Vague Stuff
17/01/2026
17/01/2026
One more Addams Family update...
Some things cannot remain unfinished... I went back to the Spectrum version and tried to finish the game by finding Morticia.
I suspected that I'd missed her at some earlier point in the game. Fortunately, the intro provided a hint:
I believe that this is a clue...
I went looking all around the map, trying to find a section of caves. The idea of not reusing my saved state had to fall by the wayside, as I used about 20 continues just trying to find the entrance to the section on the huge map.
And once I had found it... everything was terrible!
I died innumerable times, just trying to get into the main part of the cave. All kinds of difficult screens with long gaps between the doorway checkpoints, forcing you to go back over and over again...
I hope you like red, you'll be seeing a lot of it!
Even getting to the first two checkpoints was difficult. Round and round and round the labyrinthine caves. Who'd have thought that caves were so cavernous?
And then...
Finally! Morticia, my love, I have travelled a great distance, overcome great hardships, and endured many a travail to find you...
I actually had a sharp intake of breath at that moment - it was Morticia! After all this time, over 30 years of owning the game, playing from a snapshot that I'd paused in July 2022... For Ocean's last Spectrum game, they made absolutely sure that you got plenty of play time out of it - decades.
Morticia... why? Why do you turn your back on me...?
But, not so fast, this is the Addams Family and there's one more thing to be done...
Oh no, you want me to do another one of those deadly trials... In a room where you sink into the ground, so that I have to keep jumping, and the jumps are only half-height over a spark that has very square collision detection (this is much harder than the C64 version)...
But, me being me, as I died over and over again, I kept thinking that the presentation was so much better in this version and that someone should really tell Commodore that 128K is the future.
Oh, this family... Love is suffering...
So how did it go?
Just in case you still want to play it yourself, I have hidden the next part behind this link
Spoiler alert: it contains spoilers.
Party like it's 1992...
It's interesting that there was no DOS version of this game. By 1992 most full-price games for the typical 8/16-bit home computers were getting PC ports.
Can anything be done about that? Well, there are plenty of Spectrum emulators that can run on PCs, but what about emulators that can run on the kind of PC you might've had in 1992?
Well, the old Spectrum emulator "Z80" (by Gerton Lunter) could run at full speed on a 25 MHz 386 (and reasonably well on some high-end 286s). It runs on everything down to an 8088 with CGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules, or even Plantronics. Sound can be output through the PC speaker, Adlib, or even the CMS/GameBlaster! Just make sure you have 640K RAM installed and as much conventional memory free as you can manage. The Addams Family (being a 128K game) will run better if you have some EMS memory too.
I hope you like magenta, you'll be seeing a lot of it!
Another option, Warajevo, ran on similar systems and could even make stand-alone executable files of snapshots. (It couldn't handle self-modifying code, though, and I haven't tested it in this case - all my old hard drives are in poor condition). Of course, there were a multitude of options that could be tried on PCs (or similar machines) of that era, each with their own pluses and minuses.
12/01/2026
A little Addams Family update. I had a look at the C64 version to see exactly how it handled movement.
Let's get moving...
