7 More Hidden ZX Spectrum Games You Didn't Want

[@ValChronification]

Hi there, i'm Paul Howard, creator of Amoeba and friend of Raphael cecco of Stormlord fame. You absolutely failed to understand the message, nuance, and yes gamepay of my magnum opus. My game was always ahead of its time, and to see this is still true in 2024 just makes me roar with laughter (AT not WITH you). Have a great day.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

"Knowing Ameoba, Knowing You with Paul Howard", a hard hitting, in depth documentary about the wizard behind the veil. Foreword by Raphael Cecco.

[@ValChronification]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum "While not achieving either the critical nor commercial success of my own canon of works, Paul's game has something else, something hard to pin down, but tangible, a little like the titular Amoeba itself." - *Raffaele Cecco (from Foreword)

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

@ValChronification haha, I'm glad! It's always nice to see a dev pop along to a video and get the tone of my grumpy miserable northern shtick

[@ValChronification]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum oh i'm not that guy at all really just doing some fictional lore xD haha!

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

@@ValChronification hahaha, you twat. I like it.

[@WojciechPietrzok]

Amoeba is a clear winner here! It has everything - tight controls, great sound design, crisp graphics, thrilling gamaplay, and what is maybe even more important, no disk access and memory work!

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Couldn't agree more!

[@steve16384]

And barely any CPU work!

[@ValChronification]

Thankyou! (from Paul Howard)

[@Orosian5]

I wonder if I'm the only one who is wondering if the optimal strategy would be to get closer to the amoebas due to the travel time of the shots?

[@RichardTroupe]

This video was worth it for the cat cradling at the end. 😂

[@quentinpsausages]

🤣 Love the "It literally doesn't matter" approach to review scores

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I mean, it really doesn't does it? Hahaha

[@quentinpsausages]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum The real review score was the friends we made along the way

[@Justin-TPG]

Do you mind? This is serious work!

[@Formula_Zero_EX]

2:48 “IT’S IN CROATIAN?!”

[@AndyHewco]

Yes love this format. But would like more input from the cat next time. What score did they give it?

[@nonautomaton6230]

The way Mrs Cat looks at you... Such love!

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

That's MR. Cat, and yes, he is 100% in love and obsessed with me. Spends most days just staring into my face.

[@letsdiscussitoversometea8479]

Your cat - ohh, he's got love in his eyes! 😻 The thing I find with these sorts of games (they're not "cr*p" games - they're what i call "not much" games (as in - not much effort went into programming them and editing them properly)), is that you need to load them from cassette and play them for a considerable amount of time to be able to appreciate their foibles. A quick 5 minute play on an emulator is never going to relive the amazing experience of "doing it properly". I once had an emulator on which I first played Dynamite Dan, and it seemed absolute rubbish! Yet on the original hardware, it's a different matter altogether. An emulator will never replicate the experiences in a real way.

[@Sudakov]

In case anyone is interested, here are the phrases that are spoken in the game Apage Satanas: Side by side. Sire? At your service. Let us not dishonor our sire. See you in hell. Pray. Forgive them, Lord. Come to me, unfortunate ones! Blood for blood!

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I don't suppose you have any idea what the instructions say? I'm convinced I was missing something

[@Sudakov]

​@@RoseTintedSpectrum Well, I didn't, but then I transcribed almost all the informational text from the screen and translated it into English. Here you go, but it doesn't make the game much more meaningful (the author himself admits it!). Hi everyone! ============ Welcome to the world of pesky demons, always in a hurry gods, dirty and exhausted angels, half-drunk and slow Lucifer, boring and monotonous fantasies, banal paradoxes and missions that are clear only to the author of this outrage, and even then not completely. Nevertheless, meet the game! A little bit of lyrics: ======================= Your friend Lucifer is very absent-minded (and what would you be like living in such a shack?) and is very busy with household chores. From time to time he remembers his youth, his Spectrum computer, his friends, acquaintances and not so acquaintances. The names of some groups and nicknames of people, who left their mark in the annals of this miracle-machine, flash in his foggy brain. And, abandoning his Luciferian affairs, he rushes to the transmitter to send greetings to those who remained and to honor the memory of those who left. Being Lucifer's friend and remembering that he himself spent a lot of time sitting at Speccy (or maybe for selfish reasons?), the angel decides to help his friend in this difficult task and becomes Lucifer's guardian angel. So, Yahweh must be dodged. It is not recommended to bomb Lucifer's house (as well as him). Throwing lightning at a serviceable infonet booth is not worth it. Points are awarded for sending Lucifer a message, for destroying demons (inverted cross and skull) and expelling demons from the infonet booth.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

