
computer realization of card gam e,
"SkirmDevelopment of exUSSR games
Chasm / CyberPunks Unity

1998 became the year of finishing of
all earlier announced major game
projects. "Last Hero of the Light
Force "became the first Russian
RPG, Excess Team manufactured it.
They worked more than two years.
Game had very big size-two. Trd
disks, and large handdrown gfx, pleasant interface and quite 
good engine, though it was not so good as popular on that 
moment "Bard's Tale ".


Here at once it is necessary to mention two games, which 
stylistically directly adjoined to RPG

"Monstrland" by Rage and "12 Secret Books" ("12 secret book") by
Demiurge Ash, though "Monstrland"
most likely was an advanced quest,
becaus e you couldn't develop your
hero (except filling up energy). These games had something 
similar in both main sharacters are submitted by the top view, 
in both it was necessary to solve quests, to have

battles and use magic, and by the
way, in both games the result of
battle does not depend directly
from the player, but only from force
and weapon of your character.

If there was a conversation about a
genre of quest, undoubtedly, it should be noted the occurrence 
of crazy "Homer Simpson in Russia"

("Homer Simpson in Russia") by Mr.
Gluk and Co. Demoversion of "Paradise Lost" by Digital Reality 
was the main force that pushed the authors

of "Homer Simpson" to start their
project, and the full version of "PL"
which had mass advertising, but
was not issued. Though "Homer" also had similar with "PL" 
engine and gfx, however, it had own "highli

ght "as Simpson's humour, which all
of us so appreciate in an unforgettable serial.

The genre of simulators always liked
in Russia, this year it was submitted
with not absolutely standard
program. Instead of operating the
tank or a bomber, you should spend
some time on a silent bank of the river with a fishing tackle 
in hands. In game "Fisher" by Hard Code, a choice of a few 
reservoirs was offered to you, types of fishing tackles and

baits. Besides in a consequence it
was possible to compete in amount
of caught fish.

The amount of logic games released
in this year was still less than in the
past, however among them, it is
possible to note "Net Walk" by Style
Group - very large product, with
lots of three-colour pictures between levels, it occupied two 
disks and it was a conversion of the same

game by Gamos. I think Gamos games
cryed out to be converted on
Speccy (recollect "Colour Lines"),
therefore, next year Face Off released another one version of 
"NW", distinguished from Style Group release much in smaller 
size and more worked gfx. "Word Life" by Computer Rats Group, 
also it was possible to count it as logical sequence of

Gamos creation, but in comparison
with "Colour Lines", you was offered to put in a line not 
simple colour balls, but letters, which at formation of 
intelligent combinations, that was simply speaking a Russian

word - disappeared. Among other
logic games is necessary to mention
"Crossword" by Razzlers, "Devil's
Curse "by S.E.I.," Figus "by Image
Crew and "Fast Breed" by MHCG - all
games graphically beautifully made
and differed by sufficient difficulty.
Also MHCG released "Wormpithon"
an interesting version of known
game, and Crushers made an arcade
puzzle "The Flinstones. Fred in Magic Wood".

Gamblings were not forgotten, Free
Group issued patience "Free Cell"
("Free Cell") and Strangers - "Blackjack" ("Point").

On a joint of logic and arcade has appeared "Leprekon" by Omega 
Hacker Group - though the plot of the game also did not differ 
novelty (it was old "Lode Runner"), but the beautiful gfx, 
smoothness of engine and good sound made me to pass it

completely. A little bit later OHG released the second edition 
of "Leprekon" with two new additional levels. 

But the main piece of 1998 year, I
think, was the occurrence of minimal, but not less crazy 
arcades. The initiator of "Belarusian phenomenon", I think, was 
Freeman ^ Asphyxia, who has begun all this with release of 
"Kolobok Zoom" completel y mad shooter in style (as

he defined it) "realtime aggression". After this release was 
"Any Tank "by Optical Bros-an absolute

arcade, controlled with one button.
Also there were "Hunting on Moles"
("Hunting Krotov") by Asphyxia,
"Mobile Wars" by Mythos, and a serial of 98-99 years "Kill PC 
1-3" by Rage the arcade saga of pC hater

and New Year arcade-congratulation "White Eagle. Comrade is
known "(" White Eagle. "Comrade known") by Fatality. 
Deification of all became "Kolobok Zoom 2" by Asphyxia and 
Fatality - thirty levels terrible fight accompanying with

lethal sound effects and vivid music.
All this was executed in beautiful gfx
with simply fantastic speed (especially it was evidently 
visible when her o took all extra weapons). In

the end certainly, there was a final
fight and excellent final cut. In my
opinion "KZ2" was the best arcade
on Speccy, nobody had done it
later.