First of all, let's have far too big a listing showing the code where the controls are checked. Just like the Spectrum and CPC versions, it has a separate check for left and right. Unlike the aforementioned computers, this routine is called 50 times per second:
.C:3544 A5 F2 LDA $F2 ; Control byte .C:3546 29 08 AND #$08 ; Check right .C:3548 D0 63 BNE $35AD ; Pushing right .C:354a AD AF 33 LDA $33AF ; $01 = on ice, $00 = not on ice .C:354d F0 1B BEQ $356A .C:354f AD 83 33 LDA $3383 ; $00 = Facing right, $01 = Facing left .C:3552 F0 16 BEQ $356A .C:3554 AE 84 33 LDX $3384 ; Check if Speed is zero .C:3557 F0 11 BEQ $356A .C:3559 CA DEX .C:355a 8E 84 33 STX $3384 ; Decrement Speed .C:355d F0 03 BEQ $3562 .C:355f CE 84 33 DEC $3384 ; Decrement Speed .C:3562 A9 01 LDA #$01 ; $01 = Not Accelerating .C:3564 8D CE 33 STA $33CE .C:3567 4C D3 35 JMP $35D3 ; Left movement (ice) ; Move right .C:356a 18 CLC .C:356b AD 62 52 LDA $5262 ; Low byte of X position .C:356e 6D 82 33 ADC $3382 ; Add X pixel movement .C:3571 8D 62 52 STA $5262 .C:3574 AD 63 52 LDA $5263 ; High byte of X position .C:3577 69 00 ADC #$00 .C:3579 8D 63 52 STA $5263 .C:357c A9 00 LDA #$00 .C:357e 8D 0D 38 STA $380D .C:3581 20 0E 38 JSR $380E .C:3584 F0 03 BEQ $3589 .C:3586 4C 13 36 JMP $3613 .C:3589 AD 83 33 LDA $3383 ; $00 = Facing right, $01 = Facing left .C:358c F0 0A BEQ $3598 .C:358e A9 00 LDA #$00 ; Zero Speed .C:3590 8D 84 33 STA $3384 .C:3593 A9 00 LDA #$00 ; $00 = Facing right .C:3595 8D 83 33 STA $3383 .C:3598 AD CE 33 LDA $33CE ; $00 = Accelerating, $01 = Not Accelerating .C:359b D0 0A BNE $35A7 .C:359d AE 84 33 LDX $3384 ; Speed (0-41) .C:35a0 E0 29 CPX #$29 ; Check for maximum .C:35a2 B0 03 BCS $35A7 .C:35a4 EE 84 33 INC $3384 ; Increase Speed (0-41) .C:35a7 20 51 36 JSR $3651 .C:35aa 4C 10 36 JMP $3610 .C:35ad A5 F2 LDA $F2 ; Control byte .C:35af 29 04 AND #$04 ; Check left .C:35b1 D0 61 BNE $3614 ; Pushing left .C:35b3 AD AF 33 LDA $33AF ; $01 = on ice, $00 = not on ice .C:35b6 F0 1B BEQ $35D3 .C:35b8 AD 83 33 LDA $3383 ; $00 = Facing right, $01 = Facing left .C:35bb D0 16 BNE $35D3 .C:35bd AE 84 33 LDX $3384 ; Check if Speed is zero .C:35c0 F0 11 BEQ $35D3 .C:35c2 CA DEX .C:35c3 8E 84 33 STX $3384 ; Decrement Speed .C:35c6 F0 03 BEQ $35CB .C:35c8 CE 84 33 DEC $3384 ; Decrement Speed .C:35cb A9 01 LDA #$01 ; $01 = Not Accelerating .C:35cd 8D CE 33 STA $33CE .C:35d0 4C 6A 35 JMP $356A ; Right movement (ice) ; Move left .C:35d3 38 SEC .C:35d4 AD 62 52 LDA $5262 ; Low byte of X position .C:35d7 ED 82 33 SBC $3382 ; Subtract X pixel movement .C:35da 8D 62 52 STA $5262 .C:35dd AD 63 52 LDA $5263 ; High byte of X position .C:35e0 E9 00 SBC #$00 .C:35e2 8D 63 52 STA $5263 .C:35e5 A9 01 LDA #$01 .C:35e7 8D 0D 38 STA $380D .C:35ea 20 0E 38 JSR $380E .C:35ed D0 24 BNE $3613 .C:35ef AD 83 33 LDA $3383 ; $00 = Facing right, $01 = Facing left .C:35f2 D0 0A BNE $35FE .C:35f4 A9 00 LDA #$00 ; Zero Speed .C:35f6 8D 84 33 STA $3384 .C:35f9 A9 01 LDA #$01 ; $01 = Facing left .C:35fb 8D 83 33 STA $3383 .C:35fe AD CE 33 LDA $33CE ; $00 = Accelerating, $01 = Not Accelerating .C:3601 D0 0A BNE $360D .C:3603 AE 84 33 LDX $3384 ; Speed (0-41) .C:3606 E0 29 CPX #$29 ; Check for maximum .C:3608 B0 03 BCS $360D .C:360a EE 84 33 INC $3384 ; Increase Speed (0-41) .C:360d 20 5B 36 JSR $365B .C:3610 20 74 36 JSR $3674 .C:3613 60 RTS ; Not pushing left or right .C:3614 AD AF 33 LDA $33AF ; $01 = on ice, $00 = not on ice .C:3617 F0 16 BEQ $362F .C:3619 AE 84 33 LDX $3384 ; Check if Speed is zero .C:361c F0 11 BEQ $362F .C:361e CA DEX .C:361f 8E 84 33 STX $3384 ; Decrement Speed .C:3622 F0 0B BEQ $362F .C:3624 CE 84 33 DEC $3384 ; Decrement Speed .C:3627 AD 83 33 LDA $3383 ; $00 = Facing right, $01 = Facing left .C:362a D0 A7 BNE $35D3 ; Slow down left (ice) .C:362c 4C 6A 35 JMP $356A ; Slow down right (ice) .C:362f A9 00 LDA #$00 ; Zero Speed .C:3631 8D 84 33 STA $3384 .C:3634 4C 10 36 JMP $3610
OK, so where does the X pixel movement value ($3382) come from?
