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 interes-
ting especially for our foreign fri-
ends, and also for all newcomers
who know nothing about Spectrum
ten or more years ago. It is impos-
sible 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 perestro-
ika was going on as quick as pos-
sible. Some foreign magazines peri-
odically broke information starva-
tion, 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 appearan-
ce of paper "Zx-Review" had explo-
ded the ice, which locked minds of
spectrum people. Army of readers
incr eased from day to day, because
that time there weren't much edu-
cated 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 te-
ach readers not just to play. As the
result some people started to make
programs on assembler. Of coz the-
re 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 pro-
duced. The most interesting from
bare tetrises were "Stek" by MPF,
"Columns" by Piter ltd и "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"
("Королевство Эйфория" - 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 Ki-
rasov, "Super President" by Bala-
ganoff, "The kingdom of grain"
(Королевство Зерна) by THD, "Space
Trade" by Pavel Nikitin, and the
first Russian arcade for two play-
ers "Cowboy Duel" by D.J. Stepa-
nenko.

The most famous Russian gamema-
ker Vecheslav Mednonogov aka Cop-
per Feet started his career that
time. He produced three games du-
ring 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" (Танкодром) good ar-
cade with elements of strategy, and
in 11 1993 "The adventures of Bu-
ratino" ("Приключения Буратино")
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" ("Русский тетрис").

Among other games produced in
1993 we can call: "King's Bounty" by
Yarosh R., Zelenkevich D. - the con-
version of famous game, "Power
Ball" by Flash - very original ver-
sion 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 pic-
tures were used.

But the real sensation of 93 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 com-
fort. Later Vladimir Kladov aka Sha-
dow 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 in-
terstars space and to save hy-
perdrive. 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 genera-
tion 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 mis-
sions, missions where you should
bring a squad of troops to the ene-
my station in the deep space, if you
agreed to take part in this operati-
ons you might get military rank up
to colonel.

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

The publishers of ZX-Review - Infor-
kom 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 Infor-
kom - 'Formak' began to sell compila-
tions of games and system progs
which had been sent to ZX-Review
from all over the country and near-
by regions, but level of program-
ming and gameplay wasn't high.

However there were some games
which differed from other heaps, li-
ke action games: "Main Blow" by
Chip, "Special Forces" ("Отряд
быстрого реагирования") by
Chip&Rocky, "Mini Fly" by Galaxy
and "Fire Gear" by TM'M - the first
Russian action game with multilevel
structure and introduction and fi-
nal 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 beca-
me 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 Ko-
valev, CWC and Genesis made the
most interesting.

In 1994 appeared mass tendency of
"intellectual" games it was caused
by Inforkom's popularisation of ga-
mes 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"
("Куликовская битва") by WE
group. Fans of adventure games
wasn't deprive, in this period were
made some games on Russian lan-
guage: "Lenin in October", "Cops",
"The Vice Island" ("Ленин в Ок-
тябре", "Ментура", "Остров по-
роков") by Sergey Gusev and "The
Magic story. Dedication of Fal-
koris." ("Волшебная История. Пос-
вящение Фалькориса") by
V.Bodrov.

Like in previous years in 94 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 94 year we
can pick out: "The Dark" by Hanzis
Sergey - spectrum conversion of
Apple 2 game, "Fox hunt" ("Охота на
Лис") by Computer Rats, "The 'Seka'
Club" ("Клуб Сека") 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 ("Солныш-
ко Гамми") 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 opportuni-
ty to control one soldier and run
over the level and kill aliens. But
economic and science block was ma-
de 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 "War-
riors of Amber". "Country of Tales"
("Страна мифов") by Fantasy was
an other game made in 95, it was ve-
ry interesting, made in the style of
"Kings Bounty". Another strategic
game was "Pirates" ("Пираты") by
Nicodim, it was conversion of fa-
mous table game.

