Barmy Burgers

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1984

Burger Time clearly influenced this manic arcade action game, in which your task is to make burgers, by collecting the 4 core components in sequence. Chasing you as you do this are two sausages and eggs, contact with which costing you a life. You are armed with a pepper spray, which paralyzes them for a few seconds, but this is limited to five uses per level. When you touch the burger pieces, they drop, and can be used as weapons to stop the pursuing foods. The arrangement of platforms features many ladders, which you must use to chase and dodge the respective ingredients.

Boris the Bold

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1984

A colourful arcade game, Boris the Bold has you guiding the face-with-legs called Boris around a series of platform levels. There is a moving gap in each floor for Boris to fall through, so that he can reach the exit at the bottom of the screen. Boris must walk to the hole or wait until it reaches him, but waiting can be dangerous, since there is a bouncing ball hunting him. As if the ball wasn't enough, there are additional nasties patrolling certain floors back and forth, and batteries which will fire at Boris if he remains in the same place for too long. Boris has no offensive measures, but he can "hyperjump" to a random location on the floor he is standing on, or alternatively to the floor immediately above him. Due to the random nature of the hyperjumps, though, Boris can end up straight next to another enemy.

Boulder Crash

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1985

Boulder Clash is a clone of the ever-popular Boulder Dash.Like in its role model, you are a miner-type person digging your way around tile by tile in some kind of underground complex filled with boulders and crystals. You must collect a set number of crystals to clear a level. The level wraps around at the borders, so it's easy to get lost. As you dig through the earth, you must watch out when you pass below boulders, since these can drop down at you. If there is a mass of boulders, you can start a rockslide which can very well kill you. On the other hand, these rock slides are often a necessity if you are to reach crystals jammed between the boulders. Digging the correct canals to channel the boulders into is an essential part of the game's strategy. The game runs entirely in monochrome high resolution mode and allows you to play against the clock and choose levels with some freedom.

Casey Jones

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1984

Casey Jones is a Moon Patrol variant where the buggy from the arcade game has been replaced by a steam engine. It's no ordinary old locomotive though since it can both jump and shoot missiles. Like the game it is based on it is a side scrolling game where the player's vehicle is constantly moving forward and the task is to jump past craters while shooting the enemies that drop projectiles and the rocks that block the road. When shooting, missiles are launched in two directions, one goes forward while the other goes straight upwards. Making contact with a crater, a rock or a projectile leads to a life being lost. In total the game consists of eighteen stages, each having a different kind of enemy.

Caverns of Chaos

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1984

Deep underground on the planet Sagon are the Caverns of Chaos. Playing as the explorer Starman Jones you set out on a mission to negotiate the vast labyrinth, collecting keys from each cave to open the secret door to the next cavern. Many pitfalls will impede your progress such as one-way conveyors and bouncing platforms.

Copta Snatch

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1984

Copta Snatch plays much like Konami's Super Cobra, only the helicopter you're controlling actually works a little more like a real helicopter. No more forced scrolling; here you can hover above a target or strafe back and forth above the landscape. Hovering lets you drop bombs, otherwise you fire forwards in the direction you're travelling. The landscape is littered with missile silos and anti-aircraft guns which fire at you at the slightest chance. You also have to keep an eye on your fuel level – when you're running out, you must find a refueling pad to land on. These pads also serve as your starting points when you've died. Copta Snatch uses a quite uncommon "semigraphics" mode to great effect, similar to the Tandy title Protector II.

Desperado Dan and His Amazing Escape to Freedom

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1984

Desperado Dan must escape to freedom, being trapped in a set of green-screen platform levels. Each screen is guarded not only by guards, but also by a cannon which fires a single bouncing ball to be avoided. Dan must jump across all the obstacles, but luckily, he can leap very far. Another obstacle are the animated doors which open and close. As you progress through the game, the motifs change. Dan must mount a jet-ski and jump over whales and octopuses, but the controls and mechanisms remain basically the same, although the screens become even more crowded and faster.

Dragon Darts

Dragon 32/64 - Released

Laser Run

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1983

Laser Run owes its entire gameplay to the sequence of the Star Wars arcade game where you fly through a trench on the Death Star with the ultimate goal of shooting into a vent leading to the main reactor of the weapon. In fact, this blatant copy even plays the theme from Star Wars on the title screen. Since there is not much point in steering your ship while it runs down a straight trench, you instead control the crosshairs of your gun so that you can shoot down the TIE fighters that come flying in your opposite direction. The first fighter waves leave you alone, but soon they start to fire at you. When you encounter the hole in the trench, you must shoot into it – not in order to destroy the Death Star, but so as to replenish your shield energy. Two gauges on the screen show your remaining energy level and the distance to the next hole.

Perilous Pit

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1984

You play as Boris the Miner and must fill your rail truck with diamonds. Each screen contains three diamonds which must be collected and placed in the moving truck before it reaches the right of the screen in order to progress to the next screen. Failure to do so results in the loss of a life. The moving platform can aid you, but you must contend with the evil Orbis and it's friends.

R.E.M.