; Calculate X pixel movement .C:2ece AE 84 33 LDX $3384 ; Speed (0-41) ($00-$29) .C:2ed1 BD 85 33 LDA $3385,X ; Speed Table .C:2ed4 8D 82 33 STA $3382 ; X pixel movement ; Speed Table >C:3385 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 ; $00 >C:338d 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 ; $08 >C:3395 01 02 01 01 01 02 01 01 ; $10 >C:339d 01 02 01 02 01 02 01 02 ; $18 >C:33a5 01 02 02 02 01 02 02 02 ; $20 >C:33ad 01 02 ; $28
That's just a list of numbers!
Hmm, how can we interpret this speed table?
For the first 17 frames ($00-$10), Gomez will move at 1 pixel per frame.
For the next 8 frames ($11-$18), he'll move at ((1 * 3) + (2 * 1)) / 4 = 5/4 , which means an average of 1.25 pixels per frame.
For the next 8 frames ($19-$20), he'll move at ((1 * 2) + (2 * 2)) / 4 = 6/4 , which means an average of 1.5 pixels per frame.
For the next 8 frames ($21-$28), he'll move at ((1 * 1) + (2 * 3)) / 4 = 7/4 , which means an average of 1.75 pixels per frame.
Finally, the speed will stick on the last value in the table ($29), so Gomez will move at 2 pixels per frame.
41/50 = ~0.82 seconds to reach top speed. That's about 2/3rds the time of the (unpatched) Spectrum and CPC versions. Perhaps their routines should have been called 50 times per second?
With this incredible acceleration, I can reach Pugsley in no time
What are the implications of this?
With that in mind, perhaps this would be a better patch for the Spectrum and CPC versions?
31907 / 31965 LD A,(40591) 31910 / 31968 ADD A,002 ; 198, 002 31912 / 31970 JR Z,31918/31976 ; 040, 004 31914 / 31972 NOP ; 000 31915 / 31973 LD (40591),A
Making the bytes to modify:
31910 198, 002, 040, 004, 000 31968 198, 002, 040, 004, 000 (or, in hex): 7CA6 C6, 02, 28, 04, 00 7CE0 C6, 02, 28, 04, 00
This increases Gomez's speed to the maximum in 16 frames (@25 hz), which is 32/50 frames (@50hz), meaning ~0.64 seconds. (And, remember, Amstrad CPC owners - the same fix can be applied at 04133 and 04171 (hex $1011 and $104B) and it works there too!)
This is closer to the speed of the C64's acceleration.
Now I'm a little torn... the old patch is good, it's faster (and it's very playable) but this one is, perhaps, closer to what was originally intended.
I feel the need, the need for speed...
Can the C64 speed table be edited? Oh, yes. You can go pretty quickly. Setting the highest X pixel movement to 3 will make the game feel quite different and make long jumps rather easy. Any faster and it becomes quite difficult to control. Ideal for "hard mode" hacks or speedruns.
Ah, there you are Wednesday, you look... a little exhausted... I like what you've done with the place, though. Green cobweb - very stylish.
And what do you think about the C64 version, as a game?
It's not too bad. The acceleration speed is a little slow for my liking, but it does create a few interesting scenarios where you have to take a proper run-up to achieve certain jumps, sometimes starting from the previous screen. On the plus side, it doesn't have the speed bug.
It does feel a little spartan for a C64 game, not having any in-game music at all. The cassette version lacks a loading screen and loading music - a good loader usually being one of Ocean's presentational touches.
It's a multiload, with a split map where you have to collect certain things before you can proceed to the next level (unlike the other versions where the house is one, big, traversable map) and it seems to have more pointless dead ends than the other two versions. It's a shame that the C64 did not move to 128K as standard (the likes of Ocean and US Gold had started to make their big titles 128K-only for the Spectrum and Amstrad CPC by the end of their commercial run), or perhaps it would've had more polish as a cartridge game.
Levels 2 and 3 have some jumps that make you think you should be able to jump them, but sometimes it's just a dead-end that you're supposed to get past by another route. I'll have to ask John Astin about it.
This Gomez does not look like John Astin!
(In fact, no need to ask him. The split map makes it easier and I've managed to finish the game already. That probably means I've managed to miss Morticia in some earlier part of the game in the Spectrum version...)
30/12/2025
"The Addams Family was the beginning and the end."
That's a very big statement. What does it even mean? Explain yourself!