This is perfect, I will absolutely have to (remember to) read this out in Episode B of Dumpster Diving for anyone that was curious. What a bizarre collection of words!

[@Sudakov]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum Great, I'll be waiting!

[@TimberwolfK]

I boggle that I used to spend entire WEEKENDS watching early '90s Cartoon Network, I thought I had seen every shonky mid-'60s to early-'70s Hanna-Barbera cartoon it was possible to see, even the really cack stuff like Jonny Quest and Great Gazoo-era Flintstones, and yet STILL new ones come tumbling out of the timeline to exist and have those weirdly gluey monochrome Spectrum games made about them.

[@GenerationPixel]

Amoeba 1995? 1995! I'm gobsmacked! At least the Russian game looked and sounded interesting 😂

[@uttridge]

My other cat thinks that Amoeba is crying out for conversation or update to a modern system. Maybe a PS5 text adventure?

[@em00k]

Enjoyed this a lot! Your experience is so familiar, picking random Spectrum games will always lead you to these type of games which leave you head scratching.

[@TomMannCenturia]

Jamie Grillo (Agent Blue) has done a good few decent games. I think your little Skip Shuffle has just shown how widespread the Speccy was. Soviet, Spanish, Portuguese, Croatian to name but several.

[@cygil1]

Also some poor ones, like "Stripping Penelope. He does like his softcore pawn.

[@tonyp3824]

Great video as aways mate, they always make my day. Thank you.

[@geoffneil5073]

Great video, I think the conclusion is that two out of seven random Spectrum games are good :). I really like the format as well.

[@hazy33]

I think the flickery Eussian (?) game is using a multi coloured technique that the emulator can't handle properly hence the migraine inducing display. Presumably on a real speccy it'd match with a telly's refresh rate and come out all lovely (technical term).

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Yes! A patron pointed this out, first time I've come across it!

[@blatherskite3009]

Yep, it was called "Gigascreen" and it involved flickering between 2 different colours on alternate frames to create the impression of extra colours in-between the colours that the Speccy could display, i..e. red/yellow=orange. It worked (ish) on a CRT screen because there was some "persistence" to the images that helped the colours blend, but not so much on a modern fast-refresh screen where it just becomes a flicker-fest, more likely to give you a fit than make you say "Ooh, I see colours that a Speccy shouldn't be able to do!"

[@cygil1]

@@blatherskite3009 Hmm... Basic Gigascreen emulation doesn't sound too difficult to hack into fuse, maybe time for a patch? Simply averaging pixel values between every pair of two fields should do it.

[@gwishart]

​​@@cygil1some Spectrum emulators already support this. Spin for example has an option called Reduce Gigascreen Flicker, and it works exactly as you suggested.

[@CommanderAscorbius]

Loving the new format, although it's quite clear that the Cat is muscling in on the episodes with a view to take over.. perhaps a Cat plays video is in the making? Great stuff chap! o7

[@bajinaji]

Please don't throw yourself off a cliff (I'm just at the start, but want to make sure we have more of these!)

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I have, at this point in life, not yet thrown myself from any sort of cliff. I think that will continue.

[@Chamber2020]

Cracking video this one. *Love* the format - it works really well. Great selection of dumpster-fodder. Satisfying array of games ranging from total bin-juice to intact-pizza-slice. Cat content was solid. The real question on everyone's lips is did Zelda eventually get comfortable in that bed that we all assume is made entirely from crisp packets?

[@ritchardo6459]

You’ve got to respect the coding of Amoebas though. The way they included the ability to fire up and down in case you pass out mid-game and need to blast your way back out again. Covering all bases.

