[{"TitleName":"1K ZX Chess","Publisher":"Artic Computing Ltd","Author":"Artic Computing Ltd","YearOfRelease":"Unknown","ZxDbId":"0031502","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 12, Mar 1983","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1983-02-17","Editor":"Nigel Clark","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editorial Director: Nigel Clark\r\nConsultant Editor: Mike Johnston\r\nProduction Editor: Harold Mayes MBE\r\nStaff Writer: John Gilbert\r\nDesign: William Scolding\r\nEditorial Director: John Sterlicchi\r\nAdvertisement Manager: John Ross\r\nStates Executive: Annette Burrows\r\nEditorial/Production Assistant: Margaret Hawkins\r\nManaging Director: Terry Cartwright\r\nChairman: Richard Hease\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by ECC Publications Ltd. it is not in anyway connected with Sinclair Research Ltd.\r\n\r\nTelephone\r\nAll departments\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to any of the Sinclair User group of publications please send programs, articles or ideas for hardware projects to:\r\nSinclair User\r\nECC Publications.\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nPrograms should be on cassette and articles should be typed. We cannot undertake to return them unless a stamped-addressed envelope is included.\r\n\r\nWe will pay £10 for each program published and £50 per 1,000 words for each article used.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1983\r\nSinclair User\r\nISSN NO. 0262-5458\r\n\r\nOrigination by Outline Graphics.\r\nPrinted Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd\r\n\r\nDistributed by Spotlight Magazine Distribution Ltd, [redacted]"},"MainText":"SINCLAIR ACTS TO IMPROVE THE STANDARD OF ITS NAMED SOFTWARE\r\n\r\nJohn Gilbert looks at the latest group of cassettes issued by Sinclair and finds that it is now setting the standards.\r\n\r\nA new batch of Sinclair Research software for the ZX-81 and Spectrum shows a marked improvement in the quality of programs and a continuation of fine artwork on the cassette inserts.\r\n\r\nThe reason is that the company is selling programs from other independent companies, such as Melbourne House and Artic, instead of continuing to rely on Psion, Mikro-Gen and ICL.\r\n\r\nThe Hobbit which takes first place in the new releases for quality and value for money. This adventure game, which the makers claim uses artificial intelligence, is discussed in Mind Games on page 93.\r\n\r\nVU-3D, for the 48K Spectrum, is another good offering from Psion. It allows the user to create a three-dimensional representation of an object on the television screen. The object can then be rotated and viewed from any angle. The objects can be displayed as wirework figures or can be shaded. They can also be magnified and reduced.\r\n\r\nIt is possible to store the figure on tape in a data file and re-load it to view again. The program costs £9.95 but even though it has some good features it still seems over-priced.\r\n\r\nGames feature strongly in the new tapes. Sinclair is selling the Artic range of adventures, A, C and D. Adventure A works on the 16K or 48K Spectrum and 16K ZX-81 and is called Planet of Death.\r\n\r\nYou are stranded on a planet and must return to your spaceship. There is no guide to the keywords but with a little thought you can discover the help command. At times the suggestions can be very unhelpful and it is a good idea to construct a map, as some of the help suggestions may make you retrace your footsteps.\r\n\r\nThe next adventure so far released is C, called Ship of Doom. It can be run on the 48K Spectrum and 16K ZX-81.\r\n\r\nYour ship is captured by aliens who are searching for humanoids to replace their brains with microchips. The object of the game is to escape from the alien craft by breaking the gravitational field. To do so you must find the control room of the alien ship.\r\n\r\nThe help command is a little more useful in this game and it is easier to get further when playing the game.\r\n\r\nAdventure D, called Espionage island, can be used on the 48K Spectrum or 16K ZX-81. You must escape from an aircraft which is about to crash into the Atlantic. You must the reach the island safely, avoid capture, and try to discover the secret of the island. The game is more difficult than the others and many people have not managed to get out of the aircraft, even though there is a parachute. All the adventures cost £6.95.\r\n\r\nLeaving adventure games, Reversi, or Othello as it is sometimes called, can be played on the 16K Spectrum or 16K ZX-81. The game has nine levels, from novice to expert, and the computer is difficult to beat. The makers claim that Reversi reflects the strict contemporary morality of Victorian society but we believe that it can traced to Arabic origins. Reversi costs £7.95.\r\n\r\nAn interesting addition to the range of software is the Artic 1K Chess. It takes some technical wizardry to squeeze this kind of game into the unexpanded ZX-81.\r\n\r\nThe game can be played using one of two opening moves. Because of the lack of memory, castling, pawn promotion and capturing en passant are not allowed. The game loads in approximately 40 seconds and that is ideal for someone who wants a quick game of chess without having to load from a tape which takes several minutes.\r\n\r\nThe computer also makes its moves very fast for the amount of memory available to it. 1K Chess costs £4.95.\r\n\r\nSuper Glooper is an amusing game of Pac-man on the 16K ZX-81. Glooper must paint the maze before the aliens kill him. Unfortunately it is difficult to evade those aliens using the standard ZX-81 keyboard but it is not impossible. Glooper can also pick up one of the shields at the corners of the maze to protect himself and chase the aliens.\r\n\r\nOn the other side of the tape is Frogs, a game of Frogger. You must get the frogs over the river via the moving boats to the jetties on the other bank. If froggie falls into the river, it drowns.