OK, I promise I will. But, what if I said: "The Munsters was the beginning and the end"?
Well, that's clearly not true. Go back to your previous statement, but you'd better justify it!
It was very nice having a well-supported computer. Certainly, a lot better supported than my previous purchase (the Tandy Color Computer) which was bought right at the end-of-the-line.
I remember looking at the first magazine I bought (Your Sinclair, Issue 9, September 1986, with Miami Vice on the cover - very 80s!) and seeing that it had games - a lot of games. Not only that, but I could actually buy the same games that were in the arcade. I was amazed. I had three games for the Tandy, zero new magazines, and the rest of my use of it was learning programming and type-ins from the magazines I did have (on those occasions when I could get use of the television!)
Six years later...
The Addams Family was the last big Hollywood licence (and the last game), released in April 1992 for the ZX Spectrum by Ocean, which was basically the largest games company in the UK home computer market, at that time.
The SNES was also released in the UK in April 1992. The price of console games had always put me off buying them, but this was the first console with such stand-out specifications that I thought I would take a chance on it. (The thing that finally clinched it, though, was the fact that the game controller had multiple buttons. Despite the fact that arcade games had started to have two or more buttons, even before the ZX Spectrum and C64 were released in 1982, most home computers in the West came with joysticks that could only provide a signal for a single fire button. Even though some of the computers could handle more than one button, the computer manufacturers were still happy to bundle cheap single-button joysticks with their computers, and the software developers rarely supported any more than that. So, it was "up to jump" until practically 1993!)
First, you had the pack-in game (Super Mario World), then there were four games available to buy (Super Tennis, F-Zero, Super R-Type, and Super Soccer) and I bought a couple of them. However, Nintendo decided not to release any other games (or allow anyone else to release a game) for quite some time after that. I ended up buying all four games, even though I wasn't that interested in all of them. (Well played, Shigeru, well played...) (Mind you, I even ended up buying an adaptor and imported a couple of games too). I must admit that I was impressed at the quality of game that could fit into a 512K cartridge.
Finally, later in 1992, some more games were released and I decided to buy The Addams Family in November. This felt different from buying Nintendo's games because, for the first time, I had bought a game from the same company that I had bought computer games from before, but at a much higher price and within this "new" model of gaming.
Presented in colour for the first time...
Back six years again...
Previously, (home computer) games had been small, quickly-made consumables. You'd buy them cheaply and buy quite a lot of them. You'd play them for a short time, then move from one experience to the next.
Now the games were larger and more expensive (to buy, develop, and publish). They couldn't be bought on a whim, they were an investment to be carefully considered and researched.
From my perspective, it marks the boundary between that old world of games and the new one.
Their house is a museum... so it's probably full of 8-bit computers, like... my house...
A short history of game prices in the UK at that time...
In 1986, the lead formats were still the main 8-bit home computers (ZX Spectrum, C64, and Amstrad CPC) and their games would be bought on cassette by the vast majority of people. The price of a game (by a leading company) was generally £7.95, while a budget game would be £1.99. (C64 and Amstrad CPC full-price games always cost £8.95 for some reason and, naturally, there were some more expensive exceptions). The Atari ST and Amiga did exist, but were still a few years from taking over. They were quite expensive, had limited software support, and the quality of it was variable. At this time, you were often better off buying an 8-bit version of a game.
The 8-bit consoles (Nintendo and Sega) are launched in the UK, but they have a small market share and make little impact at this time. "These console companies with their expensive cartridges... I'm sure they won't last long!"
Price, price, price
For simplicity, I will stick to ZX Spectrum prices and round these up to the nearest pound from now on. So, I will say £8 for full-price, £2 for budget. Cassette prices, naturally. Compilations of the time were excellent value and could get you 4-10 nearly-new games for roughly £10. In those days, you could certainly get by with your pocket money.
Another option was mail order. Sometimes I would buy from Bargain Software. They would sell a brand new £8 RRP game for £6 or a £9 RRP game for £6.50, including p&p. Technically speaking, I was hurting the high street by using mail order companies, but that £2/£2.50 saving made a big difference with pocket money! Additionally, they had older stock being sold off with good discounts, as well as a range of compilations.
If I saved up my money for a month, I could buy four games of varying quality and age (even more if I included a compilation). That was absolute gold at the time.
I still remember reading the review of Rolling Thunder and thinking that it looked good. So I looked at the Bargain Software page, saw "Thunder Rolls In" for £6.50 and thought "that must be it" (it was fairly common for adverts to have misprints in them). I got my postal orders, sent off the order, and then waited for what felt like a very long time to a child.
