In 1986 Taito released the arcade game Bubble Bobble featuring the twin Bubble Dragons Bub and Bob. It was converted in 1987 on Amstrad CPC by Software Creations and distributed by Firebird. Alas this Amstrad CPC version had no music, nice sprites (or not), sound effects (my ears are still bleeding).

That's why César Nicolas Gonzales (author of the CPCE Amstrad CPC emulator) started a faithful remake of the arcade version which could work on an Amstrad CPC 464 (only 64 Ko) : BB4CPC. So this remake uses the full 16 colors of the Amstrad palette, music, nice sound effects, enhanced sprites, all the original levels and final boss. It was released a few days ago just after christmas 2011. Tom et Jerry did some work on the music.

It's 18h06, you will have to wait still 2.332.400 seconds to be able to enjoy Easter Egg's new program : the R-Type remake for Amstrad CPC in colors !

This remake is done by Fano (code), TotO (graphics) et iXien(sound). You can read Fano's interview on Push'N'Pop.

So it's still 38.873 minutes, that's 647 hours or 27 days to wait... To help you in meantime, you can go on the R-Type remake's site to find screenshots, musics, the cover, the manual, and for course the preview video of the game on Youtube.

By the way, R-Type was cited on Boing Boing.

Phactory v2.2 by NoRecess is available.

This new version of this development environment targetting Amstrad CPC adds a new user interface, overall speed improvements thanks to a new plugin system, a new source code editor featuring Z80 assembly syntax highlighting and some minor bugs fixed.

At the moment there is no documentation, no examples, no templates and no support.

GameBase CPC v23 is available since the 19th December.

Happy new year 2012, I wish you a good health too and also to all you love.

To program in C on Amstrad CPC there are several compilers :

• Small-C
• Arnord-C
• Hitech-C
• Small-C
• PhrozenC (on AND for Amstrad CPC as it also exists for windows)

But you can also program in C for Amstrad CPC on another platform. First,the multi-platform C compiler SDCC v3.1.0 targetting Z80 is out.

To use this compiler you can use an IDE : either Code::Blocks with its SDCC template by Octoate, or Phactory v2.1 by NoRecess with the help of SDCC2Pasmo v1.5(wich comes with sources). SDCC2Pasmo takes an .ASM file created by SDCC and converts it to used with PASMO (a Z80 cross assembler) which is compatiblewith Maxam (Amstrad CPC Z80 compiler, WinApe too).

You can find tutors for using SDCC on NoRecess web site or on CPCWiki.

If you are interested in using SDCC, you should read this CPCWiki forum thread about SDCC possible problems and anotherabout sMIDP2lib : a SDCC framework library by Mr Lou (which has now its own page on CPCWiki.

SDCC isnt the only compiler you can use, there is also :

• Z88dk v1.9 with cpcrslib (Amstrad CPC library for Z88dk), check this CPCWiki forum thread about Z88dk. There is a modified cpcrslib and starkos library byKevin Thacker in his Blue Angel 69 game.By the way, the developers of Z88dk are currently in the progress to allow SDCC to be used as a backend for Z88dk.
• CCZ80 v3.1.2 by Emilio Guerrero. There are 2 Amstrad CPC librairies usable for CCZ80 : cpcrslib (adapted from cpcrslibfor Z88dk) and sprutilcpc (included with CCZ80)

ESP Soft's blog (google translation herein english) has informations about using Z88dk (librairies like cpcrslib and cpcwyzlib) and ccz80 (earliest news).

Here is a music remake of Airwolf 2 by MrBedev on Youtube.

For the longplay video by CholoCPC :

• longplay part 1 of Aiwolf 2
• longplay part 2 of Aiwolf 2
• longplay part 3 of Aiwolf 2
• longplay part 4 of Aiwolf 2

I wish you all a happy Christmas 2011.

Here is a new HD video by Metr81 of the spanish Amstrad CPC game Punk Star written by Genesis Soft in 1988.

One of the few games with vocal synthesis (at loading screen stating the title of the game). A platform game, which doesnt seem so easy.

Punk Star also exists on MSX and ZX Spectrum.

Xevious, a classic shoot them up is available on the Nintendo 3DS Eshop. The reviewer of this Xevious youtube video states that the 3D allow to easily recognize flying targets from ground targets. A new hit ?