The Giant Speccy Port List

[chinnyhill10]

Maybe they worked on both. But the graphics were definitely done using Panda Sprites on the Amstrad CPC,

There was an interview with the Oliver Twins where they explained that the games were developed on the Amstrad but already with the Spectrum in mind. So it's an "inverse" Speccy port : Made on the the CPC but still limited by Speccy specs.

Initially although they bought a PDS once they had some serious cash. 

Then of course there's Super Robin Hood and Operation Gunship which don't have the same graphics as the Spectrum.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Maybe they worked on both. But the graphics were definitely done using Panda Sprites on the Amstrad CPC,

There was an interview with the Oliver Twins where they explained that the games were developed on the Amstrad but already with the Spectrum in mind. So it's an "inverse" Speccy port : Made on the the CPC but still limited by Speccy specs.

If memory serves me correctly, they go into greater detail in their book that came out a few years book too...

[eto]

If memory serves me correctly, they go into greater detail in their book that came out a few years book too...

I don't have that book. I think it was in one of the retro magazines. I have to look into my PDFs.

[Shaun M. Neary]

In an attempt to move back on topic. I think there's a world of difference between porting to the speccy and a speccy port and the first batch of Dizzy adventures definitely fall into the former category.

The Big Red games (Magicland Dizzy onwards) are a different story entirely. I'd believe those were speccy ports in a heartbeat.

[cwpab]

My story with Hard Drivin' is particularly dramatic:

ACT 1) It's summer 1991 and I'm 11. And I see an arcade machine that I wanted to have for the CPC, so I described my parents I wanted to have "the one (game) with the dynamite". Problem is, I wanted to have this:



And instead received this for Christmas:



ACT 2) I remember the frustration seeing I had been gifted 5 fecking games I didn't want. But it couldn't be that bad, right? Some of them should be fun... Not really: Xybots was the only good one but I didn't know what to do, APB was a chaotic conversion where I also didin't know what I was doing, Toobin and Dragon Spirit were just too arcadey and frustrating... And Hard Drivin' didn't even load. But it wasn't just that: the TNT pack gave the last finishing touches to my agonyzing disk drive belt, and it's very likely the eternal loading attempts from Hard Drivin' had a great part on it. And my dad decided to give the CPC to an old objects shop just because the broken belt, somehow assuming the whole machine was useless. So Hard Divin' killed my CPC.

ACT 3) It's 1993 and my dad's 386 with VGA is finally getting some games. Budokan was among them, and there was "4D Sports Driving" or... Stunts. I didn't know back then, but that was my first exposition to Hard Drivin' as this was a Hard Drivin' clone with a cool track editor and some crazy characaters and cars.



I recommend everyone to try this one, it's pretty fun. The game has an active compettive community today, check this out: 1) https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-remarkable-community-around-a-27-year-old-ms-dos-racing-game 2) https://www.stunts.hu/



One of the things you can add in the editor are tennis fields, so I remember adding a lot of then to see what happened. I also remember someone made a super long square circuit with 4 banked curves in each square, and me and one friend tried to have the best times on that track. You really needed to think about slowing down before reaching the curve, especially with the super car.



ACT 4) It's 2015 and I embark on a still unfinished (Biggles part 2, Head over Heels, Batman...) mission to complete all 80ish CPC games I had as a kid. I reach Hard Drivin', load the game from the TNT pack DSKs and... the game didn't load. It appears the bug was not only in my copy as a kid. So Tengen/Domark killed CPC machines on a massive scale... Deliberatedly? Quite unlikely, probably an error. So I try the normal version of the game... and get a 2 frames per second movement of this:



Which forces me to play the MS-DOS version of the game as the CPC one was unplayable. And I finally finished the game! The most tricky part was to place the car in order to enter the loops. It's good to control wheel with the mouse for that.

EPILOGUE) I'm not sure if Hard Drivin' is a speccy port, but it's slower than the Spectrum version and it should have been rejected by stores due to being unplayable. It also broke my disk drive belt, so I hate it.

[Shaun M. Neary]

You were lucky that you had that on disk! If you want real torture, load APB from tape! It's one of the worst tape multiload nightmares known to humankind!
I actually enjoyed APB though once I played it on disk.

[Gryzor]

This is a great thread and an awesome list, we should add it to the relevant wiki page...

[Typhon]

I will probably do that. Want to put a brief note on each as to why it's a Blatant Port. And probably a link to cpc power as well. 

[Gryzor]

I will probably do that. Want to put a brief note on each as to why it's a Blatant Port. And probably a link to cpc power as well.

That would be awesome

[Shaun M. Neary]

I will probably do that. Want to put a brief note on each as to why it's a Blatant Port. And probably a link to cpc power as well.

Seconded. Great idea and would be a great addition. I'll be happy to thrown in any notes I know about certain titles too.

[zhulien]

it's almost as though the CPC is 2 computers in 1.  A CPC and a Speccy.  I'd still rather the Speccy ports than no game in some of the cases.  Some of them are still pretty awesome.

[Shaun M. Neary]

it's almost as though the CPC is 2 computers in 1.  A CPC and a Speccy.  I'd still rather the Speccy ports than no game in some of the cases.  Some of them are still pretty awesome.

Aye, apart from a very slow level 2, I really enjoyed The Untouchables on the Amstrad.

[Typhon]

Added:

https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/List_of_Speccy_Ports

[Gryzor]

Added:

https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/List_of_Speccy_Ports

Awesome, thanks! (though it could be a list within the original article? Not that I'm complaining  )

[Typhon]

Oh by all means edit it in if you wish  

[kawickboy]

From 1989 most Domark games were speccy ports.

I recently discover Double Dragon 3 on spectrum. The CPC release is a well known speccy-port. But the speccy release is not so bad, with sound, music, and a smoother animation ! But the speccy release is 128ko only ! Not the CPC one, which doesn't manage 128ko systems ! A shame.
This is exactly the same situation with Narc: the Speccy release is 128ko only on great, and then ported to CPC on 64ko...

[Anthony Flack]

It's a pretty loose category. As pointed out, many of people's favourite CPC games are Spectrum ports, but some have redrawn mode 0 graphics like Chase HQ and Commando, some have recoloured graphics like Head Over Heels and many other isometric games (why does 3DC get called a Speccy port and not Batman?), and others keep the original Spectrum sprites and are none the worse for it (like Starquake).

[lmimmfn]

From 1989 most Domark games were speccy ports.

I recently discover Double Dragon 3 on spectrum. The CPC release is a well known speccy-port. But the speccy release is not so bad, with sound, music, and a smoother animation ! But the speccy release is 128ko only ! Not the CPC one, which doesn't manage 128ko systems ! A shame.
This is exactly the same situation with Narc: the Speccy release is 128ko only on great, and then ported to CPC on 64ko...

Domark were one of the worst publishers of CPC games. I remember seeing C64 bond games, well polished, cool intros snd the CzpC version being complete crap.
I avoided all Domark games on the CPC after that, luckily.

[Anthony Flack]

Domark didn't develop their games in-house; they were a third party publisher. Some games you would have missed: Split Personalities, the Star Wars and Castle Master games, and Escape From The Planet of the Robot Monsters.