Games from Spain

Spain had a thriving 8-bit game industry; the years between 1984 and 1991 are known as the Golden Age of Spanish software. Most popular platforms were Sinclair ZX Spectrum (after the UK, Spain had probably the largest Spectrum scene), MSX, and Amstrad CPC. Apart from a couple of text-based adventures, nearly all these games were of the arcade variety.

Hundra							MSX	Arcade	88
Sabrina							MSX	Arcade
Turbo Girl							MSX	Shoot-'em-up
Acuario								Arcade
The Brick							MSX	Breakout	89
Mad Mix 2							MSX	Pac-Man	90
Lorna							MSX	Arcade
Satan							MSX	Arcade

With a few exceptions, the Spanish game industry did not survive the end of the 8-bit era. The 90s are dominated by freeware and shareware.

Sextris		Tetris	91	Iñigo Ayo
Parchus		Ludo	93	Jesús García Martínez
Peter Box		Soko-ban	94	Juan Carlos Garcia
K³		Pac-Man	96	Iñaki Ecenarro
BrainsBreaker		Jigsaw Puzzle	97	Juan Trujillo Tarradas
Life on Mars?		Strategy		Innaky
Metropolis		Board		Innaky
Master Mind		Master Mind		Ignacio Pérez Gil
Parchís v2.1		Ludo		Ignacio Pérez Gil
Qúbix v3		3D Tic-Tac-Toe		Ignacio Pérez Gil
4 en linea		Connect Four	98	Angel Villoria Marcos
Alien Rescue		Remake		J. Botargues
Deflektor PC		Remake		Ignacio Pérez Gil
Chinesenspiel		Ludo		Jesús García Martínez
Summa		Tetris	99	Javier Sánchez Fransesch
Torrente		Action	01
Strip Fighter		Strip Poker	02

Genres

(Aventura) conversacional

Interactive fiction, usually illustrated but nontheless text-based. A niche genre certainly, but a thriving one.

Arcade

By far the most widespread genre. You will find few classics, maybe with the exception of Pac-Man clones, which were made popular in Spain through the Mad Mix games. Otherwise, Spanish arcade games are usually platformers or shooters.

Videoaventura

The distinction to arcade is often vague. Hundra is classified as videoaventura, Lorna as arcade. Go figure.

Sports

Rather popular too.

Estrategia

Usually something like Risk or Othello. There can't be more than a dozen, and none of them seems to have been overly popular.

Habilidad

Literally skill. I've seen it applied to Tetris clones and Soko-ban. There weren't many of these either.

Links

• Computer Emuzone is a database of Spanish games.
• Press Play Then Any Key is dedicated to the Amstrad CPC.
• Historia del software español de entretenimiento gives an overview of game development in Spain 1980–2003.
• Ignacio Pérez Gil creates Windows remakes of 8-bit games, especially Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
• M.A Software has Amiga games and remakes for Windows and Java.
• Karoshi Corporation has remakes for MSX.