This weeks game for the Retro Games Forever Facebook Group ZX Spectrum Challenge is The Light Corridor. The game seems to be a weird cross between a maze game, Pong, and Squash and all crammed into a half screen ZX Spectrum 8 bit computer game.
Where to start with this game, or more like how to start this game. Instead of the Enter key being the one to push to make progress from the opening title screen this one uses Space. Q,A,O,P and Space which are also used to navigate the menus. These are usual keys for playing games on the Speccy, but not generally for the menus. So once that is cleared up and I have selected a joystick (Kempston interface for me please) I find it just doesn’t work. So onwards using the keys.
After a minute or so trying to get something to happen it becomes clear that you need to go below the banner announcing that you are the start of level one, then hit fire. Then wait for the ball to come back and knock it on again, but the score stays at 0? Then I realised that you are supposed to hold fire to chase the ball down the corridor, and use the bat (transparent racquet) to direct the ball, using the edges to send it off diagonally (like in Pong) to avoid obstacles. Then move forward (using the fire button) avoiding the obstacles in the way to make points and progress towards the next level. Keep dodging things, hitting the ball back into the corridor and moving forward.
The 128k version I played has some OK music and effects, the game moves pretty well once you get used to it and the graphics are good enough. I just didn’t enjoy the game enough to keep trying, so this was my entry score for the RGF Challenge for now unless I get more time in the week.