In middle summer, electronic maga-
zine "Spectrofon" opened a champi-
onship 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 oppo-
nents. Anyone could join champion-
ship, 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 утюгов") by Galaxy, a team
from St.Petersburg. And of course
this game became a megahit. Rus-
sian language, lots of humour, and
some uploading levels made this ga-
me glorious. By the way, Phantom
family during a couple of years is
trying to translate this game into
English. The game engine was rebu-
ild 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 ga-
mes such as "Dizzy-X Journey to
Russia" and "Dizzy-Y Return to
Russia" by Speed Code, "Home Ice-
land D zzy" by VS Prog, and also the
game which was released at Chaos
Constructions'01 game compo "Diz-
zy Underground" by Gogin.

Lets go back to 95 year. After some
announces in "Zx-Review" and in
their own "Spectrofon", Step crea-
tive group released national mega-
hit "Star Inheritance" ("Звездное
Наследие"). 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" ("Зеркало") by AWCG,
"Chainik: Horror in the flat" by Opti-
cal Bros, "Sea Quest" by Taras,
"Plut onia" ("Плутония") by Twin Pe-
aks и "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 produ-
ce quests. There were released so-
me small game projects during this
year "Regeners" by Reserve (in sty-
le of "Life"), "Piton" ("Питон") 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 93 were made at least 3
releases. Adventure games "Svya-
togor knight and Karachun wizard"
("Витязь Святогор и колдун Ка-
рачун") by Demiurge Ash.
"Talisman" ("Талисман") by Ray and
"Oragon" by Evgenij Bernikov. In 95
Appeared two different versions of
Russian clone of TV show "Wheel of
Fortune", ("Поле чудес") by
Softland and Outland. Also we re re-
leased some nice logical games: the
conversion from pC and Amiga "Turn
or Xor'em All" by Mad Max, "Mines-
weaper" 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 for-
got about tetrises, "SexTris" by Si-
licon Brains - with stimulating ero-
tic pictures between levels,
"Trubis" by Sunny Tram - conver-
sion from pC, "Magic Block" by DAB
Lab - ano ther one "Columns", and
the most fluent tetris from all which
were done "Amiga Tetris" by Navi-
gator.

Success of 1995 inspired gamema-
kers, and in the next year many qua-
lity 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 ima-
gined by himself and just made quali-
ty conversion to Spectrum. O f co-
urse there were some free in-
terpretations, like aliens ship in-
terception, he made it in form of ar-
cade shooter, but in everything el-
se Copper Feet was more correct.
He used original graphics in ufo-
pedia. Naturally he refined main
part sprites, but shape and content
of aliens ship remained unchanged
and looked like original.

Passion of the majority Russian pla-
yers to strategic games was satis-
fied 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 plan-
ned by the end of 2004 year.

It is possible to name one more sen-
sational game of the beginning of
that year "Prince of Persia" by Ni-
codim - very close to the original
conversion. The gfx of game and
smoothness of movement of the cha-
racter were close to version for
Ami ga, whence was made it conver-
sion.

Remembering the last year's suc-
cess of "Virus 1,2", Ivan Gudkov is-
sued "Soldier of the Future" -logic
continuation of above named prog-
rams. In his game it was possible to
program behaviour of several soldi-
ers and to let out them on a battle-
field. Personally to me,

It was very interesting to look at
attempts of my creatures to exter-
minate enemies in the confusing la-
byrinth; especially some part of gfx
and the interface in "SOF" were
borrowed from favourite "Laser
Squad". You can also save your ro-
bot t hat enabled to play with crea-
tions of your friends.

Also this year was plentiful on logic
games and logics with arcade ele-
ments. To the first group it is pos-
sible 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, "Square-
Head" by Outland, "The Magic of
Logic" by VVS, "Russian Time Tre-
aser" by World Eyes, "Filler" by ZC,
"Squards" by Spark, "Dizzy Ware-
house " 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"
("Кости-покер") by Auryn, "Gold
Fever" by SM - computer variant of
desktop game, "Corners"
("Уголки") by Electrical Brain and
"Donkey" ("Осел") by Devil. Rema-
kes of "Lode Runner" with much mo-
re 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, "Doub-
le 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" rep-
resented in style of "Astro Marine
Corps". Except for the first series
of these Games it is possible to men-
tion "Adventures of Vinny the Puh"
("Приключения Винни Пуха") by
Softland, "Sliders" by MSD and
"Freddy McNeford" by D.J. Hooligan
it was an interactive comics rather
than quest.

