Zezito and the Lost Stars ( Acorn Electron )
A downloadable game
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Zezito and the Lost Stars (Acorn Electron 32K)
Malandra the witch is keeping 99 stars in her castle and Zezito must recover them or the night sky won't be the same anymore. Taking advantage that Malandra has travelled to the annual general witch meeting, he now must try to get all the stars back but he must beware of Malandra's minions left in the castle, the terrible spiked snails and the crazy bats!
Will you help Zezito?
Updated | 24 days ago |
Status | In development |
Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 total ratings) |
Author | Iapetus |
Genre | Platformer |
Tags | acorn-electron, bbc-micro, bbcmicro, electron, Retro, Singleplayer |
Download
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Click download now to get access to the following files:
zezitostars.ssd 200 kB
zezitostars.uef 17 kB
zezitostars_fast.uef 11 kB
Development log
- New Version81 days ago
- New Fast Tape fileFeb 20, 2025
- New Disk and Tape filesFeb 20, 2025
- Fixed Map and Tape LoaderFeb 19, 2025
- Disk and Tape Files - UpdatedFeb 18, 2025
Comments
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I'm very impressed. I've just tried this out for the first time, and it's absolutely great. The graphics are LOVELY – some of the best I've ever seen on the Electron. The design is extremely colourful and attractive, the motion is smooth and everything's properly masked, so there's none of the ugly EORing that you so often see when sprites overlap (the BBC/Electron's answer to attribute clash on the Spectrum!). Overall, this colourful game makes fantastic use of the Electron's graphics capabilities.
As for the game itself… it's pretty simple and straightforward, without a lot of depth, but that's not a criticism. It's obvious what to do, and it's good, playable fun. (And with graphics like these taking up so much memory, you can't expect too much RAM to be left over for deep gameplay!)
On my first proper attempt I collected about 40 stars, so I must have got nearly halfway. That's encouraging: the game now feels like a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. I've yet to see anything that seems unfair, or that I couldn't master without a bit of practice. I like games that are reasonably challenging but winnable, and this feels like one of those.
Two small criticisms, both of them very minor:
1. If you want to jump a gap, and Zezito has a solid block right above his head, the left/right movement stalls when jump is pressed. It's not a problem, but it feels awkward and unexpected. If it's not possible to jump upwards, I don't think that pressing jump should have any effect on left/right movement.
2. There's quite a lot of instances where you have to jump between platforms across screen boundaries, and it can be particularly awkward when jumping from the top of one room into the bottom of the next. Unless the keys are held down, the left/right movement can be forgotten while the screen is redrawn, leading to you missing the block you were aiming for and falling back unexpectedly. But if you keep the keys held down too long, you may move too much on entry into the upper room, and perhaps move into a killer object or fall off the ledge you've just landed on. I'm not sure how best to fix this, but it's the most awkward aspect of the gameplay I've found so far. You do get used to it, so it's not a big problem, but it could be improved.
Overall, though, this is fantastic, and a great demonstration of what the Electron is capable of.
The one other thing I'd really like to see is a dedicated BBC version of the game, probably with better sound (maybe even a background tune) and obviously speed-adjusted for the more powerful machine.
Thank you so much for playing the game and for you«r kind words and honest review!
I am quite happy with the result, since I got the Elk my aim was coding a game using mode 2 and fully masked sprites. I have coded n sprite engines and this is the best one so far. Not using a backbuffer or double buffering by hardware due to memory constraints.
You are spot on regarding its shortcomings. The first issue(stalling) was something that wasn't happening at first but it caused problems elsewhere during gameplay(when moving to a room above) so I decided it was a small price to have the game working. I still have it noted down to fix it when I have the time and disposition to do it. The second problem I will have to look into it to understand what is the best way to correct it.
I want to release a version for the bbc micro but I have other game projects I need to finish first.
Could you please award the stars you think the game deverves? Thank you.
Done! (5 stars) Sorry, I must admit I'd never really paid any attention to the rating/review option on this site, so I'd forgotten it was there!
Thank you very much Richard!
Hey Sandro, would you have some screenshots at hand you can add here and share with us? We really like your little game.
I have added 3 screenshots
Thanks a ton! :)
Awesome game Sandro!!!
I hope the C64 version will also appear 😉 Great game ✌️
Thank you!