Based on a 1983 arcade game of the same name, which makes it as old as I am, Dingo is actually about a Koala Bear called Ted, who has to clear the mango fields of fruit before all the pesky dingo’s eat them.
Graphically it’s reminiscent of Sabre Wulf, (perhaps no surprise given that the arcade game was made by ACG, who went on to become Ultimate Play The Game, makers of Sabre Wulf) while the sound effects remind me of Skool Daze, and given that those are two of my favourite games on the Spectrum then Dingo has a lot to live up to. So how does it do?
The title screen with a familiar logo style by Tardis Remakes. This is his first Spectrum remake, but hopefully not his last.
In a nutshell, very well indeed. It successfully recalls what I think of as the colourful arcade era of the Spectrum such as Cookie and Jetpac (both perhaps unsurprisingly by Ultimate Play The Game).
The action takes place on a fruit farm, essentially a grid filled with fruit, which you must empty to get to the next level, where you do the same thing over and over again. Each piece of fruit you collect is worth a different amount, but as you have to collect them all to finish the level it doesn’t really add much to the game.
As you run around the grid collecting fruit the Dingo’s are doing likewise, and when they see you they’ll quickly throw a piece of fruit at you, which you have to avoid or destroy by throwing your own piece of fruit.
The graphics look similar to Sabre Wulf and that is no bad thing.
The gameplay is pretty unforgiving but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in an era when many games are so easy they’re clearly designed not to overly challenge the fussy gamer (Oblivion I’m looking at you). However it does mean that unless your positioning is spot on you can get stuck on a corner while trying to navigate around the grid. This leads to lots of avoidable deaths as you try rush around a corner to avoid a Dingo and end up pushing against a wall as you get caught by a flying banana.
This is something that happens to me on other games like Space Marine (getting trapped on corners, not being hit by a flying banana) so I think this cross-generational gaming is just revealing to me how bad I am at perceiving corners and getting around them.
The highscore page for Dingo, where I somehow contrived to spell my own name wrong. It is 'Ross', not 'Ros' or 'Bros' as girls insisted on calling me in the 1980s for some reason...
Dingo was released at the Replay Expo 2011 in Blackpool and seems to have gone down a storm. This means that sadly all the copies made to promote it are now gone. It’s available for free download at World of Spectrum and on Tardis Remakes’ own website but it is frustrating for collectors that no more tapes will be made. Given that Cronosoft are happily publishing Spectrum games why not allow him to release a new batch on cassette as long as the demand is there?
Regardless, Dingo is a fun slab of fast-paced, colourful arcade action and a welcome addition to what is becoming a vintage year for homebrew first-time Spectrum releases along with Retro Souls’ release of Alter Ego.
The author has said that he has no plans to convert any of his other games to the Spectrum (perhaps partially because some of them originally appeared on the platform), but did mention the possibility of converting Star Castle at some point in the future. Given the quality of Dingo it would be great to see more Spectrum games from Tardis Remakes at some point in the future, especially as they can be ported to iOS with various emulator apps (as Dingo is) so it doesn’t have to restrict the audience to such a degree.
Perhaps a co-ordinated twitter assault can be arranged to persuade him of the demand?
Dingo can be downloaded here, enjoy!
The reason there’s no more tapes is that we, the makers, don’t actually own the copyright to Dingo. It would be like Ocean releasing an arcade conversion back in the day without buying the licence. The 60 copies made were just made for those few who wanted a physical copy at the show and to give the game a bit of a promotional boost. Plus making 60 tapes by hand took AGES! I can’t make anymore, my hands hurt! Glad you liked the game though. I had much fun making it. As to the points given to each fruit, it does make a difference as the Dingos eat the fruit as well as you. You can choose to pick off the higher scoring fruits first to get the biggest score or just leave it to chance, and not score so much!
thanks for posting! i did wonder if it was that re: going for higher scoring fruit but the way i play it doesn’t really make much difference, i just run up and down the grid so it feels more like chance which fruits i get!
i understand re copyrights, you’d think they wouldn’t care for an old platform but you never know! anyway, if you shipped it out to cronosoft you would save your hands for the speccy version of star castle!
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