By ninety ninth the majority of gamemakers have understood, that
manufacturing of games on a commercial basis already became a
past. It was ounded up with low prices on consoles and second 
hand pCs that has caused outflow of

"Pure" gamers from Spectrum.
Also, the growing of last year's hackers activity made 
situation worse, so if sometimes authors earned only

minimal money just for beer. And according to that fact, 
stopped work on such projects as "The Black Raven 2", "Last 
Hero of the Light Force 2 ", and continuations of

"Monsterland" and "12 Secret
Books ". From this moment most of
games were written for fun, but however still there were 
enthusiasts, who were attracted by the process

of creation.

Strangely enough, the majority of
games released that year is possible to divide into logic and
strategic.

Jeez released "Kluxer" - beta version of amusing puzzle, later, 
having taken advantage of same idea Optical Bros made more 
tremendous beautiful "Clickmania"; Clevers issued "4x4 Puzzle", 
Smokers "Take It ", and Ascendancy finished

two-year work on puzzle "Hamon
IV ". Also in Belorussia was finished
work on "Fields of Logic" by AMD and
"Tormozilka" ("Ilka Brake") by
Amalitiya, and in Russia "Clocks" by
Omega. "Tet Block" by Cyber ​​Team
and "Xixit" by Real Soft were
another versions of old hit
"Columns", though it is necessary
to admit that it was made on rather
higher level and with use of m odern
technologies.

Step-by-step strategy "OWA against Nato: the Apocalypse" ("ATS
against Nato: Apocalypse ") by
Larri, which was released under
impression of war at the Balkan. In
a basis there was a script of possible development of those 
years events: Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine resist NATO to 
start the third world war. "Ships" ("Boats")

by Sizenko Alexander was
step-by-step tactics on sea,
rather than strategy. In 1999 was released the game called 
"Cezar" - the first game from rather productive till that 
moment, team Action. The given game was written in style

of "Sim City" the player is offered to
construct and develop antique city,
and also to complete various missions developed by author. Very 
close to a strategic genre was manager

game "the Owner 2: the Millionaire"
by Upsoft - you are offered to become the owner of some ore 
mines with all troubles connected with

this hard business.

However, other genres were not
forgotten too, so for quick
button-click lovers were made
"Kick da Gaga" by Avalon / Rush - beautifully made arcade, 
"Supaplex" by Flyman - A little bit pale conversion of the same 
game from PC, "Gunman" by Alien Factory and Sage

really good arcade shooter, "Mario
Islands "by Omega Hackers Group -
quite nice spectrum version of
known platform game. Z-System And
Graphics System have continued adventure comics serial, having 
released the second and the third part of "Wolf". DJHooligan 
again realizes itself in the genre of Interactive comics. 
However this time, quest component was exp ressed more

clearly, he released rather massive
game with plenty of animation -
"Explosion" ("Explosion"). Shuric
Program debuts in a new genre for
him, he wrote text adventure
"Great Testing".

"Super Tetris" by Alex Art - was, in
my opinion, the best tetris on
Speccy, with its smoothness of engine even better than "Amiga
Tetris ", which was the best for five
years. Having decided to unite all
the best in one game, Push and DGMS
s tarted to work on "Mega Tetris
2000 ", however despite of huge
size, and lots of various modes of
game and adjustments, this product
has turned out much less playable,
than mentioned above "Super
Tetris ".

Popular in middle 1990 genre nondeterministic games a-la "Life" 
this year was submitted by game

"Snake", written by Pelepejchenko
Alexey. Though that game also had
advanced language of snakes programming, pleasant interface and 
quite good gfx, nevertheless it was not so popular as "Virus" 
or "Soldier of the Future". 

As well as all last years, it was issued a few computer 
versions of gamblings - "Poker" by Ma $ ter,

"Cobble 2", "Nine" ("Nine")
"Patience" ("Solitaire") by V. Cherpasov.

2000 year has pleased us with finishing of several projects, to 
see which, the majority of players already didn't hope.


