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The cult Japanese vertically scrolling 2D shoot-'em-up Knightmare: Majou Densetsu, released for the MSX by Konami in 1986, is currently being faithfully converted by to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Climacus.

With Aphrodite in trouble, captured and held by the evil forces of Hudnos no less, it's up to the bravest knight of the realm, Popolon, to fight his way through many waves of malevolent hoards to rescue her.

As with the original game, the main sprites move pixel-by-pixel, whereas the scrolling is handled per character block, which means that your progress through the binary world appears to be a bit clunky while everything else is smooth and well animated. I'm not sure what the benefits of this was to the MSX, but using such a method on the old Spectrum is likely to save processor time (above pixel scrolling) while also preserving as much colour definition as possible, meaning that any colour attribute clash is less obvious. This is less distracting than it sounds once you start playing, with further information and a playable demo of the first level available from tinyurl.com/Knightmare-Speccy.

Simon N. Goodwin, a former writer for (among others) Crash magazine, has recently released his game Shop Steward, which was first published as a magazine type-in for Computing Today in June 1980. This new version, however, has been released for the Sinclair ZX80 with an additional 3K of RAM.

Shop Steward is a satirical strategy game simulating a 1970s industrial relations situation in the UK, and was originally developed in 1979 for one of the earliest available personal computers. Ironically set in the midst of an economic crisis but at a time when the trade unions were much more powerful than today, you must balance the need for support from the union members without antagonising the management to the extent that all employees are locked out or the company declares bankruptcy.

The game is available in the *.0' file format, which can be loaded into a real machine using the excellent ZXpand hardware (which is available from www.rwapsoftware.co.uk) or good emulators (links to which can be found through www.fruitcake.plus.com). To read more about this excellent release, head over to Simon's website at simon.mooli.org.uk/AF/article/shopstew.html.

Platform: Sinclair ZX81 + 16K
Developers: Andre Baune
Publisher: Self published - zx-team.de/andre

Yoogor is a fairly pedestrian but ultimately satisfying 2D platform game for the monochrome Sinclair ZX81, in which you must guide the intrepid Yoogor around his homeland to retrieve his mystical shield, which must be returned to his castle.

Unlike other platform games, the main character cannot jump; he must simply climb up or down using the ledges provided, in a similar fashion to the popular Prince of Persia game which was released back in 1989, without the smooth and colourful high-resolution graphics, of course. If he falls too far, then a life is lost, and as you only start off with one, this is a problem. More are found, though, once you work out the first simple puzzle.

This game contains many prompts to help your progress, though some of these clues can be a little cryptic. Considering that it's written entirely in Sinclair Basic, this game is vast and playable, with well-animated, low-resolution graphics, albeit at a sometimes plodding pace. The controls take a little time to master, but nothing that'll put you off. Should you want to take time out from the modern high-tech world, this is almost as low-tech as you get and is an ideal place to be.