[@veejay_hypo]

You are sitting at your computer reading KZbin comments. There is a dog on a beanbag here. Exits are North and East.

[@craigix]

Go north

[@simretroracer7368]

​@craigix I do not understand what 'go north' is. Type 'help' for ...... help.

[@veejay_hypo]

@@craigixYou find yourself in a small closet. It smells musty. There is a bone here. Exits are South.

[@KingSidJames]

Get Musty

[@veejay_hypo]

@@KingSidJames You become musty. There is a bone here. Exits are South.

[@arostwocents]

Yay dumpster diving!! 🗑️ 😎 Id love to see a Cousin Horace review - its genuinely great. Consisting of each level being a different game type. Great animated intro too. Based on the fact in the US Horace had a totally different design on the box art 🆒

[@arostwocents]

You should flip the image when it's not showing the game as it would be less jarring as I couldn't help stare at the backwards game screen but there was less large text on the website sections. Maybe that's just me though 😂 Is Amoebae really the plural of Amoeba? I've never heard that word before! I thought Amoeba was the plural of Amoeba. You learn something every day! 🤓

[@arostwocents]

The speech on Apage was really cool. Great music too.

[@arostwocents]

Agent Blue looks very cool. Might download it and give it a go. 🎉

[@TheRaticide]

The flickering in Apage Satans is a trick to make it look like there's more colours. Probably looks better on a CRT.

[@CanisRex84]

Another great vid 👍 I have to tell you about another youtuber whom I think you might appreciate; Stuart Millard, a good one to start with is his video "We Need to Talk About Keith". I think you share a similar sense of humour with this guy and what you do for retro games he does for retro UK TV.

[@mendelovitch]

I do have a cat(s) and sometimes I wish I was never born. That last bit seems to be part of the having sentience job description.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Well, if it helps, I'm glad you were born. And have a cat.

[@gregd3344]

Love these videos. Have you played 'Gregory' Loses His Clock'? Weird but good game for the speccy

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I've not gotten round to it yet, but it's on my list!

[@MichellePamelaLyons]

There's something oddly melancholy about "Amoeba". Someone took the effort to program a very simple game for the Spectrum in 1995, to the commercial standards of 1983. The mid 90s were a point in time where a lot of the world had already moved on at least twice over - first to Amigas / STs or NESes and Master Systems, then again to Windows 3.1 / 95 PCs and SNES and Megadrives. Now the gaming magazines were looking ahead to the generation after that, and the Playstation had gone on sale in the UK. Meanwhile, here's Paul Howard carrying on with the aid of Alchemist Research, putting out this very, very simple 48K game in the era of Doom and The 7th Guest. Far beyond the point of commercial viability, but not far enough so a proper retro scene could form, or at least for most people to get properly nostalgic for it. A few years later I was investigating the very first crop of Speccy emulators on a Windows 98 setup. Where was Paul Howard then? And what happened to Alchemist Research? I did hope that it was a unwisely recently formed company, or at least a one-man outfit trying to squeeze the absolute last drops out of the dying Sinclair market. Instead I was dismayed to see they'd been going since 1982 at least. It immediately brought to mind a dimly lit office full of cobwebs, copies of Your Spectrum and Computing Today strewn about a desk. A man sits in front of a rubber keyed 48K job, and a Sinclair QL. He fiddles about with a microdrive. "You know, if you stretch the tape, you get more data on these things," he says out loud to absolutely no one. He doesn't know why no one responds. "I keep trying to phone those people at Your Spectrum. They never pick up..." A single radio is beside him. He switches it on. He's expecting Dave Lee Travis - instead he gets Mark and Lard. It's ten thirty at night, he’s lost track of the time again. "Who is Blur?" he says to the ghosts of Software Past. "Who is Oasis? What is an Oasis? What is a Blur?" And then Mark Radcliffe plays The Charlatans. _Just When You're Thinking Things Over_ . "What is this Sixties shit?!" spits the CEO and sole employee of Alchemist Research. "This is ancient!”