After two-year-old drudgery and
transition of sources from hands to
hands, Light has seen "Pussy" at
least. It was excellent made puzzle
and it was completed by Razzlers.
As Asphyxia and Fatality have renamed in Free Art, at that time 
trie d to be engaged in making games under GBC on a commercial 
basis. Strangely enough, but the first release of that game was 
carried out outside ex-USSR - LCD has got all

rights on its distribution and primary "Pussy" was issued on 
tape. Howev er due to efforts of

Maddy ^ PhF, the given game has left
in TR-DOS version too, it was optimised and fully repacked.

Also in this year was completed beautiful quest "Crime Santa 
Claus: Deja Vu" which BrokImSoft promised to release in the 
last year. Crystal Dream have decided not to make separate 
release of "Smagly 3", which demoversion already existed an d

they have released "Smagly Anthology" - the whole disk release,
which included the third arcade
part, and the first and second quest
parts.

Young team Action in 2000 began to
increase their potential. In the beginning of that year "The 
Eighth Department" ("The Eighth Division") was published - it 
was arcade adventure, based on life of confidential agents. 
Game has turned out very la rge and occupied practically half of

a disk, but it was a little bit dampish, and a good impression 
was spoiled by total illiteracy of the

author, who has managed to do
grammatical mistakes even in the
simple words. However, the activity
of Slip was really great, because he
practically alone does the following
product - "Empire 2000" which also
had large volume and occupied one
disk. Genre of this game was the mix
of first game by Action "Cezar" with
famous "King's Bounty", i. e. you
need to construct and develop city,
to create army and destroy your
enemies. The list of strategic games
for Spectrum has replenished this
year with one more remake of
"Rebel Star Riders" - "Soldiers
v1.2 "by Sizenko Alexander, how
ever that game differed from the
prototype with worse AI of opponents and bad game engine.

In comparison with previous year,
2000 was plentiful on Logic games
and puzzles. N-Discovery and Cobra
made "The Knight's Arena" and
"10x10" - games with practically
identical idea. It was offered you to
move a course with using of Chess h
orse step to clear a whole game
field, but game by N-Discovery was
made at the higher level.

Among others, it is necessary to allocate work of Studio Stall 
"Tower Pod "- beautifully created conversion of" Pad "from pC. 
Also that time were released: "Aliens" by

Syndrome, "Honey World" by Alex
Art,

"Real Lines" by Saint - the next attempt to improve "Colour 
Lines", "Strange Exhibits" by Prog Master,

"Virtual Rubik's Cube" by VRCP - not
so successful computer realization
of known puzzle, "Japanese
Contrast "by Fenomen - the collection of Japanese puzzles.

In a genre of logic / arcade appeared
"New Time Pacman" by Shuric and
"XOR 2000" by D. Moroz - game in
style of "Boulder Dash", but with
more clearly expressed logic component. "Deathmatch Arena" by
Lynx and "Stagger" by Fenomen were pure ar cades. Also I was 
pleased with greetings from childhood: Horrorsoft released 
"Kool Eggs"-very exact imitation of pocket electronic

arcade "I'll get you!" ("Well, wait a minute!"), In which I 
played at soviet times. By the way, a year before,


Paradox released "Rabbit Jazzy"
which was also based on the same
game, however, in my opinion, Horrorsoft's release looked much 
more attractive.


At 1st of January of new millennium
"Homer Simpson 2: Again in Russia"
was released by Mr. Gluk and Co,
they worked on it about two years.
Game turned out better than the
first part, engine has undergone to
processing, and again funny ques ts
and humour have allowed it to win
hearts of players.

But "Homer 2" became the last project of Mr.Gluk. "Yard Story" 
by Orion has continued the traditions

of "The Star Heritage" ("Star
Heritage "), so it was externally a
little bit similar to it. However, very
small attention, which the a uthor
has given to the gfx and plot, made it
less attractive to players in comparison with other 
representatives of this genre.


At spring Triumph released arcade
races "Numb Cars" - unpretentious, but tightening, and later
"Thimble" - imitation of Russian national street game, ie games 
in thimbles. Siberian Group were distinguished by logic games, 
they created "New Puzzle", also Studio Stall released "Opener" 
("Otkryvashka) (Basically, it officially was a part of

appendix to Adventurer in 1913, therefore it was issued only in 
2002, though it was made in 2001).