Lovers of Russian language adven-
tures this year also have received
in order some quite good games:
"Ivan Tsarevich" ("Иван Царевич")
by G&M, "Last Rider" by Kit, "Alien"
by Terminator, "Medieval story"
("Средневековая история") by Hu-
man So ft, "Apollo" by Jocker-
soft.

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 op-
portunity of hero characteristics
development and save of the cu
rrent condition, however game was
very interesting.

As manufacturers of Spectrum ga-
mes 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 evi-
dently shown, that using of
high-grade converted gfx makes im-
possible to create full conversion
(banal shortage of memory). There-
fore 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 reali-
zed 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 -conver-
sion from game console, "Crusher"
by Playgear - a variation of "Arca-
noid", "Humanoid" ("Гуманоид") by
Shock - the author of the given pro-
duct was obviously keen by "Boul-
der Dash", labyrinths: "The New
Year story" ("Новогодняя ис-
тория") by Binary Masters and
"Dungeon" ("Подземелье") 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-dimensio-
nal 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 abso-
lute megahits.

In the beginning of the year "Opera-
tion R.R." was released - devilishly
amusing and interesting game in
style of arcade adventure from Ga-
laxy, 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"
("Пикник на обочине"), foreign rea-
ders could see film from cult Rus-
sian director Andrey Tarkovskij
"Stalker" ("Сталкер"), 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" ("Волшебник Страны
Оз") by Famous Faces Factory,
"Mystery of an Ancient Castle" by
Art Studio, and also "Escape to
Kharkhan" ("Бегство на Хархан")
by AIR.

Due to occurrence in Russia of
"Quill" package, in 97 year have ap-
peared a few quite good adventures
in Russian: "Island of Darkness" by
Paul Moscow, "Diamond" by Dr.
Laser, and also "Examination inves-
tigation"  ("Экзаменационное
расследова ние") by Demiurge
Ash.

In 97 the tendency of not losing of
interest to manufacture of logic ga-
mes 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, "Hexxa-
gon 2" by Style Group, "Lightly Fi-
elds" by Magic Moon, "Genius
House" by Jupiter77 - conversion of
game "Poly Peg" from Macintosh,
and also electronic versions of po-
pular in Russia Puzzles, pocket and
desk top games: "Rubik's
cube"("Кубик Рубика") by Phantom
Family, "Goat" ("Козел") by Accept,
"Trinja" ("Триня") by RND, "Pasy-
ance 'Four Row's'" by Studio Rubi-
con and "Ouths and Сrosses"
("Крестики, нолики") 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 ha-
ve released classical shooter for
two players "Chopper Duel", where
players were killing in realtime the
helicopter of the opponent. than-
king 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 Alli-
ance was published logic continua-
tion: "Choppers Deathmatch", ho-
wever, "deathmatch" wasn't so dy-
namical as a produc`t of Star
group.

An absolute arcade game (what ap-
pears from the name) became
"Arcade Volleyball" by Rome'r - it
was conversion of "Headball" from
PC. By the way, in 98 year ZX-Mas-
ters released another one conver-
sion 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 ab-
solute megahit among speccy games
"Black Raven". ( "Черный Ворон")
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 alrea-
dy taken by one of Petersburg
teams, the work which have decla-
red 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 neces-
sary 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 va-
rious companies with 16 levels
(people and kungs) and also rende-
red twenty minutes introductory
video and two various versions of fi-
nal cut.

A little bit later, already in 1999,
Compu-Studio recompiled "BR", re-
leased 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 le-
vels, And in 2003 by the unknown
author two disks with missions we-
re created, which differed by incre-
ased difficulty.

