Peter Jackson managed to bring the Lord of the Rings trilogy successfully to the big screen, but this achievement pales when put next to what is going on here. It's niche, but it's mesmeric.

Jealous , wish I d been there for that. New old stock floppies were they? A major result Colin , plus the laptop .. you did alright there ..

I am sooo glad I wasn't aware of this . Glad to hear it was run by people who offered it at sentimental prices and not eBay prices.

Oh man, I had every Micro User from issue 1 to the last. They ended up in a skip when I moved about 10 years ago- nobody wanted them back then. 😢

Very nice. I would love to find something like that here.

How cool! That kind of thing is right up my street, shame I'm so far away! I love your stack of mags, there's a lot of happy reading in there! ...maybe some type-in videos coming? ;)

Thanks for the series. I love the chunky look of this game but it is a little clunky. I was almost tempted to see if I could change the timing to be based on elapsed time rather than interpreter cycles and boost the clock speed under emulation. Purists won't like this, but what I am going to do is recreate it in Javascript/Canvas and then tweak it for smoother gameplay. First step see if I can perfectly recreate the teletext look in a webpage, or as close as possible with non-integer scaling.

I actually bought that Cascade 50 game tape mail order from an Ad in PCN or A&B Computing can't remember. At 13 years old and even with limited gaming experience up to that time even I recall the rock bottom disappointment I felt loading in game after game of complete crap. I think I gave up before reaching their attempted PAC man game shown here. It doesn't look quite as bad as the stuff on the rest of the tape. I must have given up before getting to that one. Great vid Colin.

"Turns off the undercarriage"? I think you mean "Raises the undercarriage", apart from that it's a good video!

Wow I remember playing Maze Eater on the Cascade Cassette 50. I used to load up the game and run the list so I could amend the layout of the maze. In fact, I used to mess around with most of the games on Cassette 50 in this way. I think I had more fun doing that than actually playing the games.

A very smart technique indeed. What if you scan the lines 2 by 2 ? That way you don't need to draw from the bottom. You just need to draw from the top of the next line. That would save some CPU cycles I believe, possibly quite a lot. I've only thought that in a few seconds, I don't know if it would really work though.

I was searching for this, thank you!

Hello!

Best games of this era; Elite, then Lords Of Midnight... then maybe something like Thrust or Ghosts N Goblins

Thanks for the great video Colin! Gimpo reminds me a bit of the asymmetric Pacman game released with the Wii-U - nice concept. Tried Pucman: awesome! You are right, this plays exactly as expected, if you can overlook the graphics (but even there, palette switches: easy win for me). Agree with you on the pauses in Poc-Man - otherwise solid, but that is a deal breaker for me. Bio-Chip is so clever mechanically and graphically. Snacker is beautiful and smooth, with the jingles and presentation feeling really arcade like, and I agree, owning this in the day would have felt amazing. Snapper was 'my pacman' as a kid and a great game. Guessed a trickysoft coup was in the offing for first spot! Although looks thoroughly well deserved. By the way, I hugely approve of 'entering the ghost house'. One of my loves/fascinations from games I played as a child was entering areas I wasn't supposed to or maybe the designer hadn't intended (could probably be the topic for a video itself).

37:47 those little red guys in Alien Intruders look like right party animals😂 Good old Richard(Trickysoft) at in the tope tier once again and rightly so. I haven't watched the Centepede one yet but I'm sure he'll top that one aswell. I was spoiled growing up when it came to Space Invaders as we had TI Invaders on the TI99 which I still consider THE very best home version of Space Invaders. Great vid once again Colin, not sure how I missed these, my feed must've been rammed when you released them.

Haven't heard the name Fine Fare for a long time

Hi Colin! I really enjoyed this. I believe Pac 2000 was my second attempt at programming a game. Ranked number 30 😁👍

This was excellent Colin. So far you've picked my favourite games - invaders, centipede, pacman. Once again it's great to see a real progression and I found myself really wanting to have a crack at those later ones. Particularly number 1, wow. This must be such a lot of work to put together but well worthwhile - fascinating stuff.

Just started watching, but its got to be Snapper at no1 surely? Right lets see how right i am... 😂

Another demonstration of your love for the machine and it's games, I had never seen most of these versions and some are amazing in their own ways.

Thoroughly enjoying this series, thanks for all the hard work! I hope you'll sometimes give yourself an easier time with some less frequently made games :)

Only the mighty Colin would be able to describe and sort 30-odd slightly different Pacmen! I salute you sir

Thank you for another most excellent round-up. I'm really enjoying this series. Must have taken ages to put together. If you go into the BASIC listing of Mechanic Mike and increase the energy to 999 it becomes doable though still a challenge. However, just as in Munchman, when you do finish the level nothing happens! You are left trapped in the maze forever.

