Forty Niner

Sinclair Programs

June Mortimer

GOOD MICRO: SHAME ABOUT THE GAMES Manufacturers reproach ZX-81 owners for lack of interest in buying programs. We look at software for the ZX-81 and its value for money. ZX-81 owners have reason to be annoyed with the software industry. A cursory glance at computer magazines each month reveals ample signs of the 150 or so companies producing software for the Spectrum. Spectrum software supports entire magazines devoted to its reviews. So few ZX-81 games are produced that the entire computer press could be read for a month, without producing more than two pages of reviews, most of them of old products. Software Farm took high-resolution graphics to the ZX-81 earlier this year with its Forty Niner. Half the letters to Sinclair Programs from ZX-81 owners that month were written in praise of the new game. The success of Forty Niner has not led to production of high-resolution graphics programs by other software houses and the field has been left clear for Software Farm to follow its success with its new program, Rocket Man, to be reviewed in the next issue. Other companies are also producing good software for the ZX-81, although they are few and far between. Sinclair Programs has looked at some of the products on the market to see where the best programs are to be found. Bears in the Wood from Unicorn Micro Systems is a good example of an original game for the 16K ZX-81. The player begins with a mother bear and three cubs which head across the screen towards their cave, collecting honey as they go. Of course, the little bean have a tendency to lose their mother and, as soon as they do so, they become prey to the evil hunters in the forest. Hunters must be charged, bears guarded, and the time limit watched. Once inside the cave, honeypots must be filled and there is a chance to gain an extra cub. Then the player returns to the forest. Bear in the Wood is a difficult game at which to succeed and consequently holds the attention. The opportunity to return to the forest more than once can be attained only with a sound knowledge of the scoring system and a variety of tactics which keep mother and cubs united with plenty to cat. One small bug is that the mother bear can become blocked in a corner by the cubs, unable to move until one of them is shot by a hunter. Climber, also produced by Unicorn, is much less enjoyable. It is a version of Kong in which the player must climb from level to level on one screen, jumping the monsters and picking-up points on the way, and finally moving to the next screen by reaching the appropriate point on the top level. DOES NOT ADAPT WELL Kong is not a game which adapts from arcade to ZX-81 particularly well, as much of its interest relics on speed and good graphics. This version is not particularly difficult, once the movement of the various obstacles has been understood, but it is very repetitive. A style of game more suited to the ZX-81 is represented by Ocean Trader from Quicksilva. It is a form of simulation in which the player takes the part of a ship's commander, sailing from port to port round the coast of England. Prices of commodities in the ports change from day to day and from place to place and the aim is to profit by buying goods in one port and selling them for a profit at the next. The game is rather slow-moving, taking some time to display option or to print details of prices. This type of game, though, is well-suited to the ZX-81 and this is a well-thought-out a.ample. Black Star from Quicksilva has an impressive storyline printed on its cover. The story tells of the Cosmic Guerillas and of your plan to bomb their Black Star base in your Svlegian Raider. Enemy ships must be dodged and the energy ducts in the tunnel leading to the Black Star must be destroyed. All very impressive. On RUNning the program, however, the tunnel proves to be a black rectangle, or sometimes a rectangle of asterisks. Immediate acceleration means that no enemy ships appear and, when your ship travels slowly enough to sec them, they appear as small Vs at the bottom of the screen. Similarly uninteresting is Croaka Crawla from Quicksilva, a version of the arcade oldie Frogger. According to this version Frogger has gained nothing in its old age and has lost much. There is a huge variety of skill levels, ranging from the very low to the ultra-fast but, other than that, the program has little to commend it. QS Scramble from Quicksilva is yet another arcade adaptation. The player flies above the surface of a planet, firing at approaching aircraft and bombing those still on the ground. The game loses less than others from its adaptation to the ZX-81, perhaps because its interest is almost totally in controlling your craft. As the screen display changes continually the square graphics are less glaringly apparent than in games where the screen display remains constant. Arcade games can do little on the ZX-81 other than to demonstrate its weaknesses. The ZX-81 also has advantages which Psion has put to excellent use in its program Vu-File. Vu-File allows the user to store information on record cards, to re-arrange, sort, store and print that information. Unlike other filing systems it does not pre-define the index card but allows the user to design one. Information can then be entered into the computer and can be rearranged according to any one of the headings on the record card. A demonstration program on the B side of the cassette demonstrates one use to which the program can be put. A gazetteer has been recorded, including basic details about a number of countries. The program can be used for reference or taken as an example by those who want to test the efficacy of Vu-File before entrusting their records to it. INEXPENSIVE PROGRAMS Also reviewed by Sinclair Programs were programs from two small companies which produce inexpensive programs on a mail order basis. They give some idea of the quality of programs sold through magazine small advertisements, rather than those produced by large companies. Swag is produced by Howard Software, [redacted] and costs £3.45. In it the player takes the part of a burglar who wishes to rob a bank. The first section is a street chase, in which the player navigates a car through a maze, pursued by two police cars which move more slowly. Speed is slow and it is easy to avoid the police. Section two takes place inside a building. The aim is to walk into each of three rooms, pick up treasure and return it to your lorry outside the building. The problem here is to avoid the forcefields on the doors. As they appear to flash in a completely arbitrary fashion it is difficult to use any skill in that section. Section three is combined with section two. The treasure in room two is inside a safe with a combination lock and the combination must be cracked quickly before the alarms ring. Overall the pace of Swag is slow and the game unexciting. It would keep few players interested for as long as half an hour; most would lose interest more quickly. Bank Raid is from Senior Software, [redacted]. Again the theme is bank robbery, this time with an emphasis on shoot-outs. A maze is printed on-screen and the player must escape the two gunmen who are out to kill. On the next screen the tables are turned and this time it is the player who must shoot the gunmen before they escape. The next screen returns the player to the beginning to escape again, and so it continues. Again, the game is deadly slow and lacks the excitement necessary to a maze game. Also from Senior Software is Allotment, a utility program for gardeners planning how to allocate space in their vegetable gardens or allotments. The program works on a three- or four-year crop rotation system and divides the vegetables which it has stored in it accordingly. On a diagram of the allotment vegetables chosen by the gardener will be placed automatically at the correct distance from each other, so that the number to be planted is readily apparent. ESSENTIAL ADD-ONS Allotment is an easy way of planning a garden to advantage, of recording where vegetables are planted and when they are likely to appear. A large number of vegetables and information about them is stored in the data section and gardeners who prefer to plant exotic plants can include their own data. Available by mail order also are essential add-ons for the user on a limited budget. Glaston Computers, [redacted] produces clear, self-adhesive plastic pads which can be stuck on to the keys of a ZX-81, or only on to those keys used for games playing. Forty pads cost £2.99 and they make the ZX-81 keyboard usable for games or for typing.