(Through the magic of the internet (archive), I can find out that it was Your Sinclair, Issue 27, March 1988, with the review on page 18 (with some nice hand-drawn artwork as part of the review, which really helped make the game look interesting), and with Bargain Software on page 5. In terms of misprints, we also have "Army Houses" and "Dan Dare Meets The Mexicom").
Look at the lovely review artwork (and those lovely discounts) in 1988...
Another source of games was the Home Computer Club. A mail-order subscription service, where they sent you a little catalogue every month and you had to buy at least one item from it. If you didn't respond in time, they sent you their top title of the month and you had to pay for it afterwards. Everything they had was a little old and I suspect that part of their remit was to help sell off unsold stock.
Their stock was discounted from the RRP. Some items were very slightly discounted, while older titles had a much better discount. I found it was a good way of picking up C64 disks, which were usually more difficult to find on the high street. I got quite a few titles, mostly by Ocean/Imagine.
This was the start of the period when arcade conversions and movie licences were really gaining ground over original titles, which would increase development costs and (ultimately) the retail price.
It is the 90s and it is time for more expensive games...
When the Atari ST and Amiga became the lead formats in the late 80s/early 90s, with full-price games at £20-£25 and budget games at £8-£10. This meant that the price of gaming effectively doubled. This brought... how can I put it... pressures and temptations. Piracy grew greatly.
By this point, games with licences are the big sellers. (And, yes, The Munsters got a game released in 1989). Compilations still exist, but you generally don't get the incredible quantity of games that you used to.
Software for 8-bit computers is still available, but is starting to decline in both quality and quantity and it's starting to feel like you're missing out. Full-price titles are £10 and budget games are £3.
The 8-bit consoles are finally starting to gain some traction, with a reasonable market share, but the price of their games (£25-£30) is helping the home computers to maintain their dominance.
Herman, Lily, Grandpa, Marilyn, Eddie, and Spot did not bring the 8-bit home computer game era to an end...
It's all about the (tilemap) layers this season...
When the 16-bit consoles arrived, the price of gaming effectively doubled again, but it wasn't until around 1992 that the average person would start to consider them.
Pickings were now getting rather slim for the 8-bit home computers. Full-price releases are rare, and cost £12. Budget games are now £4 and were almost all that was left to buy. A lot of them even had (usually older, cheaper) licences to persuade retailers and distributors to stock them and people to buy them.
It was still viable to game on an ST or Amiga, but really not for much longer. With Atari and Commodore failing to sufficiently improve their hardware capabilities on one hand, the increasing quality of PCs, consoles and console games (and their large advertising budgets) on the other hand, and with growing piracy on your mysterious, inexplicable, third hand, the ST and Amiga were being squeezed out of existence.
(Atari and Commodore had, basically, stopped investing in their 8-bit systems, thinking that there was not much future in them. But then something interesting happened... Instead of RAM prices continuing to decrease, they actually went up. This favoured consoles, which had small amounts of RAM, and PCs which were already much more expensive, so the RAM was a smaller fraction of its build cost and it had a guaranteed market for serious applications, so cost was less of an issue. The result was that Atari and Commodore were squeezed in the middle. The other impact of increased RAM prices was that it made 8-bit systems viable for longer. Belatedly, they started prototyping upgrades to their 8-bit systems, but they were so late that they didn't make it to market).
For part of the early 90s, the 8-bit consoles became a kind-of budget option for those who could afford cartridges, with Sega Master System games being more affordable than NES ones. They've finally made it, but they won't be around for too much longer.
(At this point, the PC is still very, very expensive for the UK market, but the price is falling and it's beginning to gain some traction).
Please come to a conclusion...
Within this short period, we go from £8 in 1986 to £40 in 1992 (and that £40 did not last long before it became £45). A fivefold increase (over a period of seven years) in the price of a lead format game. By "lead format" I mean games designed for the leading systems, made by the leading software houses of the time (excluding some of the really rare and expensive options). The lead systems had that balance of technical capability and commercial viability, and the software companies put more of their efforts into these machines. The games were suited to the hardware (rather than designed for a completely different architecture and shoehorned onto another system) and that (usually) resulted in better games.
If we compare the same standard of mainstream product in 1986 with its equivalent in 1992, then (at least in the UK) it moved from 8-bit home computers, to 16-bit home computers, then to consoles and PC. So, in order to have the same experience, you had to move onto those systems.
Additionally, the option of budget games and compilations pretty much disappeared with the consoles. The pastime had suddenly become a rather expensive one. I'm pretty sure your parents' incomes did not increase fivefold over that period, and neither did your pocket money.
