Originally released in 2007 for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K and later ported to the Amstrad CPC, Nanako In Classic Japanese Monster Castle (which is the actual full title of the game, but you could say NCIMC for short) has now made its way into monochrome, being available on the Sinclair ZX81 with a 16K RAM Pack taped to it (or equivalent method of securing the extra memory).

The game has been developed by Nathan of the Mojon Twins, and is based on a trilogy of games released in Spain in the early 1990s. This new version for Sinclair's sleek and unsophisticated black box of tricks contains an extra five levels over the Speccy original, and much chunkier graphics (as you would expect), although the storyline remains the same.

You take control of Nanako, who must rescue her younger sister, Mya, a witch apprentice who has been meddling in dark magic beyond all human comprehension (such as database normalisation). As a result of this unauthorised practice, she finds herself trapped at the top of a mystic and dark castle. Moving boxes will allow Nanako to create temporary paths upwards, and she must avoid the nasty roamers along the way.

I personally find NCJMC 81 a little on the difficult side, but thankfully there's a password system included so that you don't have to start from the first level again when you reload the game the next time you play. As it uses the ZX81's predefined character set for the visuals, everything is much bigger than the original pixelated Speccy version. This isn't a problem, though, and some thought has gone into its looks to make everything as clear as possible.

To get hold of a copy of this entertaining platform-cum-puzzle game, head over to tinyurl.com/Nanako-ZX81. And if you need a way of transferring the emulator tape image to a real Sinclair, the ZX81 section at www.rwapsoftware.co.uk is a good place to start, as the site has replacement (membrane) keyboards listed along with a piece of hardware that allows easy file sharing between the old 8-bit and more modern personal computer platforms. Also, check RWAP's dedicated forum, which has plenty of friendly and knowledgeable folk there.

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Paul Jenkins has released his latest game for the old Spectrum, which simulates the somewhat hectic life of being a helicopter pilot. In this game, called Chopper Drop, your task is to control the chopper to collect the freight and drop it on the awaiting lorry, presumably for exporting purposes.

As usual, there's a catch: you only have a limited amount of time to load up the lorry, and poor flying (crashing into the World Of Spectrum blimps, mad balloonists or seagulls, for instance], will see those seconds tick down really quickly. So, precision is needed when at the controls.

Graphically, this game is very nice indeed, and the simple, fun gameplay leads me to think that this is what the 1984 Elite System's game Airwolf should have been like, so Paul has done a very good job here. To find out more, head over to tinyurl.com/Chopper-Drop-ZX

Before I sign off for another week, I should point out that it's getting to the time of year when new releases and news generally start to dry up, but if you are or will be working on anything over the summer and would like a mention here, or you have some pressing queries about assembly language programming on a Commodore 64, then I may be reached via the wonders of electronic mail, accepted at shaun@micromart.co.uk. See you next week.