"Technodrom" by Real Soft was
another good step-by-step strate-
gy of 97 - 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, ga-
meplay differed from "LS" in the
better side. Long-term attachment
of gamemakers to unforgettable
"Kings Bounty" embodied in one mo-
re remake "Feudal Wars" by
X-Studio.

Manager game "Diller" by D.J. Hooli-
gan has returned me ten years back
and put me in atmosphere that was
on our "flea market" where I tra-
ded Speccy programs. This game of-
fered 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 94 year we
can pick out: "The Dark" by Hanzis
Sergey - spectrum conversion of
Apple 2 game, "Fox hunt" ("Охота на
Лис") by Computer Rats, "The 'Seka'
Club" ("Клуб Сека") 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, ple-
asant interface and quite good en-
gine, though it was not so good as
popular on that moment "Bard's
Tale".

Here at once it is necessary to men-
tion two games, which stylistically
directly adjoined to RPG
"Monstrland" by Rage and "12 Sec-
ret Books" ("12 Тайных Книг") by
Demiurge Ash, though "Monstrland"
most likely was an advanced quest,
becaus e you couldn't develop your
hero (except filling up energy). The-
se games had something similar in
both main сharacters are submit-
ted 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 sho-
uld be noted the occurrence of
crazy "Homer Simpson in Russia"
("Homer Simpson в России") by Mr.
Gluk and Co. Demoversion of "Para-
dise 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" al-
so 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 unforget-
table 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 ri-
ver with a fishing tackle in hands. In
game "Fisher" by Hard Code, a choi-
ce 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 bet-
ween 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 relea-
sed another one version of "NW",
distinguished from Style Group rele-
ase much in smaller size and more
worked gfx. "Word Life" by Compu-
ter Rats Group, also it was possible
to count it as logical sequence of
Gamos creation, but in comparison
with "Colour Lines", you was offe-
red to put in a line not simple colour
balls, but letters, which at forma-
tion 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 Ma-
gic Wood".

Gamblings were not forgotten, Free
Group issued patience "Free Cell"
("Свободная Ячейка") and Stran-
gers - "Blackjack" ("Очко").

On a joint of logic and arcade has ap-
peared "Leprekon" by Omega Hac-
ker Group - though the plot of the
game also did not differ novelty (it
was old "Lode Runner"), but the be-
autiful gfx, smoothness of engine
and good sound made me to pass it
completely. A little bit later OHG re-
leased the second edition of "Lep-
rekon" with two new additional le-
vels.

But the main piece of 1998 year, I
think, was the occurrence of mi-
nimal, but not less crazy arcades.
The initiator of "Belarusian pheno-
menon", I think, was Fre-
eman^Asphyxia, who has begun all
this with release of "Kolobok Zoom"
completel y mad shooter in style (as
he defined it) "realtime aggres-
sion". After this release was "Any
Tank" by Optical Bros -an absolute
arcade, controlled with one button.
Also there were "Hunting on Moles"
("Охота на Кротов") by Asphyxia,
"Mobile Wars" by Mythos, and a se-
rial of 98-99 years "Kill PC 1-3" by
Rage the arcade saga of pC hater
and New Year arcade-congratula-
tion "White Eagle. Comrade is
known" ("Белый Орел. Товарищ Из-
вестен") by Fatality. Deification of
all became " Kolobok Zoom 2" by As-
phyxia 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 (especi-
ally 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 ga-
memakers have understood, that
manufacturing of games on a com-
mercial basis already became a
past. It was ounded up with low pri-
ces on consoles and second hand
pCs that has caused outflow of
"pure" gamers from Spectrum.
Also, the growing of last year's hac-
kers activity made situation worse,
so if sometimes authors earned only
minimal money just for beer. And ac-
cording to that fact, stopped work
on such projects as "The Black Ra-
ven 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 ho-
wever still there were enthusiasts,
who were attracted by the process
of creation.