Arcades were submitted by works
of Studio Stall - while I was playing
"Stuckun" my brain was simply disconnected, Delirium Tremens
transferred work to a spinal department with their "Cars"
("Typewriters") and began a series
of paranoid game s - all that you
need is to destroy four enemy cars.
Triebkraft pleased people with their
remake of fresh arcade "Super
Bomberman 2 "by Action-Poisoned
CyberJack rewrote the game engine, player of music and sound 
effects, and also optimised a work with memory and that made 
his game a hit of the beginning of year on one

level with "Homer 2.

Due to the occurrence of new nomination "32k Game Compo" on 
Chaos Constructions'99, many games were released at the party. 
So still in 99 on CC were released demoversions of "Curse of 
Xeen" by X-Master and "Babylon 5" by Troll, and mention ed 
above "Hamon IV" by Ascendancy and "Stagger" by Fenomen were 
submitted to public on Millennium 1900. 

The similar situation has taken place in 2000: logic game 
"3D-Roost" by Fenomen was completed, however it

was released only after MLN'1901.
Also at the given party were released "Technodrom. Millennium 
edition" by Real Soft - in mln version was added mouse support, 
new gfx, new maps and new parts of gameplay.


On CC'01 the following picture was
observed: as game compo had rigid
frameworks in 32 kb, so arcade shooter "Hunt on sparrows Born to
kill "by Green Bit Group, logic
"Farspace" by Mayhem and short
version of "Arcanoid" by Drv53b6
were al lowed to take part. And for
its size, the indisputable leader
"Dizzy Underground" by Gogin was
thrown away, so another one weak
remake on the same theme - "Dizzy
B "by N-Discovery.

The beginning of 2002 was marked by
release of "Kill Pokemon" by Delirium Tremens - in this arcade 
shooter you should kill 50 pokemons, exactly Pikachu. 
Personally, I was fucked by "Pokemon" cartoon and

had a lot of fun while killing these
bastards. Then in February, Triebkraft and 4th Dimension 
released Spectrum version of another one

arcade shooter - "Moorhuhn: First
Blood ". The given version differed
way with it greater visualisation.

N-Discovery team developed a package "IF Creator" for text games
creation, a-la Interactive Fiction
the book genre that started to collect popularity in Russia. 
With the help of this package N-Discovery

made "Adventure of your dream"
("The Adventure of your dreams")
which showed the advantages of "IF
Creator ".

Sam Style released "Battle Field"
step-by-step tactic for 1-4 Players. This game intended, as a 
component of package of "WindowZ'02". In my opinion game wasn't 
done very professional, and lots of settings

and quite good gfx, didn't rescu e it
at all, because of absence of an opportunity of game with 
computer. 

In 2002 was another attempt to
start producing games on a commercial basis. Perspective group
has declared a competition "Your
Game "(" Your Game ") which called to
participate in it all manufacturers
of Spectrum games. Organiozers of
this competition have appointed prize fund and determined time 
limit. At the end of summer, Perspective Released the 
collection of demoversions of six games, which have 
participated in competition. Winners were chosen with method of 
absentia votin g. Any interested person could vote, meanwhile 
games were prepared to release, and money

from its selling were transferred to
prize fund. However, later on Virtual TR-DOS was published a 
freeware version of the "Your Game" collection. First of all 
among other games presented on that competition, It is 
necessary to allocate the winner - "Abe's Mission (escape) part 
1 "by Brothers. The given game was the remake of "Oddworld: 
Abe's Oddysee". It has quite good converted gfx, smoothness of 
moving and quests transferred from a source of conversion, 
distinguished it from other games, which took part in

competition. Also in the collection
were released "Mine" ("Mine") by
SCG - arcade game for team playing.
It wa s offered you to equip with various stock (tools, 
fixtures, and other different kinds of an explosive) to kill 
your enemies. Enemies also got similar equipment; therefore 
process of game became fascinating massacre, demanding not only 
react ions, but also sharpness of mind. "The Dome" by Studio 
Stall continued traditions of "Nether

