Do you have an old Sharp MZ-80A or MZ-1200 microcomputer collecting dust in the attic? Instead of selling it on eBay for big money, you now have another use for this ancient, Japanese
microcomputer: You can play Minesnake on it!
Minesnake is a brand new arcade game for the Sharp MZ-80A / MZ-1200. It offers a new take on the classic game Snake, where you eat food to grow your snake and access new levels. The twist in Minesnake is that your snake may also drop mines, to blow up walls that are preventing you from reaching the food. Just try not to blow yourself up while you’re at it!
Game features:
A main campaign with 21 hand-made levels A random campaign with 10 levels that are different each time Ability to play random or custom levels, as well as regular old Snake Sounds and music by Kelp and Shell Two bonus games – Astro Attackers and Dam Blasters
You can buy the game on cassette from Sharpworks, or download a «shareware» version for free from Itch.io. The cassette version comes with elegant cover art created by Petko Mishev.
In addition to the Sharp MZ-80A and MZ-1200, the game will run on Sharp MZ-80K and Sharp MZ-700 computers – it is fully playable, but does have some compatibility issues with these platforms. The Itch.io-version may be transferred to tape, or you can run it using an emulator. We recommend EmuZ-80A by Toshiya Takeda and Hideki Suga.
Minesnake was developed by Joachim Froholt with help from Ben Coffer and Michelle Soper, in 2016. The game is published by Sharpworks.
About the Sharp MZ range of computers
Back in the late seventies, following the release of the Apple II, Commodore PET and TRS-80, the Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp released their own microcomputer. The Sharp MZ-80K was released in 1978, originally as a kit computer, but was later sold fully assembled. It became quite popular in Japan, and also enjoyed success in European countries such as Great Britain and Germany. The Sharp MZ-80A (known as the MZ-1200 in Japan) was introduced in 1982, as an improved version of the MZ-80K. It came with a built-in monitor and cassette player.
Until the Famicom was released in 1983, and even for many years after, much of the early evolution of the Japanese games industry happened on home computer platforms including the MZ-series of computers. Indie developers released games through code listings in magazines decades before «indie» was a term, and companies such as Hudson Soft, Square and Enix got their start releasing games for these platforms. This aspect of the Japanese games industry history is, unfortunately, largely forgotten today – as are most of the games released for these computers.
About Sharpworks
Sharpworks is a new retro label based in the UK, releasing indie games for the Sharp MZ range of computers. Minesnake is our first release, but we have more games lined up for 2017, including a dungeon crawler and a racing game. Sharpworks is also seeking new homebrew Sharp games to publish.