ZX Spectrum Top 100 Games Collection (feat. 403 titles)

[akeley]

This is a little something I made to have a fun break from my more long-term archival projects. From the description:

This collection contains games from 5 different Top 100 ZX Spectrum games lists. Overall it features 274 games altogether (full list below), plus some additional media (scans, instructions, loading screens, and .ay music files). These were sourced mostly from the excellent ZXDB database and files hosted on the SpectrumComputing.co.uk website. It should be usable on the original hardware, emulators, and FPGA devices.

It's worth noting that even the "official" YS list is rather subjective, and there are great variations between these rankings, which makes perusing them even more fun (eg compare the YS readers list from 1993 with more modern WoS list).

Also, this is by no means an exhaustive collection of ZX Spectrum's best games - while the most popular "classics" are well represented, there are still some which are missing, and so are hundreds of other really good games equally worthy a place on a Top 100 list, depending on personal taste. Still, it's meant as a quick and accessible look at some of the the best titles from this extraordinary microcomputer's library.

The next update will also add the Top 100 Text Adventure list, and perhaps some other Top 100s. If you spot any bugs/mistakes in the meantime, please let me know.

TOP 100 LISTS
1) "The Official Game Top 100 Of All Time" - according to Your Sinclair journalist Stuart Campbell and published in issues 70 (October 1991) through 74 (February 1992),
https://worldofspectrum.net/archive/top-100/
2) "Readers Top 100", which was voted for by the Your Sinclair readers and published in issue 93 (September 1993).
https://worldofspectrum.net/archive/top-100/
3) "Visitor Voted Top 100 Best Games" - from the website World Of Spectrum
https://worldofspectrum.net/archive/best-games/
4) "The 100 Best Spectrum Games" - from the website Retro Sanctuary
https://retro-sanctuary.com/Top-100-Spe ... age-1.html
5) "Top 100 Spectrum Games" - from the website Wizwords
http://www.wizwords.net/top-100-spectrum-games

FILE STRUCTURE
There are 3 main archives to download

-ZXSpectrumTop100.zip - the entire collection (games + media). _500MB size. It's organised by game subdirectories, each of which contains games in various formats (tap/tzx/z80/sna/dsk/trd) and a "Doc" directory with media files.
-ZXSpectrumTop100-noDoc.zip - as above, only without the media files featured in "Doc" directories, resulting in much smaller size (27MB)
-ZXSpectrumTop100-HDD.zip - the collection adapted to a HDD image, usable on FPGA devices and possibly Next too. It features most of the aforementioned files, minus /png/jpg/pdf/tzx/dsk.

You can find it on that big ol' archive site, search for "ZX Spectrum Top 100" (make sure to use the quotation marks).
The extra fun part on MiSTer is the fact we can use the DIVMMC .vhd (you need to just rename the .img file extension). It features bob_fossil's LFN browser "frontend", where you can save games, read inlay.txt files, check out loading screens and listen to AY tunes. The .vhd also works on the Next core.

EDIT:

VERSION 1.1 (released Apr-2024)

This update adds the Top 100 Text Adventure list plus games, and SpectrumComputing's Top 100 list (9 new game files).

EDIT2:

VERSION 1.2 (released May-2024)

This update adds Crash Top 100 list plus additional games from it, and features a bigger vhd with better versions of some of the games files (now most of them should work when used this way).

[Chris23235]

Thanks, that's a nice collection. The Spectrum had so many games, no wonder that even Top 100 lists differ so much.

[jordi]

good one!!

Just missing some good titles, but spectrum has so many nice titles that it is difficult:
'batman the movie', 'game over', 'livingstone supongo', 'mortadelo y filemon 2', 'la abadia del crimen'.

[Monos]

Thx. That's bring back memories. Good old days...

[TAA]

Having trouble getting this to work. I've followed instructions and when I try to load the vhd from the osd it doesn't show up in the menu. I'm relatively new to MiSTer and definitely new to using any of the computer cores so I'm probably missing a step somewhere. Anyone have any advice?