Earth ", however from its prototype
game distinguished with the absence of opportunity of 
independent designing of robots and weaker AI of your comp uter 
opponent. "The Courier 2: the Lost world" ("Courier 2: The Lost 
World ") by Perspective was the continuation of the first

parts of this serial which was published in 1997. A genre of 
game hasn't changed - it also was the arcade puzzle, however 
engine was advanced and improved. Real Soft

released on this competition computer realization of desktop 
game "Manager" ("Menedzher") (the Soviet variant of 
"Monopoly"). It was written in 1996, however up to that

time was unreleasd. Game was mainly written in BASIC and had 
the inconvenient interface, therefore in my opinion Real Soft 
formally participated in "Your Game" presenting their early, 
not absolutely successful development. "Super Mario Bros "by 
Gogin was a playable demo with four levels; in it there were 
absence of sound effects (there was only a music) and various 
features from original game that spoils game

a little. However, Gogin for the first
time on Spectrum used a multiscreen engine with one frame 
horizontal scrolling, which made even this demoversion visually 
attractive and also forced to play in it. The release of full 
version was planned on the beginning of 2003, but it

wasn't made.

In the beginning of 2003, was the
calm which proceeded till spring
when Ice'Di ^ Triumph released
"Lord of Darkness" - IF adventure,
made with the help of N-Discovery
package. Game based on cult "Lord
of rings "and used some undocumented commands of" IF Creator ", 
that allowed Ice'Di to bring in gameplay

elements of fight. Unfortunately, in
spite of the fact that game had large
size (about 800 locations), It could
be solved rather easily and quickly.
"Deadventure" by ACH also w as
written with the help of "IFC", this
game has good script and some alternative finals.

Ineradicable mania of Clown and Wizard to pokemons poured out in
another one release from Delirium
Tremens where there were these
kinds of characters - "Gotta
catch'em all ". It is possible to put
unequivocal diagnosis to the
authors - slow schizophrenia; the
plot of game was in guessing of combination of pokemons, 
besides there were available three bars with nine

pokemons in each, i.e. it turns out
9 ^ 3 = 729 variants, and to complete
it with nine lives, in my opinion, impossible;) Also that 
summer were released already mentioned "Virtue. Da dirty soul 
"by C-Jeff and" Doctor Ouchithurts "(" Doctor Aibolit ") by

Transman, it was the conversion of
"Dr. Mario" from Nintendo.

Inspired by success of "Your
Game'02 "(" Your Igra'02 ")
Perspective Group have decided to
start publish and distribute last
game from Action team - "Dune: Imperia 2" it was written in a 
genre of real time strategy. It is necessary

to notic e, that it was the largest on
scale project, ever spread in
ex-USSR, something similar did only
Inforkom earlier. However
Perspective have gone further and
acted as serious publishing house,
they not only offered game, but also
game box, i. e. the complete set of
Game, a printed short story based
on game, and also audio tape with
authors music tracks. However this
share didn't make big success for
poor quality of game, it worked only
in TR-DOS and requirements of memory was in February 1956 
kilobyte (besides normally game worked only on computers with 
expansion of memory by Pentagon standard). It is necessary to 
notice that in "Dune: Imperia 2 "was possible to play only with

presence of TURBO Mode, i.e. it was
very slow, that was a little bit
surprising if you compare its characteristics and quality of 
gameplay with "Black Raven". 

Also Perspective announced the
next competition "Your Game'03",
but the majority of gamemakers had
ignored it, preferring to be exposed
on game compo of CAFe'03.

Basically all games presented on
that party were submitted by demoversions: Virtual Masters had 
brought demoversion of "Darkwing Duck "- conversion of known 
platform game and" EroTris "- very crude tetris with erotic 
picture between level s. Green Bit Group had exposed 
pre-release of "Death Valley "- it was a mixture of" Lemmings 
"and" Worms ", they worked about three years to complete it.

And "Fire and Ice" by N-Discovery
was submitted in compiled on partyplace blocks which shown 
different game situations, that however hasn't prevented it to 
get first place. The full version of this beautiful puzzle, 
based on Namco game was released much more lately, only

in December 1930. Full versions exposed only Studio Stall, 
presenting arcade adventure "Lethargy: the

apathetic dream ", which someone

Called "Myth 2" because of its gfx
and similar plot. However
"Lethargy" differed from its prototype with the big number of 
locations and variety of character's equipment. "Milas Kazmus" 
by CyberPunks Unity - arcade shooter, also it was poss ible to 
count it as full version, however there wasn't

introduction screen and additional
music and final cut, because of aspirations to make it 32 kb.