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

Jeez released "Kluxer" - beta ver-
sion of amusing puzzle, later, ha-
ving taken advantage of same idea
Optical Bros made more tremendous
beautiful "Clickmania"; Clevers is-
sued " 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" ("Тормоз илка") 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 "OWА aga-
inst Nato: the Apocalypse" ("ОВД
против Nato: Апокалипсис") by
Larri, which was released under
impression of war at the Balkan. In
a basis there was a script of possib-
le development of those years
events: Russia, Belorussia and Uk-
raine resist NATO to start the third
world war. "Ships" ("Кораблики")
by Sizenko Alexander was
step-by-step tactics on sea,
rather than strategy. In 99 was re-
leased the game called "Cezar" -
the first game from rather produc-
tive 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 missi-
ons developed by author. Very close
to a strategic genre was manager
game "the Owner 2: the Millionaire"
by Upsoft - you are offered to beco-
me 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 - be-
autifully made arcade, "Supaplex"
by Flyman - A little bit pale conver-
sion 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 ad-
venture comics serial, having rele-
ased the second and the third part
of "Wolf". D.J.Hooligan again reali-
zes itself in the genre of Interacti-
ve comics. However this time, quest
component was exp ressed more
clearly, he released rather massive
game with plenty of animation -
"Explosion" ("Взрыв"). 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 en-
gine 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 90 genre nonde-
terministic games a-la "Life" this
year was submitted by game
"Snake", written by Pelepejchenko
Alexey. Though that game also had
advanced language of snakes prog-
ramming, pleasant interface and qu-
ite good gfx, nevertheless it was
not so popular as "Virus" or "Sol-
dier of the Future".

As well as all last years, it was is-
sued a few computer versions of
gamblings - "Poker" by Ma$ter,
"Cobble 2", "Nine" ("Девятка"),
"Patience" ("Пасьянс") by V. Cher-
pasov.

2000 year has pleased us with fi-
nishing of several projects, to see
which, the majority of players alre-
ady 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 rena-
med in Free Art, at that time trie d
to be engaged in making games un-
der GBC on a commercial basis.
Strangely enough, but the first re-
lease of that game was carried out
outside ex-USSR - LCD has got all
rights on its distribution and pri-
mary "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 optimi-
sed and fully repacked.

Also in this year was completed bea-
utiful quest "Crime Santa Claus: De-
ja Vu" which BrokImSoft promised
to release in the last year. Crystal
Dream have decided not to make se-
parate release of "Smagly 3", which
demoversion already existed an d
they have released "Smagly Antho-
logy" - 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 be-
ginning of that year "The Eighth De-
partment" ("Восьмой отдел") was
published - it was arcade adven-
ture, 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 dam-
pish, 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" - "Солдатики
v1.2" by Sizenko Alexander, how
ever that game differed from the
prototype with worse AI of oppo-
nents 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 al-
locate work of Studio Stall "Tower
Pod" - beautifully created conver-
sion of "Pad" from pC. Also that time
were released: "Aliens" by
Syndrome, "Honey World" by Alex
Art,

"Real Lines" by Saint - the next at-
tempt 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 collec-
tion 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 com-
ponent. "Deathmatch Arena" by
Lynx and "Stagger" by Fenomen we-
re pure ar cades. Also I was pleased
with greetings from childhood: Hor-
rorsoft released "Kool Eggs" -very
exact imitation of pocket electronic
arcade "I'll get you!" ("Ну, по-
годи!"), in which I played at soviet
times. By the way, a year be-
fore,

Paradox released "Rabbit Jazzy"
which was also based on the same
game, however, in my opinion, Hor-
rorsoft'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 pro-
ject of Mr.Gluk. "Yard Story " by
Orion has continued the traditions
of "The Star Heritage" ("Звездного
Наследия"), 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 compa-
rison with other representatives of
this genre.

