News — Tardis.dk Remakes

Dingo for the ZX Spectrum released.

November 9, 2011 By Sokurah

I’m happy to announce that my Spectrum version of Dingo is now completely…complete, and has been released.

The game ”premiered” at the REPLAY EXPO in Blackpool, on november 5th 2011.

For this special occation we produced 60 physical cassette copies which we demoed and sold at cost from The Attic Bug stall at the Expo. The cassettes were all signed by the artist and me, and 50 of them were also numbered while the remaining 10 that were not numbered were made to be given away for free.

Most cassettes were sold at the event but the few unsold copies have all found new owners and there won’t be any more. However, the day after the Expo the game was release as a free download – including all the highres artwork, so if you wish you can make your own.

Go here to read more about the game and to download it.

The two size of cassettes that were sold at the Replay Expo.

The two sizes of cassettes that were sold at the Replay Expo.

Filed Under: News, Remakes Tagged With: Assembler, Dingo, Spectrum

Dingo for the ZX Spectrum: finished.

October 21, 2011 By Sokurah

Yay, I just finished my ZX Spectrum remake of Dingo today.

In a fun coincidence it’s also the 21st October today, which means that it’s been exactly 3 months since I started working on this game. That wasn’t planned at all. In fact the game was fully playable after the first month and I expected it to be done a lot earlier, but I’ve spent the two latest months optimising and polishing it, so there’s no doubt it’s now better presented and smoother than it was back then. A better game – time well spent, then. 😉

So this morning I just sent the final version to Mark R. Jones, my artist and musician, who will have the “fun” task of duplicating all the physical copies to be used at this years REPLAY Expo.

There will be a limited run of physical copies on cassette at the REPLAY Expo – all numbered and signed by Mark and me, some to be given away and some to sold at cost price, but it will be made available for free as an emulator download here and at World Of Spectrum, but not until just after the expo.

I hope to be present at the expo myself – I’ve bought a ticket anyway, but I’m having knee surgery just 10 days earlier, so I can’t say for sure if I’m up for it by then, but if you see a guy on crutches that might be me. 🙂

Loadingscreen

In-game screen

Preparing physical copies for the REPLAY Expo.

Filed Under: News, Remakes Tagged With: Dingo, Spectrum

Sincerest form of flattery and all that…

August 29, 2011 By Sokurah

It’s a bit funny, but just the other day I found another remake of Rip-Off and I didn’t know what to think when I saw it…it looked almost exactly like my own remake of the game.

Some dude has remade the game – but not the arcade version, he’s remade MY version. He didn’t do his own take on the game … just replicated my version very closely (although not entirely). Okay, he HAS done a different version too – Rip-Off Evolved, which is Rip-Off given the Geometry Wars treatment. I haven’t tried that one though…I just looks too busy from the screenshots and I’m probably too much of a purist to accept it.

Anyway, when I first found the YouTube video of his version I had to watch it several times to see if this really was a new game, or some sort of hacked version of my own game, or something that interpreted my code. It’s that close to my version, and considering he’s even using the same backdrop, same sounds and the music that I had custom made for it, too, I think you can understand why I didn’t really know what I was watching.

Okay, let’s make a few comparisons. First of the menu then of the options screen.

This is the menu from my version. Click to view larger version.

This is the menu from his version. Click to view larger version.

Pretty close, wouldn’t you say? Now, let’s have a comparison between my options menu and his.

This is the options menu from my version. Click to view larger version.

This is the options menu from his version. Click to view larger version.

The funny thing – the antialias, flicker and colour options doesn’t even work in his version. LOL (from the YouTube videos I found they seem to work in the ‘Evolved’ version, though). But apart from that the biggest difference between the games, on the surface, seems to be that I used a nice bitmapped logo and he’s done the logo in vector lettering. And just to make matters even more confusing, he’s even used my logo in some of the betaversions I found on YouTube.

Although I didn’t really know what to think when I first saw it, I’ve decided that “honoured” is probably the be best term for it. Imagine that – people remaking my games. Haha. I think what I’m feeling must be pretty close to what the original authors must feel when they see our remakes – damn freaked out. 😀

It does say “…and we’ve tried to replicate the game to as close as possible to the reference material (found at http://tardis.dk)” on his website though, so he does link to my site – his inspiration. LOL. I wish he would’ve mailed me earlier so I wouldn’t be so … confuzzled … when I found it. 😉

So, that’s like some sort of metaremake, a rip off of a rip off of Rip Off called Rip Off too. Unchecked it could cause the universe to end (thanks Bob). 😉

Filed Under: News, Rant, Reviews Tagged With: Rip Off

Progress report: X-Quest 2

June 22, 2011 By Sokurah

Again it’s been ages since my last update…well, just under two months to be precise (However, I usually post updates to Twitter several times a week, so you might consider following me if you want updates more often).

I may have been very quiet but most of that time I’ve been steadily working on my remake of the old DOS game X-Quest 2 (which again is a remake of an old Mac game called Crystal Quest). I started this remake in december 2007 so it’s been a work in progress for about 3½ years by now (…and man, I’d really like to see it finished soon). 😉

Obviously I haven’t been working at it constantly and I’ve done many other games in the meantime (and a lot of blank staring at the screen instead of actually working on it when I had the time), but now the programming is almost completed and the game will hopefully be released in the near future.

I have a guy who’s agreed to make some original music for it, that I’ll be contacting very soon about it, and because it’s currently re-using the graphics from the original game, I’ve found an artist who has agreed to work on new graphics for it, so hopefully the game will look and sound fantastic, when it’s done. I can’t wait to see the finished game, myself.