Big K

Overall 2/3

Richard Burton 2/3

ZX'49 Game: Forty Niner Maker: Software Farm Machine: ZX81 Format: cassette Price: £5.95 Stop the presses! Hold the front page! Hi-res graphics on the ZX81 without any additional hardware! Oh gosh, oh wow. Like truly awesome, man! Seen on any other micro Forty Nine, probably wouldn't excite much comment but what we have here seems to be a genuine break-through in games software for the venerable ZX81. Forty Miner is your basic digging game where you, a miner, are tunnelling about for gold nuggets. Giant rats are on your tail threatening each of your three lives. You have two main weapons in your arsenal. You can cause small cave-ins to block their path or run over a snake's nest, releasing it to get the rats (a game where snakes are on your side, whatever next?). Meanwhile, on the surface a nasty Gremlin is gradually working his way towards your tunnel entrance. If he gets into the mine you're finished! Collect enough nuggets and an entrance opens to the next, harder level. What is, of course amazing is that the whole game appears on screen with graphics that wouldn't disgrace the Spectrum. All the elements of the game are rendered in detailed, recognisable shapes and move in relatively smooth, flicker-free action. The rats scurry, the snakes squirm and the miner runs and climbs. You almost expect colour and sound as a matter of course! Control is, well, all you can expect from ZX81 keyboard. But you can re-define your own control keys.

ZX Computing

Nick Pearce

THE ZX81 SOFT SELECTION Nick Pearce gives us his critical views on some of the latest ZX81 software. FORTY-NINER AND ASTEROIDS Software Farm If you are still prevaricating over whether to purchase the ZX Spectrum, maybe you should forget it and get Forty-niner instead. Forty-niner is an excellent game. It requires a little practice to master, but persevere, it's worth it. No sound or colour but the high resolution screen display gives another dimension to the trusty ZX81. The 1949 Great American Gold Rush has just started and you are out there with the best of them excavating for the precious metal. Somewhat unusual hazards (for a gold digger anyway) are present to hinder you. Giant rats search through your excavations after you and there are snakes which when released, head straight for the surface and destroy everything in their path. There is also a gremlin to contend with and you have to deposit excavated soil on the surface to delay it capturing you. The aim of the game is to collect all the nuggets of gold. When you have accomplished this awesome task, you pass on to a more difficult stage with more rats but less snakes to destroy them. An interesting feature of Forty-niner is the facility for the player to select his own control keys. A hi-score chart is kept by the computer and displayed at the end of each game and there are five levels of play. The hi-res display is excellent, those rats really do look like rats. A great game. The Software Farm game of Asteroids is similar to the MikroGen version reviewed above. It has three levels of play, and you have three lives per game. It requires a 16K RAM pack and the graphics are in "normal" ZX81 resolution. There is an option for up to four players to hold a contest, each player's highest score being separately recorded and identified in a score table. I thought the action rather jerky, even at the hardest level but the game works well and is good fun nonetheless. More expensive than Mikro-Gen's game but with the additional facility to keep score during a contest. Not possessing a joystick, I had to use the ZX81 keyboard although a joystick option is included. It is a 16K game and is recorded both sides of the cassette. Romik Software, [redacted]. Mikro-Gen, [redacted]. Software Farm, [redacted]. Fawkes Computing, [redacted]