At spring Triumph released arcade
races "Numb Cars" - unpreten-
tious, but tightening, and later
"Thimble" - imitation of Russian na-
tional street game, i.e. games in
thimbles. Siberian Group were dis-
tinguished by logic games, they cre-
ated "New Puzzle", also Studio Stall
released "Opener" ("Открывашкa")
(basically, it officially was a part of
appendix to Adventurer 13, therefo-
re 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 dis-
connected, Delirium Tremens
transferred work to a spinal de-
partment with their "Cars"
("Машинками") 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 en-
gine, player of music and sound ef-
fects, 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 nomi-
nation "32k Game Compo" on Chaos
Constructions'99, many games we-
re released at the party. So still in
99 on CC were released demoversi-
ons of "Curse of Xeen" by X-Master
and "Babylon 5" by Troll, and men-
tion ed above "Hamon IV" by Ascen-
dancy and "Stagger" by Fenomen
were submitted to public on Millen-
nium 1900.

The similar situation has taken pla-
ce in 2000: logic game "3D-Roost" by
Fenomen was completed, however it
was released only after MLN'1901.
Also at the given party were relea-
sed "Technodrom. Millennium edi-
tion" by Real Soft - in mln version
was added mouse support, new gfx,
new maps and new parts of ga-
meplay.

On CC'01 the following picture was
observed: as game compo had rigid
frameworks in 32 kb, so arcade sho-
oter "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 Deli-
rium Tremens - in this arcade shoo-
ter 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, Tri-
ebkraft and 4th Dimension released
Spectrum version of another one
arcade shooter - "Moorhuhn: First
Blood". The given version differed
way with it greater visualisa-
tion.

N-Discovery team developed a pac-
kage "IF Creator" for text games
creation, a-la Interactive Fiction
the book genre that started to col-
lect popularity in Russia. With the
help of this package N-Discovery
made "Adventure of your dream"
("Приключение твоей мечты"),
which showed the advantages of "IF
Creator".

Sam Style released "Battle Field"
step-by-step tactic for 1-4 Pla-
yers. This game intended, as a com-
ponent 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 op-
portunity of game with com-
puter.

In 2002 was another attempt to
start producing games on a com-
mercial basis. Perspective group
has declared a competition "Your
Game" ("Твоя Игра") which called to
participate in it all manufacturers
of Spectrum games. Organiozers of
this cоmpetition have appointed pri-
ze fund and determined time limit. At
the end of summer, Perspective Re-
leased the collection of demoversi-
ons of six games, which have parti-
cipated in competition. Winners we-
re chosen with method of absentia
votin g. Any interested person co-
uld vote, meanwhile games were
prepared to release, and money
from its selling were transferred to
prize fund. However, later on Vir-
tual TR-DOS was published a freewa-
re version of the "Your Game" col-
lection. First of all among other ga-
mes presented on that competition,
It is necessary to allocate the win-
ner -"Abe's Mission (escape) part
1" by Brothers. The given game was
the remake of "Oddworld: Abe's Od-
dysee". It has quite good converted
gfx , smoothness of moving and qu-
ests transferred from a source of
conversion, distinguished it from
other games, which took part in
competition. Also in the collection
were released "Mine" ("Шахта") by
SCG - arcade game for team playing.
It wa s offered you to equip with va-
rious stock (tools, fixtures, and
other different kinds of an explo-
sive) to kill your enemies. Enemies
also got similar equipment; therefo-
re process of game became fascina-
ting 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 absen-
ce of opportunity of independent de-
signing of robots and weaker AI of
your comp uter opponent. "The Cou-
rier 2: the Lost world" ("Курьер 2:
Потерянный мир") by Perspective
was the continuation of the first
parts of this serial which was pub-
lished in 1997. A genre of game
hasn't changed - it also was the ar-
cade puzzle , however engine was
advanced and improved. Real Soft
released on this competition compu-
ter realization of desktop game
"Manager" ("Мeнeджер") (the So-
viet variant of "Monopoly"). It was
written in 1996, however up to that
time was unreleasd. Game was main-
ly written in BASIC and had the in-
convenient interface, therefore in
my opinion Real Soft formally parti-
cipated in "Your Game" presenting
their early, not absolutely suc-
cessful development. "Super Mario
Bros" by Gogin was a playable demo
with four levels; in it there were ab-
sence 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 mul-
tiscreen engine with one frame ho-
rizontal scrolling, which made even
this demoversion visually attracti-
ve 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 undocumen-
ted 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 al-
ternative finals.

