Without the Next project I doubt I ever would have seriously thought about following up one of my 30 year old games.

Whilst I've never stopped developing games, it's been a huge amount of fun going back to low level Z80 code, and a system with little hardware support or fancy game engines. But mostly using the extra speed the Next provides to produce something that wouldn't have been possible back in the 80's. I have some ideas for using the new Next features for some visual 'bling' effects. I decided early on that I wanted to keep a more 'traditional' look to the game, so sticking to Speccy colours and using software sprites. The graphics I've been pulling from the original Rex rom using a visual memory viewer, again written by Steve.

I then either run the code on Real Spectrum emulator, or directly on the Next board.

I've been developing on PC using Microsoft Visual Studio and a custom made assembler written by a friend and fellow games developer Steve Clark (It's a modified version of the one we used back in the day to develop Gameboy games). Along with keyboard control of Rex and some basic enemy movement and collision. I've got most of my core code in and working. Originally released for the ZX Spectrum in 1988, 31 years later and Jas Austin is working on a Spectrum Next version! In his words. A great time saving feature when you have to re-format and re-install all of your software There are a number o. this should also be able to be printed out and saved to a file. He has come to Zenith to do away with the humans who have built their fortunes around the Great Tower.Īrmed with the greatest weapon system ever seen, with its array of cannons, lasers, multiple spray guns, and smart bombs, Rex leaps from cave to cave in a mad blitz that wreaks havoc and destruction on his chosen enemies. Hi I would like to see Speccy produce a list of the installed software together with the serial numbers for the software. No part of this site may be reproduced without permission.Rex, the thick-skinned mercenary, is here to do a job. Registered trademarks and tradenames are property of their respective owners.

Speccy software sprites