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 9/10

UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS Memory: 16K Price: £5.95 New ZX-81 software is difficult to obtain nowadays but Software Farm has released the first in its high-res range of games for the ZX-81. The graphics in the game, entitled Forty Niner, are impressive, depicting a tunneling miner as he digs in search of golden nuggets, avoiding the giant rats which burrow towards him. Knocking over the pit-props delays the rats by causing a cave-in but to destroy them you need to release the snakes from their nests. If you succeed in locating all the nuggets you pass to the next, more dangerous, stage by passing through the cave entrance in the bottom right of the screen. As if all that frantic subterranean activity was not sufficient, above ground a misshapen one-legged gremlin is hopping around and chomping through your waste earth pile, seeking the entrance to the mineshaft to cut off your only means of escape. You can prevent that only by sending the miner back to the surface periodically to replenish the mound of earth. An attractive and addictive game, Forty Niner is one of the best graphic arcade adventures for the expanded ZX-81. It is available from Software Farm, [redacted].

Sinclair Programs

June Mortimer

EXCELLENT FORTY NINER Any new program produced for the ZX-81 has a good chance of being received with open arms by the half-million ZX-81 owners who have been starved of new software in 1984. Forty Niner Stands a better chance than most for it is not only a ZX-81 game but also an extremely good one. The aim is to mine as much gold as possible. Opposing you in the aim are the vicious rats which chase and kill you, and the strange, earth-shifting gremlin which tries to block the entrance to your tunnel. The approach of the gremlins can be slowed by frequent trips to the tunnel entrance, while the rats can be slowed by frequent trips to the tunnel entrance, by tunnel cave-ins, and killed, if you are clever, by the release of snakes. It is fast-moving and entertaining, the graphics are excellent, and the game loaded easily. Forty Niner is produced for the 16K ZX-81 by Software Farm, [redacted] and costs £5.95.

Personal Computer GamesPCG Hit

Graphics 10/10

Sound NONE

Ease Of Use 7/10

Originality 8/10

Lasting Interest 8/10

Overall 8/10

Steve Cooke 8/10

MACHINE: ZX81 + 16K JOYSTICK: NO CATEGORY: Arcade SUPPLIER: Romik PRICE: When a program for a ZX81 has a cassette cover that claims resolution identical to the Spectrum without any additional hardware you will probably be a little concerned about the truthfulness of such a statement, but Software Farm's game Forty Niner lives up to their claim giving full high resolution graphics. The game takes place in the 1849 Great American Gold Rush and our hero has rushed to the west coast to make his fortune. You must collect as many gold nuggets as you can while avoiding the hazards of the mine. Any normal person would have picked a mine with ordinary dangers, like rockfalls, but as ever our character had to pick one inhabited by strange monsters. The first monster that any explorer will encounter is the Gremlin. This is a very cute looking 'mouth on legs' who bounces away on the surface eating away at your waste earth pile trying to reach the entrance to your mine. Once it does there is no escape. Next you face the Giant Rats which are truly intimidating, wagging their tails as they hunt you around the mine. They can even dig through the soil, suddenly jumping out in front of you - then you're a goner. Your miner does have some unlikely allies though. He can free snakes who will then wiggle their way to the surface killing any rats they meet on their way. He can also knock out a support causing a small cave-in to block the vicious vermin. Software Farm allow you to choose your own keys to play the game. There are five controls in all: up, down, left, right and knock out a support. In practice I found it better to rely on the snakes to kill the rats because if you knock out a support the rockfall occurs in front of you and you usually end up running over it yourself. Forty Niner is definitely a program that shows what your ZX81 can really do and deserves one of those 'I had to keep going back for more' ratings. I wonder when the Spectrum version with sound and colour will make an appearance...