Topic: General news

Thanks to flydream for sending details of Ghost Castles, a new ZX arcade game from Weird Science Software (who don't appear to be listed in Demotopia, oddly). What makes this game a little bit special is that it's available in an extended ROM version, with extra levels and stuff. Going by the guestbook on the WSS page it's had some good responses, so may well be worth at least downloading, or even paying for one of the release packages available (you can get it on Cassette or ROM, with optional G-Tech joystick interface).
Worth a look. Go on.

After a break of - gulp - 9 years away from the scene (well, everyone deserves a holiday!) I'm back with my first new project since British Battletracker... this time around I'm looking for between 1 and 3 quality AY tracks for use as in-game music in a new ZX puzzle game.

This year's Antique Toy competition has now opened for entries. Now in its third year, the online contest is open to Spectrum artists and musicians, in three categories for music (original, oldschool and cover) and one for graphics. Submissions are accepted until the 20th of July - read on for the full rules.

Plans have been unveiled for the sixth Retrovision event, to be held on 25-26 February 2006 in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, UK. The show will cover a host of machines from the ZX81 to the latest console and everything in between, plus a live performance on the Saturday night from C64 tribute band Stuck In D'80s.

Just a quick one to let everyone know that DACK & ZER0 are back on the scene!
We have a new website at www.cglproductions.co.uk and it's based around the demo scenes and our music. Go take a look. Leave a few comments on the message board, too. ZER0 is adding a link to this site at this very moment!

Going by the results of the last poll, it seems that most people are interested in Hardware mods for the ZX Spectrum. It makes sense, as it's these mods that keep the real ZX kinda useable without resorting to just emulation (let's face it, tape-loading is a biatch). Demoscene and Games are the next most popular areas (at least regarding polls) - personally I'm not much of a games man, with the exception of a few classics, tho' demoscene is what this site is mainly about.

So on to the next poll: Hardware Projects. Ok, it's a fairly varied subject, but I thought it would be interesting to see what kinda things people really want from hardware-related projects. It's tricky to pick one thing - personally I would love to have some ZX hardware running in a PC - damn, fit a ZX onto a PCI card and to hell with emulation, that's what I say. But then, I also want LaesQ to complete my DivIDE board (currently the only CompactFlash device I have is my CF-reader - I wanna fill it with ZX stuff). Hmm.

Thanks to Shaun Bebbington of Retro Bytes PR for forwarding a press release from Retro-Soft, the group (that I think I haven't mentioned here before *cough*) whose aim is to develop and re-release games software on a variety of "retro" platforms. And the ZX (which isn't retro, dammit).
Retro-Soft, a division of Alten8, have signed up Paul Griffiths to be a lead coder. In case you didn't know (or didn't click the link), he's the guy behind classics such as Dominion, Steg, and the quality Shark (which some company sent me on tape years ago for no apparent reason). Many of his games are up for re-release, tho' I guess Codemasters will keep some locked in a box away from the fans, coz they're nice like that.
I'm gonna cut-n-paste the press-release below, as I can't upload it to the server from work. But hey, these things happen. Click-on...

The Tipshop, the Speccy community's definitive site for gaming hints, has completed its latest monthly update, and quite a substantial one it is too. 50 RZX walkthroughs added this time, along with more maps and pokes than you can count (well, more than I can be bothered to count, anyway...).

It is incredible how a buzzer of a ZX 48K could make a new kind of music...

Jim Grimwood has completed an extensive update to the online Spectrum magazine index SPOT*On. All issues of the database's eight core titles - Crash, Micro Adventurer, Sinclair Answers, Sinclair Programs, Sinclair User, Your Spectrum, Your Sinclair, ZX Computing - have been indexed, 437 issues in all, along with 95 miscellaneous multi-format magazines, bringing the database to a grand total of over 43,000 entries.