[neogeo81]

Where can i load the VHD? Can't find it on the page.

[FPGA64]

Where can i load the VHD? Can't find it on the page.

From the initial post

The extra fun part on MiSTer is the fact we can use the DIVMMC .vhd (you need to just rename the .img file extension)

[neogeo81]

Where can i load the VHD? Can't find it on the page.

From the initial post

The extra fun part on MiSTer is the fact we can use the DIVMMC .vhd (you need to just rename the .img file extension)

That saddly doesn't help. I can't find that .img file anywhere. Can you point met to the right direction?

[FPGA64]

Where can i load the VHD? Can't find it on the page.

From the initial post

The extra fun part on MiSTer is the fact we can use the DIVMMC .vhd (you need to just rename the .img file extension)

That saddly doesn't help. I can't find that .img file anywhere. Can you point met to the right direction?

Go to the archive site, follow the instructions in the first post

ZXSpectrumTop100-HDD.zip contains the HD.

[eLLuiGi]

Hi
Thx ! This is great !!

[LamerDeluxe]

I also have no idea how to run this on the Spectrum core. Trying to run it on the ZXNext core just gives me a 'cannot load TBBLUE.FW' error. Adding that file to the games/ZXNext folder does nothing.

[akeley]

I also have no idea how to run this on the Spectrum core. Trying to run it on the ZXNext core just gives me a 'cannot load TBBLUE.FW' error. Adding that file to the games/ZXNext folder does nothing.

To recap, on the ZX Spectrum core you need to:

-unpack it to /media/fat/games/Spectrum and change the extension name to .vhd.
-make sure you have the latest ESXMMC.BIN from esxdos 0.8.9 renamed as boot1.rom in the same dir
(more info here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ZX-Spec ... Ter#divmmc)
-mount the the vhd in core OSD menu using "Load DIVMMC"
-you should see exsdos boot screen and then the machine reset
-press F11 and you should land in Browser menu. Press Shift+H for instructions on how to use it.

I guess the esxdos could be the tricky part, so you can just use my boot1.rom from this post.

For Spectrum Next just mount the .vhd as drive D: (you should have a separate boot vhd mounted as C:) and then switch to it in the browser using D command in the OS and it should "just work" - no need to mess about with boot roms or any additional files.

[AfterBurnett]

This is awesome. I was struggling to find a decent set other than TOSEC, which has a million copies of each game, haha. Cheers!

[LamerDeluxe]

I also have no idea how to run this on the Spectrum core. Trying to run it on the ZXNext core just gives me a 'cannot load TBBLUE.FW' error. Adding that file to the games/ZXNext folder does nothing.

To recap, on the ZX Spectrum core you need to:

-unpack it to /media/fat/games/Spectrum and change the extension name to .vhd.
-make sure you have the latest ESXMMC.BIN from esxdos 0.8.9 renamed as boot1.rom in the same dir
(more info here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ZX-Spec ... Ter#divmmc)
-mount the the vhd in core OSD menu using "Load DIVMMC"
-you should see exsdos boot screen and then the machine reset
-press F11 and you should land in Browser menu. Press Shift+H for instructions on how to use it.

I guess the esxdos could be the tricky part, so you can just use my boot1.rom from this post.

For Spectrum Next just mount the .vhd as drive D: (you should have a separate boot vhd mounted as C:) and then switch to it in the browser using D command in the OS and it should "just work" - no need to mess about with boot roms or any additional files.

Thanks for the help!

I had already done all of those steps and arrived at an odd looking menu with F11. Trying to boot the drive from that menu didn't do anything. Good to know it has built-in instructions, I'll have a look at them.

The default boot vhd of the Next core just gives me a sequence of test screens, not sure if that is what it is supposed to do.

[akeley]

This is awesome. I was struggling to find a decent set other than TOSEC, which has a million copies of each game, haha. Cheers!

Thanks! For the best 1Game1Rom ZX Spectrum collection I recommend tracking down the latest Gamebase (Speccymania v5).

