The Great Giana Sisters

This is a brand new, unofficial conversion of The Great Giana Sisters for the ZX Spectrum by kirby2000, released free on itch.io in November 2026.

The original game was made by Time Warp and published by Rainbow Arts, and it was designed by Armin Gessert and Manfred Trenz, with music by Chris Huelsbeck. You play Giana, or her sister Maria in two-player mode, exploring a magical world inside Giana’s dream and searching for a giant diamond to wake up.

Most enemies are beaten by jumping on them, and the sisters grow spiky hair when they collect a power-up. After the game’s UK release it was pulled from shops following a notice from Nintendo.

A Spectrum version was reviewed in magazines in 1988 but never released, and no known copies survive. This conversion fills that gap. It has all 33 original stages, secret bonus rooms, hidden warps, eight power-ups, a high score table and a two-player mode.

It supports Kempston, Sinclair and Cursor joysticks, with custom key mapping.

The itch.io page lists several versions: 48K tape, 48K single load, 128K and +3 disk. Indie Retro News credits AI in the making of the conversion. [Add the version and file you are playing.]

Download it here: https://kirby2000.itch.io/great-giana-sisters-zx

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Mirror Miner

Mirror Miner is a special conversion of Manic Miner for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, built to test muscle memory. Everything in the game is mirrored, and it is designed to trip up even the best Manic Miner players. It also includes a particularly hard level.

Manic Miner was written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith and first released by Bug-Byte in June 1983. This version is based on this edition.

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The Portal War

Portal War is a strategy game for the ZX Spectrum Next by Geoff Neil. It was released at Crash Live, and Technoshed Software sells the physical edition for £20 at the time of recording.

Technoshed is a UK publisher and distributor of Spectrum Next games and accessories. Find out more and get the physical edition from Technoshed Software from https://technoshedsoftware.com/product/portal-war

MiSTer is an open-source project that recreates classic arcade machines, consoles and computers using FPGA hardware instead of software emulation.

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Klax

Klax is a puzzle game developed and published by Atari Games. It was designed in 1989 by Dave Akers and Mark Stephen Pierce, with Akers as programmer and Pierce as artist, and it reached arcades in February 1990.

Instead of dropping pieces from above, Klax has coloured tiles tumble down a ramp towards you. You move a paddle left and right to catch them. The paddle holds up to five tiles, and you flip them into a 5 by 5 bin below. Line up three or more tiles of the same colour horizontally, vertically or diagonally and you make a Klax. Pushing the joystick up flips the top tile on your paddle back up the ramp, and pulling down speeds the tiles up. If you let a tile drop into the pit, you hear it scream as it falls, and if you fail a wave the crowd is disappointed.

The game has 100 waves in 20 groups of five, and each wave sets a different goal, such as making a set number of Klaxes, clearing tiles or reaching a score. There is also a secret. Completing the “Big X”, a 5 by 5 X pattern, on certain waves lets you warp ahead to higher levels. The game supports two players at the same time. Atari Games released it while its Tengen version of Tetris was caught up in a legal dispute, and it was a major arcade hit.

Home versions followed under the Tengen brand for systems including the NES, Mega Drive/Genesis, Atari Lynx, Commodore 64 and Amiga, and Midway gained the rights when it bought Atari Games in 1996.

MiSTer is an open-source project that recreates classic arcade machines, consoles and computers using FPGA hardware instead of software emulation.

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Sabre Wulf Remaster

Sabre Wulf Remaster is a port and remaster of Ultimate Play The Game’s 1984 ZX Spectrum classic, made for the Commodore 64 by Sveinacious-G and published on itch.io in October 2026.

The original was designed by Tim and Chris Stamper. The developer’s aim is to reproduce the Spectrum game as faithfully as possible while improving it where it makes sense. All the original features, creatures and mechanics are kept, right down to the spawn rate of each monster and item. The page highlights two ideas the original introduced. Enemies keep tracking you beyond your visual boundaries, and the world is large and interconnected, with your final destination visible from the very start.

The remaster uses the Commodore 64’s sprites and sound hardware to run much smoother than the original. The framerate is mostly stable at 50 frames per second on PAL systems and 60 on NTSC. The palette has been reworked to look rich and saturated on the C64, and there is a selectable alternative palette with a more subdued, dusky look.

A ZX Spectrum palette is also included for people who prefer the original colours. At one point I saw we will switch to the palette and we actually keep the Commodore one before playing a third game with the dusky look as shown on the title card.

Get the game here, on a pay what you want basis

Available from https://sveinacious-g.itch.io/sabre-wulf-64
 

Driver-X

Driver-X is an action game for the ZX Spectrum Next, listed on itch.io under the developer name ZX Gaming. Its page describes it as inspired by the classic arcade thrills of the 80s, with fast-paced action and addictive gameplay.

Available from https://retronextgen.itch.io/driver-x.

MiSTer FPGA is an open-source project that recreates classic arcade machines, consoles and computers using FPGA hardware instead of software emulation.

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Ribbit Rush

Ribbit Rush is a frog-hopping arcade game for the ZX Spectrum Next, made by roman126 and released on itch.io in 2026. The developer describes it as a full-screen game with 9-channel TurboSound music. It is a Frogger-style game with six worlds, and the world changes every three stages through day, dusk and night. Each world has its own backdrop, sprites and theme tune.

The worlds are Lily River, Harbour Docks, Autumn Woods, Frozen Fjord, Desert Canyon and Neon City.

The traffic, river platforms and predators change in each one, so Lily River has crocodiles and logs, while Neon City has hover cars and a robo-croc. After world six, the game loops back to world one, but faster.

There are also three rotating bonus rounds, one after every world. Firefly Frenzy is the original bonus round, Fly Feast has you fire your tongue at flies, and Lily Pad Leap has you hop across sinking pads to golden lotus homes.

The game has 30 speech and sound clips played through the DAC without interrupting the music, including an announcer and a lady frog who says “My hero!” when you get her home.

Available from https://roman126.itch.io/ribbit-rush .