If older members of your family weren't interested in games, then you wouldn't be seeing very many of them. They were (yet another) expense that your parents didn't understand. For the rest of the 90s, you were left with the choice of console or PC (with neither being a cheap option), or handheld games (the nearest you had to a budget option from the mid-90s onwards) that were still twice the price of the 8-bit home computer games that had disappeared.
Many families could not afford this rapid rise and I must admit that I "fell off the wagon" in the early 90s, as the price of gaming began to massively exceed a teenager's budget.
The money you have at that age largely depends on your parents, which largely depends on who their parents were, which part of the world you were born in, whether there was a war there long ago, and so on. The kind of things that should not matter in the present day.
A few years later, I was a little older, I finally had a little bit of money, and I was able to start buying legitimately again. It's a shame that it could not have been that way the whole time.
There was the supply, the demand, the employment, the entertainment value, and the general benefit that came from it. Yet, no-one could come up with a system where everyone got what they needed. Although, that is touching upon a far greater and more difficult problem in the world.
Featuring some portraits as big as a person...
So, come on, back to The Addams Family!
The ZX Spectrum game is a platformer that is a single-load and works on 128K machines only. Unlike the console or 16-bit home computer versions, it's flip-screen instead of scrolling. This allows it to maintain some colour and work within the hardware limits of the Spectrum.
The one major problem is that it was released with a bug. The player character accelerates very, very slowly indeed. It makes the game unplayably difficult (although there is a very impressive longplay online).
Collapsing platforms, bouncy heads, a lava pit, and the slowest acceleration in the world?
Are you sure it's a bug?
I call it a bug because the same issue is not present in any other conversion (apart from the Amstrad CPC, which uses the same gameplay code as the Spectrum).
I get the feeling that Wednesday does not want to be found...
Explain your thinking...
Here is the code that controls Gomez's speed:
31907 LD A,(40591) 31910 INC A ; Increase speed (left). 31911 JR NZ,31915 31913 LD A,255 ; Cap at 255. (16 = medium, 24 = faster, 32+ = fastest) 31915 LD (40591),A 31965 LD A,(40591) 31968 INC A ; Increase speed (right). 31969 JR NZ,31973 31971 LD A,255 ; Cap at 255. 31973 LD (40591),A
It's called 25 times per second when moving left or right and the speed counts up from 0 (not moving) to 255 (maximum). Consequently, it takes ten seconds to reach the maximum. However, it's not using subpixel movement, you just "move a bit faster" when it's above certain values. Gomez's speed reaches its maximum once you've reached 32 (or more), so it takes roughly 1.25 seconds to reach top speed. Most of that time is spent moving at (an average of) one pixel per frame - much slower than the enemies or platforms!
This is significantly slower than all the other versions and it has a really negative impact on the gameplay.
Ah, there you are Wednesday. You don't look very happy to see me and you look a bit older, but then it has been 30 years.
So there's not much point in playing this game then...
While it's a pity that the game was released with the bug, the fact that it was released means that it can be fixed!
Plenty of people have developed their own patches over the years, but here is mine:
31907 / 31965 LD A,(40591) 31910 / 31968 SCF ; 055 31911 / 31969 RLA ; 023 31912 / 31970 NOP ; 000 31913 / 31971 NOP ; 000 31914 / 31972 NOP ; 000 31915 / 31973 LD (40591),A
Making the bytes to modify:
31910 055, 023, 000, 000, 000 31968 055, 023, 000, 000, 000 (or, in hex): 7CA6 37, 17, 00, 00, 00 7CE0 37, 17, 00, 00, 00
This increases Gomez's speed from 0 -> 1 -> 3 -> 7 -> 15 -> 31 -> 63 -> 127 -> 255 in 8 frames (~1/3 of a second), giving you full speed in 6 frames (~1/4 of a second).
This allows you to have a (very short) period of fine movement as well as quick acceleration.
(And a bonus for Amstrad CPC owners - the same fix can be applied at 04133 and 04171 (hex $1011 and $104B) and it works there too!)
Wednesday wants me to survive 60 seconds in this deadly room with an icy floor... or perhaps she doesn't?
Is that an improvement?
It's not a perfect solution, but it fits into the space available without having to make any more drastic alterations and it makes the game significantly more playable. I haven't finished the game yet, but (looking at my saved games) I have one where I've collected all the keys and only appear to have Morticia left to rescue, so I must be quite close to the end. (I've only been using snapshots so that I can stop playing and come back later, rather than reloading all the time, honest).