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Poetry

[@ChrisFranklyn]

Well that comment took me on a journey. er, thank you.

[@JimbobSonOfRiber]

I nearly wrote "Agent Azul is the sort of excellent early-days game they don't make anymore ". But they literally did! Also i have a cat and another cat

[@pedroamaralcouto]

I played Atom Ant when I was a kid. It was one of the few video games I could finish. Others: TMNT, Dan Dare, Dick Tracy (a very bad Titus game).

[@speccyplays621]

Apage satana looks someone saw the c64 version of Potty pigeon and thought 'i can do that !' but scrolling was harder than they thought

[@wonderdog8895]

Agent Azul looks really solid.

[@crabman3144]

I'm glad it was "Lie down on the bean bag." At first I misheard it as "Lie down in the bin bag" and got scared for a moment. Glad to see this series again. No real opinion on the new format, might need another episode or two to really tell. Might have to get my cat's opinion at some point.

[@fattomandeibu]

It's like this Amiga shareware CDs, where if you tried playing a game described as "RPG" they were mostly text adventures. You'd think they'd've stopped by that point, but no. You'd go in expecting at the very least a poor man's Zelda or Final Fantasy or something, but no, it'd just open a DOS prompt window with a wall of tl;dr.

[@AcornElectron]

I think the only old text adventure games I played more than a few times were ‘Twin Kingdom Valley’ and ‘Castle of Riddles’. Neither were particularly fun.

[@Lbf5677]

'tis a good format and nice content looking cat

[@ChrisFranklyn]

As a child I would have spent a lot of time on Amoeba. Experimenting with standing closer and closer to the piles in the bumhole you inhabit. Due to the slow bullet velocity. But then I was a child of low effort.

[@Ra-zor]

Love this dumpster format, keep the rubbish coming!

[@ItsCrapContent]

Some cool speccyness there.... Well done but wish there was more text adventures 😂 please do more text adventures thanks

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Why you little...!

[@FatNorthernBigot]

Those Croatians really know their Z80 machine code! I wonder if anyone has ever typed that sentence before? 🤔

[@Palooka37]

Not going to lie, that cat is pretty great. Video was good too.

[@primokarmasilver]

Did your mates at the BBC gave you that Mic?? Seriously thou, can you DM me where you bought it pls. I have no opinion on the games you played in this video

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

A little place called Amazon

[@primokarmasilver]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum ur face is Amazon

[@Lbf5677]

It's a good mic

[@sheets75]

If Ralph Wiggum owned a Spectrum, Amoeba is the only game he would play. "I WON!" Apage Satanas seems like it would be used in a psychological experiment.

[@Pridetoons]

Love the title! 🤣

[@billyoldman9209]

I don't have a cat but that scripted event of more baddies spawning in when you grab the hostage blew me away. Well worth the twothumbsup.

[@chrisball3778]

Pretty sure that Russian game was originally developed a Cold War secret weapon for remotely murdering epileptics.

[@AllOuttaBubblegum123]

Terrormolinos and Gremlins are (or were) great text adventures on the spectrum. I was 10 at the time, so I may be lying.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

You have committed mortal sin!

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

Hooray for Agente Azul... and also for Adam Waring who appears on my channel too. I also have a cat who appeared in my Norway Panic video...

[@tonyp3824]

Atom Ant was AWESOME! I thought…

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

I like everything you do

[@toastedfallenstar584]

I have a cat!

[@misterdodgy4229]

Can you get the cat to play a game? Just a simple left/right & fire jobbie. Maybe a paws button too. (Sorry)

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I can't get him to do anything other than interrupt me

[@videogamebookreviews]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum He's getting pretty good at it.

[@davidknight247]

For a moment I thought this was going to be a fingermouse episode.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

We don't reach that quality here

[@RetroSegaDev]

I have a cat!

[@RetroSegaDev]

Also love the format and your cat looks at you so adoringly :)

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

He is OBSESSED with my face

[@Orosian5]

I don't have a cat. You're not the boss of me!

[@elfreak0na1eash]

Could the red guy be Ali Baba and the ones that don't hurt you be his '40 thieves'? I hate games where you have to read the novels to understand the story!

