Unpublished games from Italian VIC users, circa 1982-83?

[orion70]

Well, you can emulate joystick in VICE: Settings > Joystick Settings > Joystick in port #1 (choose Numpad + RCtrl or define keys).
You can't load a tap file in the FE3, but if it's not protected you can use VICE to save it to disk (D64 file) and then load it on the real VIC.

[highinfidelity]

Thanks, but I suspect all games are more or less protected on that tape. They're all multi-load, or so it seems.

I never learned how to hack them back in the '80s, is there some easy way to do it? I'd really like to have these games on real hardware.

[highinfidelity]

I just got back to the link quoted below to download the .tap file and try it out on Manosoft Princess, but for some reason I am redirected to an "unauthorised access" page. Is the website edicolac64 abbandonware? Does anyone have the mentioned .tap file in its datawarehouse (Orion perhaps? I know you save everything VIC you come across...! ).

Thanks a lot.

Hello Pallas. Perhaps I also had that cassette back then. Is Elicotteri a shooter with parachutists where you command a fixed central cannon? If so, it's a clone of another very common shooter whose name I don't remember right now.

But most of all: is there on the same tape a game named "Zombies"? That was a very nice space shooter (or at least that's how I recall it...) and I'm really looking for it!

Yes, that one! I've got it. It's already dumped here:

http://www.edicolac64.com/public/dettag ... &editore=4

even though they say "elicotteri" isn't working (mine is).

[orion70]

I just got back to the link quoted below to download the .tap file and try it out on Manosoft Princess, but for some reason I am redirected to an "unauthorised access" page. Is the website edicolac64 abbandonware? Does anyone have the mentioned .tap file in its datawarehouse (Orion perhaps? I know you save everything VIC you come across...! ).

Nope, sorry, I did not save already published cassettes. I understand you're looking for that particular "Zombie" game, aren't you? Can you specify the Italian (pirated, I guess) compilation where Zombie was? Try and search in the new, almost complete Sovox site first.

[highinfidelity]

Yes indeed!!! But I am also looking forward to be disappointed by an overwhelming recall bias with Contaminazione and Sonar!!!

The latter, by the way, will also show to the world how I will miserably fail to properly configure my FE3 as an 8K memory expansion! The idea of combining the Princess and the FE3 together is quite thrilling, though!

Thanks for the link! The game Zombi was included in the italian release PROGRAM N° 3 that I've quickly found here.

[orion70]

Yes indeed!!! But I am also looking forward to be disappointed by an overwhelming recall bias with Contaminazione and Sonar!!!

It's a bias we all know well.. the "total recall" effect, which leads to the face from a scene of the corresponding movie .

The latter, by the way, will also show to the world how I will miserably fail to properly configure my FE3 as an 8K memory expansion! The idea of combining the Princess and the FE3 together is quite thrilling, though!

Should be quite easy from the menu.. any expansion >=8K should work though.

Thanks for the link! The game Zombi was included in the italian release PROGRAM N° 3 that I've quickly found here.

Will try this myself in VICE .

[highinfidelity]

The problem with me is that hardwares as the FE3 have such an incredible amount of packed features, most of which I don't even understand what are exactly intended for, not even to mention using them to some degree, that I get lost in them and forget how to turn on the few features that I can really handle.

In the past I tried to load Zombi in VICE but couldn't play it as, supposedly, it needs a joystick. However, the scanned "vintage" instructions found on the website you suggested, say that it can also be played from the keyboard. I remember it as a quick, amusing space-shooter, and I especially liked how some waves of aliens moved in spirals in a trail-like pattern. Although being an obscure title (and very hard to load frome the tape, which was defective and required repeated attempts) it was among my favorites at the time; but as said it's all probably recall bias and historic perspective, so really, don't expect it to be anything special.

[highinfidelity]

I finally gave it a go (thanks to Manosoft Princess!!! ) yesterday evening! HOORAY!

I confirm that Zombi, at least to my taste, is a game that shows potential. On-screen movements are a bit choppy (don't know if they're up to the VIC's limit, or could eventually be improved with some machine code tweaking) but the game is really amusing. I like how the "zombis" whirl in patterns and how you can align with their "trails" and shoot them sequentially. It's very rewarding. The moderate auto-fire feature engaged by holding the fire button pressed down is just what is needed to avoid a crick at your fingers after two or three plays.

Same goes for Contaminazione, which isn't bad either. Having one single life to manage and then it's game over is a bit weird (well, I mean in the videogames field... ) and perhaps also the pace ramps up a bit too quickly, leaving too little to strategy as you frantically move left and right and fire aimlessly, but the game after all is quite nice and calls for a re-play.

In both cases I failed to understand if these games were Italian originals or just hacks (in the same cassette there was Elicotteri, which I found out 30some years later to be an obvious hack of Paratroopers).

I left Sonar for another day. It has been so easy to have the Princess go at first try, that linking it to the FE3 memory expansion on the same evening meant really challenging the Goddess of Fortune a bit too much!

[orion70]

In both cases I failed to understand if these games were Italian originals or just hacks (in the same cassette there was Elicotteri, which I found out 30some years later that it was an obvious hack of Paratroopers).

I also downloaded the TAP file and tried the games. Both are hacks of two of the most iconic games for the Commodore VIC-20: Rabbit Software's excellent Antimatter Splatter (which happens to be one of the few games I remember from my obscure 12 y.o. VIC experience - prg HERE); and Galaga/Galaxion's best rip-off Space Phreeks, also from Rabbit (prg HERE). I guess software houses weren't going to make much money in Italy with all these pirates around .

I left Sonar for another day.

Yep, it's also an Italian hack - UMI's Sub Chase, originally sold on cartridge (prg HERE, 8K RAM required) .

[highinfidelity]

Funny! Thanks for sorting that out, although you kind of smashed my childhood's beliefs!

Of course now that I have my beautiful Princess beside me, I will immediately try out the originals as well!

[carlo.borreo]

Hi all, I am Carlo Borreo, author of Briscola and Picman.
I confirm I wrote these games myself, and Mc MicroComputer published them.

[orion70]

Carlo, thanks for writing here! See how small the world is . Your works are very well written and fun.. how old were you when you saw your games published in a famous magazine? It must have been quite a satisfaction!

BTW, we (Italian users) have been struggling with some bugs in a Vic +16k flight sim published in mc microcomputer. I personally gave up after several tries. Do you happen to have the tapes with original type-ins of that mag? Long shot I guess...

[musuruan]

PARA'
di Renato Ferrario
Published on MC Microcomputer N. 54 (Luglio/Agosto 1986) pag. 154.

OCR'ed and proofread by musuruan

Screenshot:


I'm also OCRing other listings for the VIC-20 and other Commie machines published on MC microcomputer.

I have already OCR'ed PIC-MAN but I still have issues. If somebody wants to help with this or other programs, please send me a PM.

Basically I scan the listing, I OCR it with tesseract, which is quite good in recognizing characters and transforming the images into text, then I proofread the result (and insert petcodes - that tesseract cannot recognize :-/) and convert it into a prg file using petcat.

[orion70]

Great find and excellent work of patience, thanks so much! I have always dreamed of finding the software tapes published at the end of each year of publication by MC Microcomputer.

Also, please take a look at the flight simulator for the expanded Vic +16k:
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... olo#p86087

We never managed to have a fully working version. Please, help!
I can provide partial listing and scans made by Salvatore "Tore", a fellow Italian forum member.

[ops]

Great work guys!

You should submit your work to

http://www.vic20listings.freeolamail.com/