ILOGICALL
2009
ILOGICALL is a PICROSS-like game. We won't talk about the insipid and useless story to focus on the objective that is to discover pictures hidden in a grid using numbers to deduce the location of the cells to discover.

Other games like this already exist on CPC but this one offers some interesting characteristics. What is blindingly obvious are the colorful graphics. The musics and sound effects are very nice too. 100 levels are announced. But if the first 20 actually fit in a single 16x16 game board, the following require up to 9 for completion, thus there are 440 puzzles with the pleasure of seeing a picture gradually displayed each sublevel resolved. What a shame that the game is available only in Spanish while there is a Spectrum version in English. This lack of will unnecessarily complicates the use of the level editor. The graphics using mode 0 also makes the numbers sometimes hard to read but fans will appreciate ILOGICALL for the originality of its puzzles and its colorful realization.


Developer :CEZ Games Studio
CPC version : ESP Soft

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Cover-artwork original et illustration de DADMAN


IMAGINARIO COLECTIVO
2012
When dreams come true in a literal sense, the result is surprising. This is what the professor Mindstorm discovers testing its new process to project human thoughts into reality. An incident occurs and the world is then immersed in a sleep which reveals dangerous creatures. Fortunately, you are there to repair the damage!

So you have to complete different quests in a labyrinthine world to stop the experiment. The graphics are beautiful and varied, but the music is repetitive. It's a shame as for once, the lifetime is consistent! A very good point is that ESP Soft translated the game in English. However, the playability is disappointing as the level design does not forgive any error. In fact, the game is full of good ideas poorly exploited because of this simplistic and frustrating gameplay. The manual promises a much more varied action than the one offered by the game. Miki, the hero, pick up objects, kick monsters with his little fists... That's it! To be clear, IMAGINARIO COLECTIVO offers a nice world to explore but with a character with little capacity and tedious to control. Despite declared ambitions, it's just a good little game. And that's not bad at all!


Developer : ESP Soft
Code : GG
GFX : GG & 6128
Music : McKlain
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Original cover-artwork and picture by 6128


INVASION OF THE ZOMBIE MONSTERS
2010/13
Ned Friks is a happy student. Chairman of the Science Club of the High Skull Institute, his girlfriend is the prettiest cheerleader on campus. But suddenly the city is attacked by a horde of unleashed monsters! Making use of providential powers, he is the only one who can save his girlfriend Linda, and incidentally Humanity.

IOTZM (for short) is a pure juice platform game. Ned must cross five linear levels in a limited time while destroying monsters and zombies with a laser beam that can be improved by collecting color capsules. Almost all levels are sanctioned by the confrontation with a boss. The graphics are good despite discrete sets and a scrolling moving by characters quickly tiring visually. However, these shortcomings are compensated by the presence of a second parallax plane. Musics are short but many are inspired and catchy. In the end, all is very homogeneous with a neat design and if we put aside the technical weaknesses, we feel a real mastery of the developers. A colorful and refreshing game that reminds the most classical ones on consoles!


Developer :Relevo Games
Code and GFX : Jon Cortázar
Add. CPC code : José Vila
Music : Gominolas
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Original cover-artwork and picture by SERGIO MARTINEZ


IRON SPHERE
1990/2006
Struck by lightning during his last experience, Professor Iron-Sphere is teleported to the heart of his experimentation. Reduced to the form of a spherical robot, it must survey a huge maze in search for crystals of energy to reverse the process and be human again.

So you move the professor whose course can not be stopped once initiated, with the mission to collect at least one diamond in each of the 90 rooms while avoiding bombs and collapsing tiles. But if you leave a room without getting all the diamonds, stones remaining turn into bombs constituting as new obstacles! You have to make proper use of teleporters and you need to regularly refuel energy. Adapted from the ZX Spectrum, the graphics are effective. There is no music and noises are really discrete. Never mind, there is in this game some kind of nostalgia, a very 80's touch which is certainly due to its development began in 1990. A captivating game that requires a good endurance.


