Retro Video Gamer

Hello everyone!

After many months of work, finally COUSIN HORACE is here, my new game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48/128 - an epic adventure with the following main features:

• Five different chapters for a mix of platform, shoot-�em-up, puzzle solving and maze exploration.
• An immersive plot illustrated by �Spectrumized� pictures and comic book-like in-between screens.
• Comes in TZX (Biturbo-II fast loader) and TAP format.
• Game and documentation immediately available in six different languages: Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

But who is Cousin Horace, actually?

The idea came to me by looking at the cassette inlays of the versions of Horace games made for the Timex Sinclair 2068, the American clone of the Spectrum. The character portrayed on them bears very little resemblance to the one we all know and love, although the games themselves are indistinguishable from their Spectrum counterparts.

(http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/zx/US-Horace-bis.jpg)

I then imagined such character not to be the British Horace, but his American cousin � incidentally going by the name of Horace as well � living his same adventures, or a sort of parallel life if you prefer, on the other side of �The Pond�. Hence COUSIN HORACE.

Each chapter poses a different challenge for the player, requiring different skills to be negotiated. By successfully ending each one of them (except for the last chapter, of course) the player will receive a code to enter after loading the next one in order to start it.

(http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/zx/CH-1.gif)(http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/zx/CH-2.gif)
(http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/zx/CH-3.gif)(http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/zx/CH-4.gif)

The game was developed with the help of several programming tools, among which La Churrera, Arcade Game Designer and Shoot-Em-Up-Designer.

Download it from my web site (http://http) (link at the bottom of article)

Have fun!

Nice looking game 

Agree! Great looking game.

That looks absolutely fab, I can see why you used many different game creators. Getting a server error here on that link.

Thank you all folks, I really hope you will enjoy the game.

Quote from: "zapiy"Getting a server error here on that link.

The link should bring you to my website; anyway, try the direct link to the file and please let me know here if you still have problems downloading it:

http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/zx/Cousin.zip (//http)

It does, maybe it was something with my iphone when i tried earlier.. All ok now.

Looks very nice!

This looks pretty cool. I like the little anecdote behind Cousin Horace' conception.

I'll certainly be trying it out. Good luck with it 

Looks very good! Will have a go on this sometime, must rekindle my Speccy love!

I have been playing it all morning, very accomplished game.. Highly reccommended..

Thanks again! 

But wait a minute... There is an important message:

[size=120]Please note:[/size]

a bug that prevented the end-of-game message to be displayed has been discovered in Chapter 5.

The error has been dealt with, but please download the ZIP file again from my website.

Sorry for the inconvenience!   

Many thanks to Albert "DeusEx" for bringing this issue to my attention.

Thanks for that fella and i will..

@corporal jonlan great to see your game featured in the latest retro gamer mag.

Thank you very much zapiy!  :69:

Wallop. I would have happily got you a copy and posted it to you fella. Congrats. A great honour.

Thank you for your kind thought zapiy  :113:

And now... Cousin Horace gets an update!  :)

• In Chapter 1, you now start with 40 units of health instead of 20, and the medikit gives you 10 units of health instead of 5;
• Chapter 2 has custom sound effects now;
• Chapter 3 and 5 have been cleansed of the "ULA Plus bug", a fault in the AGD game designer which caused the game to display false colors under certain configurations, e.g. the ZX Vega;
• all TZX files (except for the intro) have been customized with the SetoLOAD turbo loader.

The updated game and documentation can be downloaded from my website (http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/diario-2014-10-01.html) as usual.

Enjoy!

Cousin Horace is now officially going to be released as a Bitmap Soft game.

More info soon.

Nice work. What time frame did that take to do?
Pete 😀

Newsflash: A user reported that when loaded on a 128K and later models, sound might get garbled in Chapter 2. I fixed the issue and tested the level to be sure there were no more. Please download the game again, and sorry for the inconvenience.

I also increased lives in that chapter from 5 to 8 to make it a bit easier.

Cheers bud, we will get this corrected.

This game is now in proofing stage.

Great!  ;D I can't wait to see the final product!

Same mate, you do get sneak peaks though being the coder lol.

More news!

Feedback for the updated game has been positive so far, but a recurring criticism was that the second chapter was too difficult, with many resilient enemies to shoot down. I modified it so that there are a little less of them flying around, and all of them take 2 shots to be destroyed, except for the blimp and the V-1, which only take one. You can download the new package from the usual address on my website (http://www.alessandrogrussu.it/diario-2014-10-01.html).

This updated version will be available on tape from Bitmap Soft as well.

Nice one mate.

awesome stuff..cheers

Not long now we hope.  8)

The game is now available for pre-order.