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

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.

So, New Year’s resolutions for 2012? Easy…make (at least) three games. 🙂 …possibly a new Spectrum game too.

So stick around and visit once in a while – I’m sure I’ll have new things to offer. And please do send me a mail if you like what I’m doing.

For now I would like to wish a Happy New Year to all my visitors. May you have a great year full of good experiences.

Tardis Remakes on Facebook

I’ve finally found the time to a bit of work I’ve wanted to for a while – adding videos of all my games, and making a Facebook page for them too.

So now there’s a video on each game’s page on this site, but you can also watch them on my YouTube channel.

You can also read short descriptions of the games and watch the videos on the Facebook page which is found here.

Check it out and leave a comment about the game you like.
…and remember to ‘like‘ it too. 😉

Tardis Remakes on Facebook.

Tardis Remakes on Facebook.

Dreams, Delays and Dingos

Time flies and it takes long between releases because I seem to start more games than I can manage, and then put them on hold when they’re almost done. This year I’ve been working on my Circular Invaders Game but the guy who helped me fine-tune the gameplay suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth so I put that on hold temporarily.

Then I resumed work on X-Quest 2, which is basically done now but only needs new graphics, and I’d found an artist who seemed really good, but he only delivered one frame and now he’s stopped answering my mails. Not good – especially after just being mentioned in issue 93 of Retro Gamer Magazine. Oh well, it’ll get done…only with a delay.

Before them there is a string of other unfinished remakes, but I’ll get to them in time. Slowly, perhaps, but I’ll get to them. I’m especially looking forward to getting back to work on Black Widow and Psycho Pigs UXB, but I can only work effectively on one game at the time.

All these WIP’s, and the stress I’m putting myself under just by thinking about them, is probably the reason I woke up this morning – stressed over some unfinished tank game (no, I’m not working on any tank games, so who knows why :)). That’s the third morning in a row that I’ve woken up with a dream like that. Can you see why I would really like to finish all my unfinished WIP’s? 😀

Of course, all these delays frustrates me and I decided to put that frustration to good use and channel all that energy into making a new game (typical…see how easy it happens? 😉 ) so I started working on something I’ve wanted to do for almost 30 years – making a new ZX Spectrum game.

And that was the birth of Dingo – a “lost Ultimate game”. I’ve already remade this arcade game back in 2008 for Windows and in 2011 for Mac, but now I’m remaking it again in z80 assembler for the ZX Spectrum. It only took me about a month to make the game and I was lucky enough to atract the attention of Mark R. Jones – who used to work for Imagine and Ocean back in the 80’s – and he has done all the stunning new graphics for the game. The game is currently finished, playable and works as it should, and according to Mark its “stupidly addictive” so I must have done something right. 😀

That being said, the game could still use a bit of spit and polish. I’m currently working on improving the sprite routines (3rd day in a row, argh) and it also needs music and better sound effects, but the plan is to have it completely finished and presented at the retro event, Replay, in Blackpool in November.

You can read more about the development of the game here, and below is a picture of the game.

The Spectrum version of Dingo

The Spectrum version of Dingo

Problems downloading games?…not anymore.

I just had a mail yesterday from a guy who couldn’t download any of my games. That was very unfortunate – especially since the problem has probably been there for 3 weeks (I wonder why I didn’t hear about it earlier?)

The reason this happened is probably because my webhost had problems 3 weeks ago, due to extremely heavy rain which basically drowned their server room. All the surviving servers were moved manually to another hostingcenter and many websites were restored from backup – including mine, but appearantly they’d not restored folder permissions accurately, so that affected the script that handles downloads from the site.

It’s working again now and the games are just waiting to be downloaded. 😉 Sorry for any inconvenience.