Developer : Ian Munro


TÉLÉCHARGEMENT : Game - Cover
Original cover-artwork by IXIAN FACTORY - Picture by LEE PIPER


ISHIDO
2005
ISHIDO uses the rules of the famous Asian game of the same name. You must place stones on a board that consists of 96 tiles. Each stone has a symbol that influences your ability to place the next one on a slab adjacent to the others to make points. The ideal is to place a stone in the middle of four others to multiply your score by making a "4 Ways".

The game is very clean technically. Without being revolutionary, the graphics remain neat and clear. Music isn't tiedous even after several parts, which is rare enough to be noted. The display of the stone to come permit you to anticipate your moves and develop real strategies to multiply your points. Height of luxury, the game includes documentation in both English and French. We urge you not to miss this unique puzzle-game that is reminiscent of the indestructible gameplay of TETRIS.


Developer : ARKOS
Code and music : Targhan
GFX : Slyder (Hard'OS)
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Original cover-artwork by IXIAN FACTORY - Picture by JEFF EASLEY


JET PAC
2014
Here is a new adaptation of a classic ZX Spectrum game on CPC thanks to 40Crisis. JET PAC is a legend who forged the reputation of Ultimate Play the Game, the studio which later became Rare. You control Jetman, a small astronaut who must gather the pieces of a rocket and refuel it to fly to the next level. Aliens continuously attack you to test your ability to slalom between the platforms and your dexterity at laser shot.

The gameplay is flawless with a perfectly calibrated inertia; just enough to get a cold sweat flying through the levels without losing control and stationary flight often saves lives. Graphics, designed to take advantage of the ZX Spectrum hardware, are less colourful on CPC but we can welcome the effort to maintain the variety of colors by using dithering. There is no music, you play with only one platform scheme and the game loops just after sixteen levels, reminding the early period of its creation. Fortunately, the fun remains intact. Difficult but pleasurable and timeless, it is a duty to play JET PAC!


Original game : T. & C. Stamper
Interpretation code : 40Crisis

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Original cover-artwork by IXIAN FACTORY - Picture by A.C.G.


JUMP MANIA
1993
JUMP MANIA is once again a puzzle-game designed by Fraggle, which one already created the classic but nice CRAZY SNAKE. And again, it's all in the title. In JUMP MANIA we jump, we jump, and we jump again!

You control a small avatar that jumps from from one tile to another and when he passed over one, it disappears. Of course, you have to empty each level of all its tiles, but some of them have a specific property such as being slippery, indestructible or requiring an extra passage to disappear. In summary nothing very original except that you can jump over the tiles by making jumps of different length to the amount imposed in each level. So finding the ideal way is not enough. The game offers some musics but unfortunately too short and off while playing. The graphics are colorful and the tiles are easily identifiable. The use of the different jump lengths is a bit chaotic but with its 30 levels, puzzle enthusiasts should find what they are looking for. Even if JUMP MANIA lacks personality, it is a good little game that will surely relax you.


Developer : MOPS
Code & GFX : Fraggle
Additional GFX : Duck
Music : BSC 1 Weee!
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Original cover-artwork by IXIAN FACTORY - Picture by TILT mag issue#35 and issue#46


JUSTIN
2005
Take the idea of INSIDE OUTING (RAFFLE), mix new graphics with others extracted from DUSTIN for example and you get JUSTIN, an isometric 3D game in which you'll have to rob a house and break four safes ! You'll have to avoid getting lost in the maze of the wide house closely guarded and infested with deadly creatures, find the keys to access the safes and blow up them with dynamite before escape with your precious booty by front door. Phew! And all this in an hour, stopwatch on screen!

It also feels the obvious inspiration of CRAFTON & XUNK and the legacy of an entire generation of games where the player must weave through a maze filled with tortuous halls full of deadly traps.. Plagiarism? Rather a tribute which honors this kind of game with a nice music and colorful graphics. The game's difficulty is not insurmountable but we still regret the very rigid playability and the obligation to restart the game from the beginning everytime! This game happily draw in old pots, of course, but for a good cause.


Developer : CNG Soft
Code/GFX/Music : C.N. Gonzalez
Game visual : Circus
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Original cover-artwork by IXIAN FACTORY - Picture by CIRCUS