News about Amstrad CPC, PCW, Notepad NC100 NC150 NC200, PDA600 and also Amstrad PC






The Key, a point and click adventure game using the Paket engine in french and italian

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The Key is a point and click Amstrad CPC graphical adventure game using the Paket engine discovered in 2019 in this video of the demo game Escape the ROM created by Jordi Sureda (graphics) and Santi Ontañón (code). The game was available in spanish and english, it is now also available in french and italian since the 8th June. But you will have to solve a short enigma to be able to download the program.



PunyInform v5.5 by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson to write text adventure games

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PunyInform v5.5 by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson is a library written in Inform 6 to create adventure game (pure text, no graphic support contrary to DAAD) using the Z-machine virtual machine which will run on 8bit computers (or more recent computers too). PunyInform has a parser, knowing of common verbs and a framework to write adventure games.

PunyInform is based on the Inform 6 library written by Graham Nelson. Its goal is to make easily adventure games in Inform 6, with a manual describing the differences between the official library and PunyInform..

Games using PunyInform can be compiled in z3, z5 and z8 format (z3 being the best format for 8bit computers, other formats have more features). Compared to the Inform 6 library, it means that there is no support for the Glulx virtual machine but z3 format is important as Inform 6 doesnt support it.

To compile games written with PunyInform, you should use the Inform 6 compiler maintained by David Kinder. Binaries are available on if-archive. PunyInform needs Inform v6.35 (or more).

They are tutorials to write adventure game with PunyInform (end of the page) and all the documentation including a 8 page cheat sheet (quick reference)..

To try your game after compilation, you can use WinFrotz by David Kinder, to create map easily you can use Trizbort.

And finally, to create an Amstrad CPC and PCW disk image, you will have to use the Puddle BuildTools which works under linux, windows 1x with WSL2 or MacOS with Intel processor and OrbStack.




WIP Tindy Dash by Abalore, FM sound with the Play2CPC on Amstrad CPC

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Tiny Dash by Abalore is an Amstrad CPC game using the Play2CPC (for something like FM sound) in overscreen, multiplayer with 2 joysticks, a remake of Boulder Dash like the name suggest. The game is finished but levels must be created and may some more music will be added.






PCRetroTech, a Youtube channel for Amstrad PC 1512 and 1640 users (and CPC)

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PCRetroTech is a recommended Youtube channel if you are interested by the Amstrad PC 1512 (with its 16 colours CGA mode) and PC 1640 (with its plantronics mode). I recommend these videos (there are more of course, the 3rd is also about Amstrad CPC) :




CheshireCat, blog, youtube, CRTC5 ... what ?

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The Cheshire's is an interesting character of the world of Lewis Caroll, which let me think that I still didn't read this book yet...

So I invite your to go quickly read the blog CheshireCat's basket including the article about the ... CRTC5 (no no no, sorry but at Amstrad we count only from 0 to 4) and the two following articles :



Two Dandanator models by the Rancanuo Team

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I am not up to date about all the differents models of Dandanator, but the Rancanuo Team is proposing two models which can also be used on CPC+ with an adaptator (not sure if it's included, I just asked the question) :

  • CPC Dandanator Mini Dual aka the plain model with two banks of 512 Kb internal memory, choosable with a commutator
  • New Dandanator Elite + with one 512 Kb internal memory bank plus the ability to insert its own in house cartridges which looks like 3 inch disks


New version of the CPC assembler Orgams 'Flappy Flags' (January 2024)

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Orgams is an assembler in ROM for Amstrad CPC, created by Madram, Drill and Hicks. A new version Flappy Flags is available (28th January 2024).

The documentation in french and english is available on Orgams' wiki.