Right at the beginning of 2004 on Virtual TR-DOS, appeared one 
more release from Action - "Empire March" again RTS but with 
elements of RPG. As far as I can judge, the given game

was made for "Your Game'O3" competition, but because of failur 
e of given contest, wasn't released till

that moment. "Empire March" has more
advanced engine and interface, however, frankly speaking, stolen
from "Black Raven 1,2" gfx, the requirement of turbo mode and 
256 kb of memory again have not allowed it

to become popular, it was promoted
with the fact that Slip this time not
began to think about universal memory support and in my 
opinion, has ignored other types of expanded

memory, except Pentagon 512. I
don't know as for ATM and Profi, but
on mine Scorpion game hasn't
worked.

In early 1990 on territory of ex-USSR
has appeared lots of so-called "hackers" (it was name for both 
coders and crackers) and they had no opportunity to write 
high-grade game, because most of them

weren't able to write good music
and to draw quality gfx. However it
did not stop them and later the market of software began to 
flood with plenty of foreign games remixes.


That time all was limited to addition
of AY music (sometimes even
self-hand-written), fix and repack
for 128 kb machines and realization
of game for TR-DOS (loading of levels, saving / loading games 
condition), but nevertheless some people w ent further and made 
high-grade remakes with new levels, gfx and

music.

Among that games we can pick out
new versions of such games as
"Batty 3,4" by Surdakar; "Krakout
3 "by Beloozersky A.; some remakes
of "Lode Runner" - a few different
versions from Fantadrom, Biotech
and Image; "Boulder Dash 5,6" by
Krasko vsky Vass., Spectrum version of "Lemmings" in 1995 was 
globally rewritten by Rst7 ^ CodeBusters - The engine was 
accelerated and also levels were repacked, it allowed to store 
all levels in 128 kb. Also in 1996 Logros released "Lemmings 
2", it contained 70 new levels.


As I already wrote above, on a wave
of "dizzymania" have appeared huge amount of remixes of this 
super popular game, except for already

mentioned quality releases, there
were lame hand-made games, which
differed not only the worst programm ing realization, but with 
also absolutely illogical quests: "Last

Will Dizzy "by the unknown author,
"New Dizzy" by V. Kutin, D. Paltusov,
"Dizzy 8: Little Joke" by P. A. Soft,
Timur and "Dizzy A'B" by N-Discovery. Also "Laser Squad" was 
very popular. That time various versions

of this game have appeared and some editors of missions (the 
best of them was made by Wredosoftware)

and all of us could observe occurrence of mediocrely made 
additional level s to this remarkable game -

there was one "masterpiece", one
shoot to any barrel will detonate all
of them with the subsequent chain
reaction for five or so minutes. However, among other, it is 
possible to allocate remix "Super Laser

Squad "by Chip'Chap, ZS + Vek, which
contained seven new quality made levels.

Also on the common background it is
possible to allocate some products,
not only adapted for TR-DOS, but also totally rewritten 
(additional music, gfx, bugfix, add programming, final cut): 
"Nether Earth. Special Edition" + 11 additional levels by ZS, 
"Advanced Nether Earth" by Eternity Industry, "Draconus" by

Seamans and Dream Team, "Heavy on
the Magic! "by Real Soft," Times of
Lore "and" Dragons of Flame "by CyberPunks Unity.

In 96-97 X-Trade team conducted
development of General Sound - a
sound card for Speccy. It was released in several variants 
(various memory size, etc), the given card

had digital sound with parameters
closely coming to Amiga, so popular
at that time in speccy circles. Original projects initially 
used GS, as I remember, were only "Headball" by

ZX-Masters and "Net Walk" by
Style, also digital sound was planned to be used in "The Black 
Raven 1.2 "(" Black Crow 1,2 "), besides f

or the second part of game all
samples were already made. However all advantages of sound of 
this devices can be estimated in some

remixes of old games, that started
to be manufactured in 97. Undoubted masterpieces were cult games
"Chase HQ 1" and "Target Renegade" by Mike Blum, who made GS
versions of these games with music
and sound effects, transferred
from Amiga and PC. Also it is possible
to allocate good remixes of "Barbarian" by Moroz, "Comando 
Tracer" by Syndrome, "Dan Dare. Pilot of

the Future "," Krakout "," Lee Enfield "by Phantom Family," 
Navy Moves 1 "by Triumph," Power Boat Simulator "," Renegade 
"," YSCapers Scatz "," Zynaps "by Mike Blum,

"Xecutor" by Stinger, "Rex 1,2" by
CPG, "Batty" by Nova. A nd it was only a small list of 
releases, because such kind of works are conducting

till nowadays by different
teams.

