Hypsys

Hypsys is a 1989 title listed for the ZX Spectrum, with two names attached in the catalogue: Dro Soft and Techno Arts. Dro Soft was a Spanish publisher, which places the game in one of the strongest European Spectrum scenes there ever was.

Through the second half of the eighties Spain had a games industry of its own, with several publishers and output that differed from the British norm. Games tended to be harder, often with a strict allowance of lives and with stages that demanded learning an exact route. The approach later acquired a nickname derived from its origin and remains recognisable today.

By 1989 the ZX Spectrum had a decade behind it, and programmers were getting results from it that nobody had imagined at launch. Graphics still ran into the limit of two shades within a character cell, but an experienced coder worked around it by choosing the palette carefully and laying out objects so colour clashes showed as little as possible.

The record gives no closer detail about the genre, so there will be no account of structure here. The year, the platform and the origin are certain, and that alone places the game among late Spectrum releases, made when the market was moving to sixteen-bit machines while the eight-bit base in southern Europe still held.

Hypsys is one of the titles that can be started right in the browser on OldGame.cz, where the release year, the names of its creators and screenshots are also kept.