Once you get used to the initial difficulty level of the game, it's actually very good. A fitting send-off for the ZX Spectrum by Ocean that moves away from the style of the old Spectrum platformers and goes (partially) to the style of console platformers.
Wednesday does not want to be rescued. Perhaps because it's still only Tuesday?
And the SNES version?
This is also a good game. Ocean had to adapt to the new world and come up with a game that played and felt like a console-style platformer, as well as achieve the level of presentation expected for the new system, and they succeeded at that. I did not regret my purchase and played it to completion.
"OK, I admit that the SNES is capable of displaying very large portraits..."
07/12/2025 (with a little update on 11/12/2025)
Software for home computers had the fundamental problem of having to be delivered on all sorts of different media.
In Europe, audio cassettes were the standard for most 8-bit systems, but most had at least one disk format to support as well. 5.25" disks for the C64/C16/VIC-20, Atari 8-bit, and BBC Micro. 3" disks for the Spectrum +3 and Amstrad machines. 3.5" disks for the 16-bit systems and (less common in the UK) MSX.
Then for the ZX Spectrum you also had a million and one different disk interfaces, as well as Microdrives, Wafadrives, Quick Disks, etc. Some computers even had interfaces that could use those little dictation machine cassettes.
Add onto that the fact that you also have to support single-sided and double-sided drives, 40 and 80 track drives, etc.
8" drives were not an option, although you could theoretically attach an 8" drive to most Commodore machines by using an IEEE-488 interface cartridge. Just don't expect to find any software for it.
Finally, as all the old systems died out, the surviving ones received optional 3.5" drives, but with almost no support. High-density disks came later, but only on PCs and some very, very late interfaces for the C64 and ZX Spectrum.
That sounds expensive...
How could a software company afford to support all of those different media formats? The simple answer was: "they didn't". They stuck to the most common ones. Only some very small-scale software producers (that tended to master their software by hand) supported the less-used formats.
So what if there was a system that took away the publishing risk?
East
In Japan, there was the Famicom Disk System. It had a distribution network using a machine that was placed within stores, and (in exchange for money) it could write to Nintendo's custom Quick Disks. The blank disks could be purchased from the same store (mail order was also possible). The system could only be used with Nintendo's console. I think it would've been interesting if it had been released in Europe, as the price of cartridges was far higher than we were used to. The levels of piracy might've been quite impressive though.
West
In Western Europe, there was EDOS, which stood for "Electronic Distribution Of Software". This was a machine that was placed in stores, but was not used by the public. Only a member of staff was allowed to use it and it was (commonly) kept in a back room to keep it as far away from customers as possible. It was capable of writing to audio cassettes, 5.25" disks, 3.5" disks, and 3" disks. Unlike Nintendo's distribution system, it supported a wide range of computers: the ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Atari ST, Amiga, and DOS PCs (3.5" DD and 5.25" DD).
Some sort of download system would've been ideal, but the telephone network was not fast enough to download software, so everything had to be stored on CDs. A modem was involved, but only for administrative purposes.
This link explains the details of it better than I can.
The EDOS experience
In Scotland, the most common place to find it was in John Menzies. It was a chain of high street shops, of that time, that sold a bit of everything. It was like a large newsagent that also sold music, videos, computer games, board games, stationery, art supplies, etc. It was practically the same as WH Smith in the rest of the UK, so you'd rarely see a WH Smith in Scotland, and you'd rarely see a John Menzies in England. You would never see them in the same room at the same time.
While it is common to describe the EDOS experience as being "choose from a catalogue", that was not the impression that I had in John Menzies.
I don't recall seeing any advertising of the system at the time, nor of there being any detailed explanation of the system in-store.
In John Menzies, they tended to pre-prepare a number of games. So, my experience of the system was looking at the boxes on the shelves, then taking the ones I wanted to the counter.
Was it possible to ask them to make one that was not on the shelves? Or to place an order with them and come back later to collect it? I have no idea. There were times when I would see a C64 cassette version of a game and think to myself that I would buy it, if it was the disk version (see the update below for an explanation of this).
If it was possible to place an order, then it seems they missed out on possible sales by failing to make that clear.
What did they look like?
Here is my legitimate, shop-purchased, royalties-paid copy of Spy vs Spy: Arctic Antics for the Amstrad CPC.
Box, inlay, disk, and early 90s marketing
As you can see, the disk is very plain (side 2 is just black, with no sticker at all) and the packaging is very much "one size fits all", so the box is designed to fit the largest supported medium (5.25" disk). There is no plastic insert, so the cassette or disk flops around inside the oversized case. There's room for two cassettes, four 5.25" disks, four 3.5" disks (barely), but only room for two 3" disks, due to their thickness.
