Dingo — Tardis.dk Remakes

Oh dear, another year…

January 1, 2025 By Sokurah

First of all: Happy New Year to everyone still visiting 🥳🎉🥂 You’re a hopeful bunch. I hope I don’t disappoint you … another year 😜

The news is, however, that not much progress has been made since I posted last, exactly a year ago 😢

The Spectrum Next project that I was working on a year ago – and had 75% (ish) completed – hasn’t progressed any further. Well, perhaps a little, but I haven’t worked on it since mid-January (2024), so it’s can’t be much. I still intend to finish it though … but apparently I need a bit more time, lol. Hopefully it won’t be another year before I update this damn thing again, haha.

Me being me, I have started several other projects in 2024 … and not finished those either (well, except for one). I’m turning into another Mini0n (only few [RR] people will understand that reference). But because of the change in my job – which I mentioned in my last post – I don’t spend so much time on games development as I’ve done before … but I still love it and hope to be a bit more productive in 2025.

The one project I haven’t abandoned (yet, lol), is a small project that I started about 2 weeks ago, so it’s still early days on that one. It won’t be a “mega-game” and it will definitely not be popular with an IP-troll in the industry (so it can’t be sold), but I’m mostly making it to satisfy a personal itch, and so far I’m having fun with it. Stay tuned.

Now, the only thing I can claim to have finished in 2024, is an update to Dingo – my Spectrum game from 2011 (that also recieved an update in 2016). In this case I was contacted my Allan Turvey and asked if I wanted to re-relelase an updated version of it, for inclusion into his latest Midnight Brew Collection of games. That is an honor, as Alan is a solid and very capable coder with a sense for quality and what it takes to make a good game. So Dingo was updated and the new version (1.5) is now a 128K version that adds a bunch of AY music to it. It will still run on a 48K machine though, just without the new music.

For now this updated version is exclusive to the Midnight Brew Collection 2024 and can only be obtained by buying that, but that will also get you 4 other fantastic games, so it’s a great purchase indeed.

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

Dingo v1.3 released for download.

January 17, 2016 By Sokurah

I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t made the improved version of Dingo for the Spectrum available for download yet, and as I’ve recently ceased communication with the artist (again) I thought it was a good time to put it online.

The changes in the 2015 version (version 1.3) are;

A much improved control method. This was the bug-bear for many people with the original release, but it’s now MUCH better.
Enemy pre-spawn warning – so you can see where the Dingos are about to appear and move out the way.
Bonus fruit stays on screen – It was easy to forget which was the bonus fruit during the game so the current bonus fruit is now displayed in the status area.
A new loading screen.
A couple of bugfixes.

Grab it – it’s free. Play it using an emulator or make your own cassettes and play as much as your heart desires. Just click the picture and click the download icon on the gamepage.

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

So, the updated version of Dingo was released.

October 29, 2015 By Sokurah

At one point over the summer Mark R. Jones, who did the graphics for the Spectrum version of Dingo, asked me if I was interrested in re-releasing it as there seemed to be a demand for it.

I said “Okay, but we shouldn’t just release the same version as before – I want to tweak it first“. And then I did just that over the summer. The primary thing was a desire to improve the control method – which I did, but there are a few other changes too.

The changes in the 2015 version (version 1.3) are;

Much improved control method. This was the bug-bear for many people with the original release, but it’s now MUCH better.
Enemy pre-spawn warning – so you can see where the Dingos are about to appear and move out the way.
Bonus fruit stays on screen – It was easy to forget which was the bonus fruit during the game so the current bonus fruit is now displayed in the status area.
A new loading screen.
A couple of bugfixes.

Mark handled the duplication of the cassettes (in 3 different versions) and made a total of 52 copies. There are 26 double jewel cases, 21 clam cases & 5 double jewel ‘line drawing’ inlays. All of them numbered and signed by Mark.

Mark also arranged with Rob Buckley to have him produce a small Dingo tribute statue, so thanks to him EVERYONE who buys one will then be entered into a raffle once all the copies have been sold. Your name is entered for each copy you buy (so if you buy 2 copies your name is in the raffle twice). The person who’s name gets selected will then win the ‘Dingo’ tribute pictured below – once all the copies have been sold.

The updated version will also be put online as a free download once all the physical copies have been sold.

At the time of writing most copies are allready gone and there are only 10 double cases left. Write to Mark to buy your copy if you’re interrested in one. There won’t be produced any more.

Here’s a few pictures Mark took while duplicating the cassettes. Also pictured at the bottom is Rob Buckley’s Tribute sculpture.

The Clam Case version.

The double jewel cases.

The double jewel ‘line drawing’ versions.

All of them.

Rob Buckley’s Dingo tribute.

Rob Buckley’s Dingo tribute.

Rob Buckley’s Dingo tribute.

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

That was the year that was, goodbye 2011, hello 2012.

December 30, 2011 By Sokurah

The year 2011 is almost over and it’s time to look at what happened during the course of it.

Around this time last year I decided that my only (game related) New Year’s resolution would be to make three games in 2011, and now – one year later – I have to admit that I didn’t manage it…not really anyway. I didn’t make any new PC games this past year (how the hell did that happen?), but I did port 9 of my PC games to the Mac OSX platform, so hopefully that makes up for it.

Around november I began working on a new Christmas game (Buggerman: The Xmass Heist) – which would be my third year in a row doing that – but not only have I spent less time programming the last two months than I expected, I’ve also run into problems coding it which has unfortunately delayed it past Christmas. Oh well. I think I’ve figured those things out now and I expect it to be finished in January.

I did make one new game this year, though. After wanting to make a ZX Spectrum game for more than 25 years I finally decided to do it and I chose to make a Spectrum version of the arcadegame Dingo by A.C.G. (aka. Ultimate Play The Game). Not having touched z80 assembler language for more than 20 years I threw myself into it and made progress in no time, which caught the attention of Mark R. Jones who used to work for Ocean & Imagine Software back in the late 80’s, and he offered to help out with with the graphics. And it ended up looking very nice too. 🙂

The game was finished in time for the early November Replay Expo in Blackpool – which we decided would be the release of the game – and I went over there to promote the game and to meet Mark for the first time. We sold a very limited run of the game on cassette – all numbered and signed by the both of us, and the game has been recieved fantastically well and gotten almost only good reviews (like, here, here, here & here).

I’ve been featured a couple of times in Retro Gamer Magazine this year too. In February (I think), my remake of Star Castle was “Remake of the Month” (my second game to earn that title – the first was Omega Race 2009). Later in the year my upcoming remake of X-Quest 2 was mentioned, but that was delayed and I hope to finish it in 2012 instead. Finally Dingo was featured in a two-page making-of/interview feature in their November issue. Dingo was also mentioned in GamesTM Magazine.