Ineradicable mania of Clown and Wi-
zard 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 com-
bination 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 9 lives, in my opinion, impos-
sible ;) Also that summer were rele-
ased already mentioned "Virtue. Da
dirty soul" by C-Jeff and "Doctor
Ouchithurts" ("Доктор Айболит") by
Transman, it was the conversion of
"Dr. Mario" from Nintendo.

Inspired by success of "Your
Game'02" ("Твоя Игра'02"),
Perspective Group have decided to
start publish and distribute last
game from Action team - "Dune: Im-
peria 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 me-
mory was 2 56 kilobyte (besides
normally game worked only on com-
puters with expansion of memory by
Pentagon standard). It is necessa-
ry 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 cha-
racteristics and quality of gamep-
lay 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 demo-
versions: Virtual Masters had bro-
ught demoversion of "Darkwing
Duck" - conversion of known plat-
form game and "EroTris" - very cru-
de tetris with erotic picture bet-
ween level s. Green Bit Group had
exposed pre-release of "Death
Valley" - it was a mixture of "Lem-
mings" and "Worms", they worked
about three years to complete it.
And "Fire and Ice" by N-Discovery
was submitted in compiled on par-
typlace blocks which shown diffe-
rent game situations, that however
hasn't prevented it to get first
place. The full version of this beauti-
ful puzzle, based on Namco game
was released much more lately, only
in December 30. Full versions expo-
sed 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 proto-
type with the big number of locati-
ons and variety of character's equ-
ipment. "Milas Kazmus" by Cyber-
Punks 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 aspi-
rations to make it 32 kb.

Right at the beginning of 2004 on Vir-
tual TR-DOS, appeared one more re-
lease from Action - "Empire 3",
again RTS but with elements of RPG.
As far as I can judge, the given game
was made for "Your Game'О3" com-
petition, but because of failur e of
given contest, wasn't released till
that moment. "Empire 3" has more
advanced engine and interface, ho-
wever, frankly speaking, stolen
from "Black Raven 1,2" gfx, the re-
quirement 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 me-
mory 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 90 on territory of ex-USSR
has appeared lots of so-called "hac-
kers" (it was name for both coders
and crackers) and they had no op-
portunity 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 mar-
ket of software began to flood with
plenty of foreign games re-
mixes.

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 le-
vels, saving/loading games condi-
tion), 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 ver-
sion of "Lemmings" in 1995 was glo-
bally rewritten by Rst7^CodeBus-
ters - The engine was accelerated
and also levels were repacked, it al-
lowed to store all levels in 128 kb.
Also in 96 Logros released "Lem-
mings 2", it contained 70 new
levels.

As I already wrote above, on a wave
of "dizzymania" have appeared hu-
ge 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 prog-
ramm 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-Disco-
very. Also "Laser Squad" was very
popular. That time various versions
of this game have appeared and so-
me editors of missions (the best of
them was made by Wredosoftware)
and all of us could observe occur-
rence 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. Ho-
wever, among other, it is possible
to allocate remix "Super Laser
Squad" by Chip&Chap, ZS+Vek, which
contained 7 new quality made le-
vels.

Also on the common background it is
possible to allocate some products,
not only adapted for TR-DOS, but al-
so totally rewritten (additional
music, gfx, bugfix, add program-
ming, final cut): "Nether Earth. Spe-
cial 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 Cy-
berPunks Unity.