The combined inlay and instructions consist of a single, folded sheet of glossy paper. Most of the EDOS releases used the same template for the inlay, making things look a little samey.
If you were the sort of person who considered the packaging to be an important part of the whole software experience, then you might find it a little underwhelming.
What size is that disk?
As you can see, 3" disks are very small. Unlike other odd formats, their capacity could be just as much as the rival 5.25" and 3.5" disks (80 track, double-sided 3" drives did exist, although the 8-bit machines tended to use the 40 track, single-sided drives). They were a little late to the party, so were not as commonly used. Amstrad machines were the most notable for using them. But without widespread support, required to bring economies of scale, the cost of the disks remained relatively high compared to the more common formats.
But how can I convey their size? What would be the correct visual comparison? Other floppy disks? CDs? Gramophones?
They are this size, exactly. No bigger, no smaller. (Why did I put them on a chopping board, on a towel, on a bed?)
What about this?
Magnum metrics
Yes, I think I've found the ideal unit of measurement.
Anyway...
But the packaging wouldn't matter, if you could get access to a far wider range of software than you could usually find?
Well... that did not happen, in practice. Most of the larger companies did not support the system, or only put a few of their games on it. You would think that it would have been suitable for making their back catalogues available at little cost. Perhaps there were contractual issues with their arcade or movie-licenced titles to consider.
Also, if a game had multiple versions (for example, a separate 128K version) then you would be stuck with the most-compatible version that worked on that particular machine (48K or 64K). This was not unique to EDOS though, it was a common pitfall when buying a compilation or a budget re-release.
But it would still be ok, if it meant you could get the games cheaper, as the publisher did not have to pay for the media and duplication costs?
Well... that did not happen either. Mostly, the games were the same price.
But, even then, it would still be worth it, if it meant you could get software for your rare/unsupported drive?
Well... no. Only the standard disk drives of each system were supported. The ZX Spectrum, C64, and Amstrad CPC had both cassette and disk support, but Spectrum +3 disk titles seem to be quite rare compared to the others.
But... it allowed the less-popular computer systems to receive software support?
Again, no. It turned up far too late (1991) to support the 8-bits of the early 80s. There were a tiny number of MSX cassette titles, as it was still used in some European countries. There was no support for the Atari 8-bit, C16/+4, VIC-20, BBC Micro/Electron, Dragon/Tandy CoCo, Oric, Enterprise, or any of the other uncommon or discontinued micros that were once so plentiful.
It was a missed opportunity but, ultimately, it was a business. So, while it would've been a useful service to provide, it wasn't economical to do so.
EDOS was a good idea, in principle, but it did not take off. Perhaps the machines should've been placed in public libraries and used as a form of open-ended software lending, for a small fee.
At some point in the early 90s, all of the high street stores in the UK decided that they would stop carrying 8-bit computer software, bringing the "commercial era" to an abrupt end. EDOS could've been used to continue to provide software support, leaving the shelves free for more profitable goods, but that did not happen either. Online sources say EDOS ran until 1994.
Not long after that, the last of the 8-bit magazines disappeared too. At the time, it felt like the shops were doing their very best to give me no reason to set foot inside them, but they were just acting as businesses. Trying to sell goods as quickly and profitably as possible, but also reducing their footfall and the possibility of a casual purchase in the process.
As the high street declined, many of the shops that used to sell games disappeared. John Menzies decided to leave the high street quite early on, and their stores were bought by WH Smith and rebranded. Now, they have changed hands again, and are trading as TG Jones.
In the end, they never stood a chance against the changing ways of shopping. But it did not help when they stopped selling those cheap games that were such a staple of youth.
(In the making of this article, I dropped an old iPad onto my big toe. I am not pleased).
A little update
Just to clarify the statement about John Menzies selling a cassette version when I wanted the disk version, when the boxes were usually multiformat...
Sometimes John Menzies would put an original box on the shelf, but when you bought it they'd give you an EDOS cassette.
I'm not sure why. Perhaps they had a supply of original boxes, or perhaps they had lost the original cassette and realised that they could still sell the box by using EDOS to make a new cassette. (Game boxes were put on the shelf, while the games were kept in a drawer (or a backroom) because people would just steal the cassettes if you put them on the shelf, so they were kept separate).
I brought back the towel, but should I have brought back the chopping board? Also, the quilt under the towel was very lumpy today, nothing is aligned at all. You see, that's why I should've used the chopping board... arghh.
(C) Jane McKay, 2026