Hoverkraft

Hoverkraft is a German arcade game for the ZX Spectrum 48K, released in 1985. Andreas Zallmann and Christoph Schillo wrote it and Zallmann's own label published it, which tells you most of what you need to know: this is bedroom production from an age when a tape deck, a magazine advert and enough patience were the whole business plan. It surfaced in the German press in the summer of 1985.

The model is the Moon Patrol coin-op, and Hoverkraft takes the basic layout from it. You pilot a hovercraft, the landscape scrolls past you, and you have to keep moving while dodging obstacles in the terrain and answering fire from above. Progress is measured in checkpoints, so this is not an endless loop but a course you try to push further along each time.

By 1985 the template was thoroughly worn on the Spectrum, and Hoverkraft does nothing to distinguish itself from the field. What it does do well is legibility: the backdrop is restrained, obstacles are visible in time, and the game does not drop frames when several things happen at once. It takes cursor keys, Interface 2 or a Kempston joystick, which was a respectable standard for an amateur release.

The weaknesses are equally obvious. The sound is minimal, the colour is typically Spectrum, which is to say largely monochrome, and there is nothing here to hold you beyond a few attempts at a better score. Difficulty rises simply by adding more obstacles and more shooting; no new mechanics ever arrive.

Take it as a window into the German home scene of the mid-eighties rather than a lost gem. For five minutes at the keyboard it works, and it was never meant for more. On oldgame.cz it runs directly in the browser, with nothing to install.