Escape from Cnossus
Escape from Cnossus is a roguelike for the ZX Spectrum, made with Boriel's ZXBasic compiler. It's a minimalist coffeebreak game; I can finish it in about 40 minutes if I counted correctly.
You can play the game online courtesy of the JSSpeccy emulator. DOS edition via the Warajevo emulator. Code and assets available on GitHub.
It's relatively slow on older machines.
Tips
This is a survival game! Some monsters, generally the mundane creatures, drop useful items when killed, but most give you no benefit. It's best to avoid them unless fighting is the only way to reach the stairs. Even then, remember that monsters fear light: light a torch or what have you and they'll either become confused and attack less, or even run away entirely. Good luck!
Reviews
Desktop port
As of autumn 2017, you can buy a desktop port with redone graphics and other improvements.
Download
Install instructions
Development log
- Announcing Escape from CnossusOct 24, 2017
Comments
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Hi, I’m contacting you because I want to make a homebrew tribute USB. I’m collecting as many content creators as possible. I also want to include a profile for each one, with a few details, such as their logo, avatar, name, work completed, projects, etc., so you can see who’s behind their creations.
That profile, along with any material you allow me to upload, will be placed on a USB drive. This will act as a database of creators and their creations, and will be updated as I connect with new people.
The USB I’m thinking of creating will be one of those rubber-type USBs, shaped like a Spectrum computer, something that looks really nice. The idea is that those who contribute material, and if they want to buy one or more, will get it at cost price, and those who just want to buy one, it will cost a little more.
The idea is that if enough are sold, enough to recover the initial investment, the profits that the rest of the USBs could generate will be distributed among the people who have contributed material to the project, via transfer, PayPal, or however possible, even if possible, that the USB will be free. Obviously, you can buy more than one, but only one of them can be free.
It’s not necessary or mandatory to buy the USB, only if you like it or want it.
If you’re interested in this project, you can contact me at this email, flopping@gmail.com. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know and I’ll answer them. Do you think the idea is a good one? Would you like to participate in the project? Let me know. Best regards.
Juan.
I played the ZX Spectrum version a bit.
Nice game! You use the limited possibilities of the hardware really well.
The game is very easy to get started but becomes really difficult fast. So far I did not manage to come deeper then level 5.
Could you tell me please if the statues and fountains you enconter from time to time have any meaning or are purely decorative?
P.S.: The link to the BASIC compiler you've used is broken. I'd love to have a look into this as well.
Thanks for the nice words! Sorry you found the difficulty too high. It felt right to me... And no, the statues and fountains are purely decorative in this game. It was a while ago and I had less experience. Also, not much room to work with (the game barely fits in RAM). As for the link, thanks again! I had updated it on the game's homepage, but not here. Good catch!
It's not too hard. I'd say its perfect for an RL. I just causaly played a little before I went to bed yesterday, so don't worry.
The movement speed and the waiting before you can start walking again kinda killed this.
Try running it in a sped-up emulator? I can't provide the option in the browser-embedded version, and it's slower than a desktop emulator in the first place.
I ran it on dosbox and still the stopping for several seconds every couple of steps was annoying. I think that's what kinda kills it most. I wanted to like it but it was just too slow : /
Oh, all right. Unfortunately the DOS build can't be sped up. Sorry about that.