[@Ubersnuber]

Playing text adventure games is like banging your head against a dictionary in the hopes of tracing a plot. Point and click adventures aren't that far behind, mind; figure out what a person you don't know would find to be a smart/witty solution to some puzzle. Riveting.

[@cantonasghost9]

My eyes are bleeding from level 1 of Aerobirds, however the dog was quiet following its shrieking so swings n roundabouts

[@zx85]

I quite like it

[@retrobitstv]

I have a cat.

[@penguincustard1]

Yeah some pretty poor games there. And yes I have a cat.

[@steve16384]

I can't believe Amoeba was anything.more than a type in. Someone wanted money for this? In 1995?!

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

It may have been a type-in or a giveaway, I can't mind which

[@crafty_tams]

Text adventures are great. Fact. ❤

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

How dare you be so controversial at me

[@crafty_tams]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum I do believe you started it! 😀

[@nikbear]

I have seven cat's 😮 I'm blessed 😂 🐈‍⬛🐈

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

Tonight on KZbinrs and their cats... fantastic dumpster diving.

[@Infamousuk]

I had Apache raid!!!

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

You poor sod

[@mucy2807]

George Clunt 😅

[@Yesterzine]

aMEHba amirite?

[@skuly-dm2lp]

Apage Satana! means Away with you, Satan!. Its used in Catholic exorcism,

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Aha! It's a shame that doesn't help in explaining what the hell I was supposed to do in the game, hahaha

[@shadowinthevoid]

I have a cat, they're great. Those games, not so much

[@barry-allenthe-flash8396]

"Please give me lots of money, otherwise... I'll be very upset" - the non-vicious ransom note writer a.k.a _the future inventor of GoFundMe,_ probably 😄

[@consty715]

You mean do i like the new mirror image format? Not really

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Well maybe you should look in the mirror and see that you should change your ways, because no message could have been any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place you better look at yourself and make a change.

[@markbrown1089]

Your cat is lush

[@bblblp]

I have been ordered to leave this comment because I have a cat. Thanks, and have a good day.

[@uttridge]

I have a cat. Actually I have two. So I need to leave two comments?

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Yes please

[@Justin-TPG]

As said about so many 8-bit computer games: “This can’t be all the game is. There must be something I’m missing”. Agent Blue has a decent looking combined Bonanza Bros/Elevator Action vibe to it. Definitely the worst game here because it isn't respecting the cultural impact of Dumpster Diving.

[@SmoMo_]

Aha, you said Atom Ant looked a bit like Bomber Man, but you meant Bomb Jack ( not Bomber Man) right? I’m right, right? Also was a really brilliant video, Thankyou, I would watch a ton of these. Also, if you are including non English games, then what about your strategy of using letters for each video. Will there be a backwards R video, or an A with squiggles above it, or a U with dots, it an e with the hat. Also, numbers, will there be video for every number, or just numbers in one video. Either way, I don’t care, I just like to see these spectrum games I’ve never seen before.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Haha. I was waiting for someone to spot the bomberman/bombjack mouth fluff - congrats! You win first prize! In terms of umlauts and the like, I guess it depends on what Spectrumcomputing folds them into!

[@blatherskite3009]

Amoeba looks like somebody played Chaos and decided the game would be so much better if it was real-time, you had a gun, and it was just you versus the Gooey Blobs ... with no other spells, no other wizards, crappier graphics, no animation, no strategy, and next to no gameplay. Somebody was wrong.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

It was a bold move, Cotton. Let's see how it plays out.

[@iainlee]

Actual first

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

You shall be rewarded in Valhalla

[@dodzy]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum Mary is not amused

[@mr.a8315]

Gold from trash.

[@markbutl]

I give this video a score of cat / amoeba

[@pigpenpete]

More cat content please

[@GamSin1981]

No game was interesting and the cat was the real star.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Clearly not an Amoeba fan

[@kooltactic8269]

i have a cat 🐈‍⬛

[@AdrianKing1966]

I have a cat

[@RaposaCadela]

I have a dog

[@Bitmuchmate]

I have a cat.