Thanks Colin this was a blast from the past for me. I loved how you pronounced raore😊

You had me checking out my BBC games archive, and I was pleased to find I have a copy of Snacker. Well recommended - and well said!

Great video once again. Thanks for taking the time to play and rank these games.

Very good video and thanks for the hard work it took to edit this thing together.

Richard's version should have been number 1 and acornsoft's version number 2. Richard's version is almost like having an arcade machine in your home on freeplay. Though, to be fair, I don't think Richard could have produced such awesome ports in the early 80s. Today, he has access to disassembly of the arcade code. He has access to high quality videos of the full play-through of games. He has musicians telling him if the key of sound is off. He has access to 40 years of coding experience. He is able to code on a PC and compile instantly. When I was a kid, up until today, what I want in an arcade port is authenticity.

20:07 You have to wonder if they ever read the War of the Worlds book. The machines all landed on the ground and sat idle for a day or so as the townspeople came out to see what all the hubbub was about. They did not come down from out of the sky like that.

I don't think games being named and modeled after an arcade cabinet game should be changed in any way unless technical reasons force the change. Like how 2600 invaders uses 36 invaders instead of 55 due to the lower resolution and other limitations on the 2600 at the time (I'm pretty sure there has been an 11x5 invader clone for the 2600 since). I'm not against people adding their own twist to a game, but it just shouldn't be called that game anymore.

The Acornsoft mode 7 Space Invaders looks really stylish, I’ll have to give it a go. I’ll also have to type in and study OxC0DEs 10 liner, absolutely incredible.

🎉 very nice🎉

Only Colin Hoad can compare Pacman to the central plotline to Les Miserables. Nice!

Great video, really enjoyed it, going watch the space invaders one now. Thanks for putting these videos together.

I really think you should disqualify 10 line basic compos and frankly, all basic entries. The 10 line games especially are all about getting something that will run, not creating a good game.

Wonderful!! This must have taken you AGES to do but it was so worth it! I loved it even though I was wrong (I fully expected Snapper to be at the top but no complaints) ....now, have a nice rest, before working on the next :)

As usual Colin, a very polished and well explained video. You are rapidly becoming a master at this, or perhaps I should say you are now a master at this. At any rate, I too played Snapper as my first go and never played the Tricky version until we had it in the HSC. It's truly amazing and richly deserves #1 on you list. I've played very few of these version but I have to say, having typed in many magazine games, sometimes they can be truly horrible. Great job once again Colin...... :-)

16:28 That is a feature of the arcade version of Centipede. The snail poisons the mushrooms it touches and causes the centipede to rapidly go straight down into the area your ship is in.

I played many, many hours of original Snapper. Great game!

i absolutely love the look of late era bbc games, things like 5 on the list and nevryon look absolutely beautiful!

great video, really enjoyed it :)

Loved Snapper on my Electron :-)

Really enjoyed this round up, have played most of these but as always there's a few I've never seen Hunger Alley is quite a refreshing take. I do like wheb a clone makes an effort to differentiate. Beebmunch I've played a fair bit... Determination😬😄 Pucman looke really good! 3D Munchy I discovered myself not too long ago and really enjoy it. Similarish to the brilliant Crystal Castles, as is 3D Dotty tbh, must try that one as it looks fun. Snapman, love that green line, gives it a cool Tron style😎 Snacker I've played a fair bit of aswell, but only in recent times, brilliant game! It had to be Richard's Pacman at the too, absolutely incredible work! Perfect!

Snapper only made number 2?! The shock made me drop my monocle! (Admittedly I’d never heard of number 1 😁). Oh, and great work as usual.

Can't wait for "Defender" clone list. There was some crackers on the Beeb.

This series is fast becoming my favourite. I love retro computer history and you're very good at explaining it.

The hedgedog in killapede is achally a beetle (sorry for my bad grammar)

Thanks for the video Colin! I think 'Bug Blaster' was the version I had back in the day, which I quite enjoyed. I also didn't know that Watford Electronics made any games - theirs was quite an impressive version! Looking forward to your next entry in the series!

My mind due to age, is a little bit hazy. But.. If anyone knows, it will be people watching this video 😁. I recall a game being released on a multi platform "Flexi Disc" on a gaming magazine, where you would record your given track and "Hopefully" listen to your Beeb swallow up the bits in real audio terms. I was so excited that a Beeb version had been included! pretty sure the game was pants, but... Am I dreaming or was this a real thing and, WTF was the game. 🙃