Jim Bagley has been making computer games for nearly 30 years. and he has worked on many different systems including the Spectrum, Game Boy and iOS. An incredibly talented coder who worked for Ocean, amongst other publishers, Bagley has turned his attention to recreating the laserdisc game Dragons Lair into a working ZX81 title and what he has achieved is truly breathtaking. It is still a work in progress but as you can see in the video below a remarkable one on a system which is very limited.
R-type: the Making of a Computer Game
The ZX Spectrum is an iconic machine, it hung around for over 10 years and over 9000 games were made for it. R-Type is a legendary game on the machine because it was such a remarkable achievement on 48k! To someone unfamiliar with the Spectrum it won't look like much, but you have to remember that the Spectrum had no hardware-sprites, no hardware scrolling, only fifteen colours and only allowed two colours per 8x8 pixel square.
That classic cover, the first level boss is iconic!
The smooth scrolling and colour were amazing for their time!
Bob Pape, the programmer of the amazing R-Type conversion on the ZX Spectrum has written a free e-book about the game making process. The book is self-published and available to download online. I haven't read it all the way through yet but what I have read is very interesting. The retro UK shooter fans will know how legendary this conversion was back in the day, I being an Amstrad man had that version but retrospectively played the Spectrum version and man is it good. So read the book people!
