Lord Insanity

Aka Lord Insanity of The Lords originally a Spectrum-based coding group from the Netherlands.

David was responsible for the famous Tetris clone known to many as the game that launched Fred’s meteoric rise from a small fanzine to the powerhouse it became.

Most of Davids demos feature converted tunes by C64/SID master Rob Hubbard.

Games:

Tetris - Possibly the finest piece of PD for the Coupé, in the scroller David alluded to wanting to do a clone of Arkanoid which he eventally produced as…

Batz 'n Balls - Superior Arkanoid clone with optional mouse control.

Demos:

Silly Demo I - A MODE1 conversion of a Spectrum demo.

Sabrina Demo - A converted Spectrum sample demo with “raster interrupt desampler” in a time when most sample demos had to turn the screen off to get around the memory contention issues.

Little Joke - A Sam Sample demo with some of the worst jokes in history.

Tweety Demo - This baffled the public as it looked like a basic M/C demo with a scroller and music but was actually a game of clay pidgeon/skeet shooting when pressing ‘0’/Fire on the joystick, not that it gave any clue in the demo.

Thanks to the kind permission of Martijn van der Heide, pages on worldofsam may now link directly to scanned magazine reviews hosted by worldofspectrum.org.

When you add links from a worldofsam page, please use text such as:

• Crash review courtesy of worldofspectrum.org

in order to make attributions clear.

Apologies for the downtime today. Another process hosted on this server went haywire, and used up all the memory (and more).

Everything seems to have settled down now, and there was no data loss.

Revelation Software

Dave Handley

Steven Pick

Tom Kincaid

A quiz game, parodying the format of “Going For Gold”, a lunchtime TV quiz programme of the early nineties.

Fred Publishing

David Handley
Steve Handley

Steven Pick

Football management game with a quality ‘Match Of The Day’ theme tune.

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

Football - it’s a funny old game, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve got twenty-two blokes on a field, hitting the ball with their feet into the opposing teams goals. It was also funny that we invented the bloody thing, only to be outdone by the Germans. Still, it’s a funny game on the SAM, too. Only one commercial footie game has made it to the SAM - Football Director 2 (no FD 1 ..?) by D+H Games costing around £17 and was complete crap - like the Spectrum version (ho, ho). Still, this is the second game of it’s genre on the SAM and it’s a cracker.

I know what you’re thinking. I did the graphics for the game, so I’ll be raving highly about the graphics. Nope. When we went down to the 2nd Gloucester show, we were extremely lucky to obtain a preview copy of FLM from the author himself - David Handley. The actual review is for the game itself, which beats the hell out of Football Director 2 in more ways than one.

First off, an unseen addition thought up at the last minute allows you to play the Scottish League, and the option to play teams twice, all neatly presented (ahem) with a bog standard screen. Hidden gripe over - the actual game puts you in the shoes of one of ten managers, one of whom looks suspiciously like Alan Sugar. Still, after that, you are presented with a gorgeous (sorry for the self-praise!) menu screen with Wembley stadium in the background of nicely drawn (sorry!) icons. The whole thing is operated by either mouse or keyboard, driven by Steve Taylor’s excellent Mouse Driver 2.0, so this adds to the control of the game.

Public Domain

Tim Paveley aka Unc

Steve Phillips aka Manga

Superb little game.

“It’s a wonderful game.” “Classic” - Colin Anderton (ex-editor FRED Disk Magazine)

“Helluva addictive.” - Graham Goring (Graphic Artist)

“Very nice and professional looking,” “nicely polished.” - Stefan Drissen (Professional Coder)

Persona

David Serafim
Ricardo Soares

Joao Silva

Platform Game

Phoenix Software Systems and later Persona

Terry Ekins
Steven Ekins

Steven Pick

Lee Willis

Converted from the Spectrum version by John Cain

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

This has been written by the boys at Jupiter Software, and if the game sounds familiar to aged computer freaks - it should be! The SAM version is a conversion of the Spectrum classic, Booty, written by John Cain wayback 7 (or so) years ago. The game itself is set on a pirate ship, you playing a cabin hand set to nick all the pirates booty in a strange fit of generousity, and get off the ship!

The setup is that of a side on flip-screen platform, with the actual Spectrum version on the same disk! Anyway, it is obvious that the SAM version will benefit more in terms of graphics - and it does! The graphics were produced by Yours Truly, and help make the SAM version a nicer looking one (ahem!). But enough on the self-admiration stakes - the programming is what counts here! And the programmers have done an admirable job producing the set up which is faithful to the Spectrum version. All the touches from the Spectrum game are recreated faithfully on the SAM including animated portholes which capture the “feel” of the sea, and all the rooms of the SAM version match exactly to that of the Spectrum!

There are many dangers when collecting treasure on the ship, the first being of course, the pirates! They move along horizontal platforms, swords moving realistically and the speed of them moving is admirable (seeming this was written on SCADs!). Actually, the speed of the whole thing is rather impressive, with no slow down when there is plenty going on. Other dangers include the bombs which are hidden under certain treasure amounts, lifts - which are easier to get on and off than the Spectrum version, affecting the difficulty a tad, and the random dangers of birds and rats which suddenly appear from the edges of the screen and endanger your character. The SAM rat has changed from the Spectrum version, as it has become more intelligent. The Spectrum rat wouldn’t appear on screens with lifts, but the SAM rat jumps on the lifts and to lower platforms, increasing the danger! Hmmm, and I must add there is also an extra 10 screens worth of SAM Booty!!!

FRED Publishing

Noesis Software, Rob Holman

Neil Holmes

Stuart Leonardi

Boing’s time machine has crashed on a strange land and only by collecting 20 Potions, the Crystal, the Battery and the all-important lever will he ever get the time machine working again.

Your Sinclair review, courtesy of The YS Rock ‘n’ Roll Years.

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

Right! Hands up who thinks that Dizzy was (and still is) one of the most inspiring and brilliant character around? He had style, grace and personality. And yet, he was a bouncing egg with boxing gloves. But we love him, don’t we, readers? Apart from the people who dispise him appearing for the seventh time on the small screen. Now let’s take the SAM version of a new hero… A green blob.

Well, he bounces around a bit, but that’s about it. So, we have got ourselves a basic character of unDizzy status, but we shouldn’t write off the game due to this. But we are bound to have many people who will compare this to Dizzy on the Coupe, and for the moment it is the nearest thing to it. But at the same time, it’s not like that! The plot is usually a good laugh on the SAM, so take it away…

Collect three pieces of a time machine and 20 potions, then find the exit and escape from the crazy planet infested with nasties of varying weirdness.

We’ve seen it all before, eh? But this game is of an incredibly fun calibre in terms of playability. You control this blob (no name!) through a flip screen enviroment of well animated nasties bouncing on a set course. You have to pick up objects and use them on certain screens to achieve certain results. Aha! Just like Dizzy! The only real difference is the energy bar which is used instead of an “instant death” situation from the Dizzy games. This bar can also be refilled to it’s peak by hearts.

Fred Publishing

Neil Holmes

Doug Holmes

Stuart Leonardi and Roger Hartley

Shoot ‘em up in the mould of, well, a shoot ‘em up.

Horizontal Scrolling arcade action.