In 96-97 X-Trade team conducted
development of General Sound - a
sound card for Speccy. It was rele-
ased 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. Origi-
nal projects initially used GS, as I
remember, were only "Headball" by
ZX-Masters and "Net Walk" by
Style, also digital sound was plan-
ned to be used in "The Black Raven
1,2" ("Черный Ворон 1,2"), besides f
or the second part of game all
samples were already made. Howe-
ver all advantages of sound of this
devices can be estimated in some
remixes of old games, that started
to be manufactured in 97. Undoub-
ted masterpieces were cult games
"Chase H. Q. 1" and "Target Rene-
gade" 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 "Barba-
rian" by Moroz, "Comando Tracer"
by Syndrome, " Dan Dare. Pilot of
the Future", "Krakout", "Lee En-
field" by Phantom Family, "Navy Mo-
ves 1" by Triumph, "Power Boat Si-
mulator", "Renegade", "Y.S.Capers
Scatz", "Zynaps" by Mike Blum,
"Xecutor" by Stinger, "Rex 1,2" by
CPG, "Batty" by Nova. A nd it was on-
ly 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 pro-
jects which have not seen the end
though if the full versions of these
games were completed, the majori-
ty of them would become mega-
hits.

When in middle 90's level of coding of
Spectrum people has achieved
rather high level, many people deci-
ded 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 underta-
ken by Cobra and Syndicate, howe-
ver they hadn't reached the realiza-
tion of enemies. But already in 1997
there was a sensation -Digital Reali-
ty released welldone demoversi on,
containing the first level of "Doom".
It had three video modes (two
chunks with attributes, and one mo-
nochrome in a small window, but
hi-rez), and also four kinds of wea-
pons, ammunition, first-aid sets,
the armour and two kinds of monst
ers, which were already possible to
kill. A little bit later Alone Coder re-
leased "Wolf 3D", however with
good engine (smooth movement in
big window, normally opening doors)
in that demoversion, despite of pre-
sence of several kinds of the w ea-
pon monsters were harmless, i.e.
they were realized, but remained
motionless and impregnable for we-
apon of the player. But the most
successful, in my opinion, realiza-
tion was the last demoversion (by
the way it was published in the ap-
pend ix to Adventurer#13) of game
"Citadel" by Stalker. The engine va-
ried 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 un-
finished, but very perspect ive pro-
ject -"ZX Duke Nukem", developed
by Volga Soft. There wasn't demo-
version of this game as such, howe-
ver this engine was possible to
explore in an article and sources,
which were, published in "Adventu-
rer #13", also it was used in tra
ckmo "Love Gun", which was writ-
ten by the same Volga Soft. On my
sight, it is one of the fastest
(alongside with "Awaken") 3D engine
on Spectrum, allowing to make real-
ly fast hi-rez 3D games. For an
example it is possible to tell, that if
t his technology were applied in ga-
mes such as "Driller" or "Total Ec-
lipse" they would work in 5-6 times
faster.

In 1996 electronic magazine
"Spectrofon" published demover-
sion of cult RTS "Dune 2", this first
conversion was made by Pe-
restroika, certainly attempt to re-
alize 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 compe-
tition up to very h igh level. As I
known Copper Feet has refused to
finish "BW2" by reasons of finan-
cials, however apparently from fi-
nal demoversion published in 2000
this game should have many advan-
tages, new engine and refreshed
gfx. Also there could be fly ing units,
expanded list of spells and more ad-
vanced game play. Among un-
completed, but promised projects
in genre of RTS it is possible to note
"Operation 'Oil'" by Alexoft and Ber-
seker, and "Jackals" by The Mad Ma-
ilmen League both these ga mes had
more integrated sprites of units
and structures, and also some addi-
tional features which favourably
distinguished them from "BW1".

Some releases of step-by-step
strategies also were planned. Cu-
beckin Vitaliy tried to transfer
"Civilization", and demoversion,
not differed from original. Phantom
family released demoversion of ve-
ry popular in circles of strategy
fans game "Master of Orion", ho-
wever, because of its incomplete-
ness 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. "Mecha-
nic Wars" by Green Fort was writ-
ten under influence of "Heroes of
Might and Magic", but it had futuris-
tic 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 se-
cond demoversion this group left Sp
ectrum and renamed in Team Power
Amiga.

If speech has gone to Amiga it is ne-
cessary to recollect one megahit of
this platform - "Walker". Alien Fac-
tory was engaged to transfer this
game during four years and have
achieved dazzling successes. Final