The ZX81 has been away too long, and to commemorate 20 years since I first wrote the game CAVERNS - never released on ZX81 - I decided to reissue it for the PC. The game originally 16K of Z80 machine code took over a year of hard slog to write as a 16 year old with multiple crashes and 15 minute save and load times on tape recorder each time it crashed. Now older and wiser I decided to see how long it would take to write using a modern programming language - Delphi. Less than a week.

Are you ready for ZX81 gaming heaven? :-) DOWNLOAD CAVERNS HERE

The first screen of the game was loosely based on an arcade game I played in the eighties underage in a pub - thanks to Dan Edenhofer for identifying it as 'The Pit' - it had a chamber in the bottom centre like the first screen. I wonder if anyone can remember it?

You must snatch three loads of Mithril (M) before your spaceship takes off. Jewels (*) may also be gathered. The keys are:

Martin xx

Retro Remakes site review 'the game is lovingly restored in all it’s ZX81 style glory. It has jewels, dwarves, aliens, lasers, Balrogs and spaceships. Now, by my reckoning that’s only a pirate, fez and a ninja short of everything you could ever want in a game......' (by oddBob)

Tested on Windows 2000 & 98, 200+MHz

Version

1.0 Started working on the game

1.1 Five caverns working

1.2 Sixth cavern added

1.3 Laser and Balrog working

1.4 Dwarves added and Intro completed

There is a preview video of Caverns here