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1986

Sadly, not a Michael Stipe simulator but instead another Boulder Dash clone released on budget by Blaby - a company that specialised in budget knock-offs of more famous IPs. Clear each of the 20 caverns of enough radioactive material to make it safe - once you have enough, you can progress to the next cavern.

Raiders

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1982

In this text adventure, you play the friend of a professor who has gone missing on some kind of archaeological survey. Your task is to find the professor, or at least to find out of his fate. On your adventure, you will ride the taxi a lot (and must find a way to pay the driver), travel by airplane and visit a remote, mysterious island. The command interpreter is of a rather simple verb-noun mould, with some peculiarities such as SAYing your wishes to the taxi driver.

Ricochet (Blaby)

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1986

Use your laser to blast energy bolts at the puckstar and direct it into your opponent's territory. Score more goals than your opponent and seize victory. A computerised version of the old tabletop game 'Crossfire' where you had to shoot ball bearings at a target in a variant of air hockey.

The Bells

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1986

This is a fairly close copy of Ocean/Century's arcade platformer, Hunchback. Your goal is to traverse each screen filled with perils, so that you may reach the bell that is placed on the right side. The first screen contains only a ball or bullet that crosses the screen, which you must jump over. Jumping straight into the bell rope will kill you, however. The next screen has gaps which you must jump across, with the right distance in mind. After that comes a similar screen, only the pits are filled with pikemen who lower and raise their pikes. Timing is necessary in order not to be impaled as you jump over the pikemen. The fourth screen has the object from screen one hurtling across the screen, so your jumps across the pits must be timed so that you don't jump into its path. The fifth screen is a variation on the third, but with an arrow shooting over your head so that timing must take both the pikemen and the arrow in account. The game procedes in a similar fashion, with different combinations of projectiles, pikemen and pits. Your bell-ringer has two different jumps. One is for jumping up in the air, so that you can avoid projectiles, and the other one is a long jump for bridging gaps. Each screen must be crossed within a short amount of time, or Quasimodo will be struck by lightning.

The Bells

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1984

Written by Drew Marshall, this is a fairly close copy of Ocean/Century's arcade platformer, Hunchback. Your goal is to traverse each screen filled with perils, so that you may reach the bell that is placed on the right side. Your bell-ringer has two different jumps. One is for jumping up in the air, so that you can avoid projectiles, and the other one is a long jump for bridging gaps. Each screen must be crossed within a short amount of time, or Quasimodo will be struck by lightning.

Trun

Dragon 32/64 - Released - 1986

Trun is a series of small games made famous by the movie Tron: -Cycles is a ”light cycles” game where you draw a line and must trap the opponent inside that line, without colliding with his line. - Cone puts you in a cramped space where you must shoot moving blocks so that you can advance until you reach the cone at the top of the screen. If you don't advance, you will be hit in the back by an advancing bar, and if you don't shoot the blocks, you will be hit by those instead. - Tanks presents a top-down view of a maze, where you must guide your tank and shoot the opposing tanks. - Spiders consists of a screen filled with spiders. Move your little man and try to shoot all the spiders (only one shot can be on the screen at any time, so aim carefully) and then proceed to the exit before the time is out. As you finish all four games, selectable from a menu, you progress to the next level with more and harder enemies.

Whirlwind

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1984

Whirlwind rescued from oblivion. It is the game Whirlwind, announced for sale in 1984 by the Blaby Computer Games company, which until now has remained missing, including its cover. We will move left and right and to go down we will use some areas of soil that is disintegrating. This will force us to calculate very well our movements and strategy to catch the umbrellas and especially to avoid the deadly laser.

Wreckless Roger

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1984

Wreckless Roger is a side-view flick screen shooter where you play the role of Roger who, after landing on an inhospitable planet, has discovered his spacecraft, the Millenium Sparrow, has been dismembered. The pieces of the craft have been scattered all over a cavern and so you must fly Roger around the cavern using his jet-pack, and armed with his laser to blast all the aliens in his search for the pieces. The cavern is made up of a teleport maze and to move from screen to screen, you must destroy all the aliens so that arrows appear in the side of the screen, showing where you can move next. On some screens, an exit appears in the centre of the screen but it can only be used when you hold a piece of the craft. If you are hit by any alien then Roger loses part of his power and when it reaches zero then you lose one of three lives.

Wriggler (Blaby Computer Games)

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1985

Wriggler is a single-screen shooter inspired by the arcade game Centipede where you control a small spacecraft at the bottom of the screen to blast all the insects that appear in your garden over various levels. You move your craft left, right and a small distance forward as a Centipede type creature moves along the top of the screen, moving downwards one place when it reaches the sides. Scattered all over the screen are mushrooms which block your movements but can be removed after a couple of shots and if the Centipede hits one then it moves downwards one place and moves the opposite direction. If the Centipede is shot then it splits into two, and when the other parts of the Centipede are shot then they also split into two. Other creatures appear like spiders and snails and these can be shot or avoided and if you touch any creature then you lose one of three lives. Once the Centipede has been removed then you move to the next level.