At last it is necessary to tell about
demoversions of interesting projects which have not seen the end
though if the full versions of these
games were completed, the majority of them would become 
megahits. 

When in middle 1990's level of coding of
Spectrum people has achieved
rather high level, many people decided to realize a dream of 
all players and transfer to 8-bit platform

"Doom". There were some attempts
to write "doomlike" engine, in pa
rticular such attempts, we shall tell
not so impressing, were undertaken by Cobra and Syndicate, 
however they hadn't reached the realization of enemies. But 
already in 1997 there was a sensation-Digital Reality released 
welldone demoversi on, containing the first level of "Doom".

It had three video modes (two
chunks with attributes, and one monochrome in a small window, 
but hi-rez), and also four kinds of weapons, ammunition, 
first-aid sets, the armour and two kinds of monst

ers, which were already possible to
kill. A little bit later Alone Coder released "Wolf 3D", 
however with good engine (smooth movement in

big window, normally opening doors)
in that demoversion, despite of presence of several kinds of 
the w eapon monsters were harmless, ie they were realized, but 
remained motionless and impregnable for weapon of the player. 
But the most successful, in my opinion, realization was the 
last demoversion (by the way it was published in the append ix 
to Adventurer # 13) of game "Citadel" by Stalker. The engine 
varied during period of several years and at the end - It had 
united itself all the best that were in "Doom" by

Digital Reality and "Wolf 3D" by Alone
Coder. Except of three vide omodes,
active enemies, several types of
weapons and normal realization of
doors in it, there was attempted to
realize dynamic illumination of
explosions and ammunition. Also it is
necessary to mention one more unfinished, but very perspect ive 
project - "ZX Duke Nukem", developed by Volga Soft. There 
wasn't demoversion of this game as such, however this engine 
was possible to explore in an article and sources,

which were, published in "Adventurer # 13", also it was used in 
tra ckmo "Love Gun", which was written by the same Volga Soft. 
On my sight, it is one of the fastest

(Alongside with "Awaken") 3D engine
on Spectrum, allowing to make really fast hi-rez 3D games. For 
an example it is possible to tell, that if

t his technology were applied in games such as "Driller" or 
"Total Eclipse" they would work in 5-6 times faster.


In 1996 electronic magazine
"Spectrofon" published demoversion of cult RTS "Dune 2", this 
first conversion was made by Perestroika, certainly attempt to 
realize this kind of strategy wasn't so successful, if there 
were produced many units game started to go slow,

but this demoversion showed us
that it is possible to make RTS on
Speccy. As I already wrote above,
at the end of next year "Black
Raven "was released and became
immortal, which has lifted a competition up to very h igh 
level. As I known Copper Feet has refused to

finish "BW2" by reasons of financials, however apparently from 
final demoversion published in 2000 this game should have many 
advantages, new engine and refreshed gfx. Also there could be 
fly ing units, expanded list of spells and more advanced game 
play. Among uncompleted, but promised projects in genre of RTS 
it is possible to note "Operation 'Oil'" by Alexoft and 
Berseker, and "Jackals" by The Mad Mailmen League both these ga 
mes had more integrated sprites of units

and structures, and also some additional features which 
favourably distinguished them from "BW1".


Some releases of step-by-step
strategies also were planned. Cubeckin Vitaliy tried to transfer
"Civilization", and demoversion,
not differed from original. Phantom
family released demoversion of very popular in circles of 
strategy fans game "Master of Orion", however, because of its 
incompleteness it is impossible to speak about quality of an 
end product, but even only the name of game "MoO" would

force many people to play. "Mechanic Wars" by Green Fort was 
written under influence of "Heroes of Might and Magic ", but it 
had futuristic plot with opportunity to develop science, so it 
looked like the same "Master of Orion" and "Reunion". In

a genre of wargame we can pick out
"Empire" by Virtual Vision Group,
however after release of the second demoversion this group left 
Sp ectrum and renamed in Team Power

Amiga.

If speech has gone to Amiga it is necessary to recollect one 
megahit of this platform - "Walker". Alien Factory was engaged 
to transfer this game during four years and have

achieved dazzling successes. Final