Atari XE/XL fans have another game to look forward to, coming in the form of a remake of the popular 1989 arcade game Pang, originally manufactured by Mitchell and brought to many 8-bit and 16-bit home computers by Ocean Software. The conversion to the Atari 8-bit started in 2007 and, after being shelved for many months, is now back on track thanks to a Polish team of programmers being led by Thomas White, which includes Kamila Walaszka and Michael Radeckiego, with graphics by Adam Powronik.

For those of you who are unaware of the game, it tells of two young-looking males dressed ready for a Safari, but actually armed with a single-barrelled gun that has the sole purpose of popping giant bouncing and lethal bubbles. This weapon, along with sharp reflexes, is the only defence available as each air-filled globe-shaped energy mass is split in half once shot until it can be divided no more.

The team seems to be doing a fine job of handling the project too, with some very promising screenshots and online video clips of the progress so far. Most of the information I've found is in Polish, which isn't a language I'm familiar with - I struggle enough with plain English at the best of times. As I find out more, I'll let you know. For now, take a look at the screenshots and wonder why the Atari 8-bit wasn't a more popular games machine in the first place.

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Keeping with Atari, a new 8-bit isometric puzzle game has been released through the news portal at www.atari.sk. This piece of software is called Isora, and has been created by the ever-prolific coder XXL, in co-operation with Miker and Mr Beepa handling the sound and music, and Vidol creating the graphics.

It's a case of moving a square around a set play field with the sole purpose of covering each segment and making it back to where you started. This is without stepping on one piece twice unless you're allowed to (denoted by the relevant markings). The good thing about this game is that you can view each level that you're playing from four set angles by rotation, allowing you to work out exactly where to move. Take too much time thinking about it and you lose the bonus as a timer counts down to zero. When frustration gets the better of you, there's the fortunate addition of a restart option, selectable at any time during play.

The game features some superb music, although the graphics are fairly simplistic. Not that this sort of thing requires anything visually ground-breaking. This free download, which runs on all good Atari XE/XL emulators, may be obtained from atari.sk/download/XE_games/isora.zip

Regular frequenters of the World Of Spectrum (WoS) forums (at www.worldofspectrum.org) will probably know already, but for the rest of us, ZX Shed, an electronic fanzine largely dedicated to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, is back.

Taking the best of the original PDF publications, and adding new editorial features and reviews, ZX Shed Reloaded is 44 pages of (mostly) Speccy bliss to be published on a bi-monthly basis. Edited by Melissa Ward, the first issue features all of the reviews that you'd expect, plus a programming master class in BASIC and how to hack the popular shoot-'em-up Commando to create your own levels. This is done using the ancient art of assembly language and a good emulator. I've heard that real printed versions will be available some time soon through www.Lulu.com. Information is available through the following URL: tinyurl.com/zx~shed

As usual, I'd point out that fanzines are often a good way to progress onto writing for professional magazines. It certainly worked for me anyway, so if you have a particular passion about the Speccy, and you want to tell the world about it, ZX Shed Reloaded is as good a place to start as any, so why not get involved? Who knows where it will lead.