\r\n\r\nYou score points for each frog you get across the river and you can have eight frogs to send to their deaths. Super Glooper and Frogs cost £4.95.\r\n\r\nAnother game with a familiar-sounding theme is Through the Wall. It is based on Breakout and is available for the 16K ZX-81. On the other side of the cassette is Scramble, also a familiar theme. Both games on one cassette represent good value at £4.95.\r\n\r\nA package for the 1K ZX-81, called 1K Games, has also been released. The games include Jackpot, in which you must try to win the 25 pence jackpot from a one-armed bandit; Etch and Sketch, where you can draw pictures on the screen; and Maze Game, where you must find your way out of the conventional maze.\r\n\r\nThe release of this cassette, costing £4.95, is a good idea at a time when so many people are buying ZX-81s.\r\n\r\nA basic Toolkit is available for the 16K ZX-81. It provides a series of machine code routines to make the job of programming easier. It includes a re-number routine, a search and replace routine, a merge routine to put together two separate Basic programs, and a routine to put a Basic program above RAMTOP and out of the way of the NEW command. The Toolkit costs £5.95.\r\n\r\nTwo database programs are available in the range for the 48K Spectrum. They are called Collector's Pack and Club Record Controller.\r\n\r\nCollector's Pack can be used to store information about coins, stamps or even records. The Club Record Controller will store information about people such as addresses and telephone numbers. It would be useful to schools or even someone who runs a private club. Both packages are easy to use and cost £9.95.\r\n\r\nAdventure B, Inca Curse, for the 48K Spectrum is an upgrade of an adventure which Artic wrote for the 16K ZX-81. The adventurer is exploring in the jungle when he finds an Incan Temple. The aim is to go in and drag out all the treasure, or as much a you can carry. It all seems so easy until you enter the game and step into the temple.\r\n\r\nThe authors have managed to cram a good deal into this adventure and the Artic top score of 3,200 points will take some beating. We must admit that it is not one of the adventures in which we have made much progress. Adventure B costs £6.95.\r\n\r\nThe latest release of tapes is certainly better than the previous one. The games, utility, and business areas have been covered well but there is still a lack of good educational software. The only tapes available tend to be multi-choice and question-and-answer sessions.\r\n\r\nThe Psion tapes seem to be the best for quality at the moment and the ones with the most interesting concepts. None of the cassettes reviewed was bad but The Hobbit, Vu-3D, 1K Chess, and Super Glooper seem best.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"62,63","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"John Gilbert","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 10, Aug 1982","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1982-07-16","Editor":"Terry Pratt","TotalPages":92,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Terry Pratt\r\nAssistant Editor: Elspeth Joiner\r\nEditorial Assistant: Susan Cameron\r\nDesign: Linda Freeman\r\nProduction Editor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Rita Lewis\r\nAdvertising Executive: Neil Wood\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Louise Flockhart\r\nPublisher: Tom Moloney\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES POSTAL SERVICE SUBSCRIPTION. By using the special Postal Subscription Service, copies of COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES can be mailed direct from our offices each month to any address throughout the world. All subscription applications should be sent for processing to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES (Subscription Department), [redacted]. All orders should include the appropriate remittance made payable to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES. Annual subscription rates (12 issues): UK and Eire: £10.00, Overseas surface mail: £12.00, Airmail Europe: £20.00. Additional service information including individual overseas airmail rates available upon request. Circulation Department: EMAP National Publications. Published and distributed by EMAP National Publications Ltd. Printed by Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd.\r\n\r\n© Computer & Video Games Limited\r\nISBN 0261 3697.\r\n\r\nCover: Stuart Briers"},"MainText":"FROM THE COCKPIT\r\n\r\nBank, dive and climb as the Earth travels past beneath your feet - or actually it's on your TV screen which has been transformed into a cockpit window.\r\n\r\nFlight Simulation is the name of the game which is one of a series of five being produced for Sinclair b y software house, Psion.\r\n\r\nThe simulation places you in a cockpit of an aircraft.\r\n\r\nThe sky and the ground move through this window, and although it hardly bears comparison with the multi-million pound flight simulators which real pilots train on, it does offer some of the excitement and a very real challenge.\r\n\r\nThe tapes are marketed under the Sinclair label and will be available from the company or your local W. H. Smith for ZX81s with a 16K Rampack. Flight Simulation costs £5.95 and the other programs are:\r\n\r\nFantasy Games which retails at £4.35 and offers two adventures in a Perilous Swamp and on the Sorceror's Island.\r\n\r\nChess costs £6.95 and has six levels of play with a chess clock on which to time yourself.\r\n\r\nBackgammon, the gamblers' favourite dice game has a graphics board, rolling dice, and doubling dice for £5.95.\r\n\r\nThe Space Invaders look-alike, Space Raiders shares a cassette with the familiar City Bomb type game, Bomber and retails at £3.95.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"15","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]