The Amstrad PCW emulator Joyce v2.2.14 by John Elliott already available for unix and windows, and now also on MacOS (5th August 2021).

This version fixes handling of DSK files with unformatted tracks.

Cosa Nostra is a game created in 1986 by Opera Soft, a run and gun type game. For its 35th anniversary, Cheapeesoft has released a remake for windows and android. For the curious, a video of Cosa Nostra on Youtube.

Rainer has released CPCemu v2.3.3. It's available for MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux (x86_64 and ARM, in particular on Raspberry Pi) and Windows.

New version features :

• Snapshot sizes of up to 576 K (uncompressed only)
• Default snapshot size can be changed in configuration file
• New option to use on-screen joystick as cursor keys
• Several bug fixes, in particular in the context of ROM handling

Elite is a classic video game and Fessor started to disassemble the source code of the Amstrad CPC version to upgrade it using such ressources as the 6502 code of the Apple 2 version (commented) and the code of Elite TNK (The New Kind) by Christian Pinder. There is also the source code (with comments) of the BBC micro version.

Mabus Mania by Oscar Llamas (Hicks) is a platform game released at the start of 2021 for Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum and now soon for windows.

A new version of Mod Master XT beta 27 by FreddyV is available on Vogons. It lets you hear a lot of music modules formats on any PC under msdos even a PC XT (CGA), for example an Amstrad PC 1512/1640 or a PPC 512/640...

There was already in the Sierra adventure games a mode to support the special 16 color mode of the Amstrad PC 1512. This driver has been updated by ripsaw8080 :

• scrolling issue resolved so no more screen corruption: instead there are screen transitions that are better suited anyways for the slow PC1512 (additional changes were needed in the driver's dispatch routine to preserve the value of the DI register)
• color issue that resulted in unreadable areas is now resolved so newer EGA games are now readable (issue was the driver inexplicably reporting support for 65535 colors instead of 16), this made some later EGA titles playable: KQ5, SQ4, PQ3, SQ1 remake, LSL1 remake

PunyInform v2.7 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 v6.34 (or more).

They are tutorials to write adventure game with PunyInform (end of the page).

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

New articles are available on 64 NOPS, a blog about programmation on Amstrad CPC by Hicks (Vanity) and Toms (Pulpo Corrosivo).

Rainer has released CPCemu v2.3.2. It's available for MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux (x86_64 and ARM, in particular on Raspberry Pi) and Windows.

New version features :

• Almost complete emulation of the M4 Board using a host directory as drive C: (i. e. SD card; even for SymbOS), including network/internet connections, dynamic ROM simulation and (replaceable) Hack ROM (lower ROM). The only thing missing is the web interface
• CRTC emulation of type 0 (register 8 ) and type 1 (register 6) even better than before
• HYSNC and VSYNC emulation still a bit improved
• Online help updated
• Mouse pointer visible on movements
• Correction of many small and big errors (in particular, 576 KB RAM work correctly now for the first time after decades) and improved error reporting.