I had already done all of those steps and arrived at an odd looking menu with F11. Trying to boot the drive from that menu didn't do anything. Good to know it has built-in instructions, I'll have a look at them.

Odd indeed. When everything works well, after doing "Load DIVMMC" from OSD you should see the esxdos boot sequence, then core should reset to normal ZX Spectrum OS screen (depending on model) and then after F11 you should see this:

20240214-131913-screen.png (98.16 KiB) Viewed 13203 times

The vhd is mounted/booted from OSD, not here btw. Also, if the "odd looking menu" after F11 says "MR GLUK RESET SERVICE' or "TRS DOS" then it means that the vhd did not load correctly, and you're in one of the core's standard interface modes.

Just to make sure, in the above part I refer to the ZX Spectrum core, not Next

The default boot vhd of the Next core just gives me a sequence of test screens, not sure if that is what it is supposed to do.

If you mean the gfx mode screens, that's normal (on first boot, I think) - you should just choose one that suits your display best and proceed, then it should go to the standard Next boot screen and from there to NextOS ---> press D, and if you had mounted it before, then you should see the vhd's directory (similar as in above scr$, only with Next's looks).

[LamerDeluxe]

I had already done all of those steps and arrived at an odd looking menu with F11. Trying to boot the drive from that menu didn't do anything. Good to know it has built-in instructions, I'll have a look at them.

Odd indeed. When everything works well, after doing "Load DIVMMC" from OSD you should see the esxdos boot sequence, then core should reset to normal ZX Spectrum OS screen (depending on model) and then after F11 you should see this:

The vhd is mounted/booted from OSD, not here btw. Also, if the "odd looking menu" after F11 says "MR GLUK RESET SERVICE' or "TRS DOS" then it means that the vhd did not load correctly, and you're in one of the core's standard interface modes.

Just to make sure, in the above part I refer to the ZX Spectrum core, not Next

This is indeed what was happening. I had renamed ESXMMC.BIN from esxdos 0.8.9 to boot1.rom, but using the version in your post, that you linked, everything started working all of a sudden!

The default boot vhd of the Next core just gives me a sequence of test screens, not sure if that is what it is supposed to do.

If you mean the gfx mode screens, that's normal (on first boot, I think) - you should just choose one that suits your display best and proceed, then it should go to the standard Next boot screen and from there to NextOS ---> press D, and if you had mounted it before, then you should see the vhd's directory (similar as in above scr$, only with Next's looks).

This information also helped me to get everything working on the Next core!

Thank you so much for all your help! This great compilation is working perfectly now, on both cores!

[akeley]

This is indeed what was happening. I had renamed ESXMMC.BIN from esxdos 0.8.9 to boot1.rom, but using the version in your post, that you linked, everything started working all of a sudden!

Thanks for this report...it could be the description is somewhat wrong and I have actually used some other esxdos version to create the boot1.rom. I might look into this later, for now will just throw this boot1.rom on archive as well.

[akeley]

A new release - v1.1 - is available now. This update adds the Top 100 Text Adventure list/games from WoS , and SpectrumComputing's Top 100 list (plus 9 new game files).

The hdd image has also been updated, though given that some of the games refuse to work this way (because it's limited to tap/snapshot files) its status should be considered as "experimental". I do aim to test these files thoroughly and seek better .taps or make snapshots wherever they are broken, but that will take some time - so for now please use the "normal" loading method and files (tzx/dsk/etc) in such cases. I'd also appreciate any reports of these games not working.

[metalfacemark]

Thanks for this, just downloaded 1.1 - makes it a bit easier for browsing through that ten gagillion files!

[akeley]

V1.2 is up....most likely the "final" one. This update adds Crash Top 100 list plus additional games from it (₁₀). It's a bit weird list, since they first released staff picks (100-51) and then decided to use readers votes for 50-1, so it has some duplicates (it also shows that Your Sinclair readers were a much more refined bunch ;)

This release also features a bigger vhd with better versions of some of the previously not working games. I spent way too much time tinkering with this vhd and making sure everything works (atm only 3 games fail totally), seeing as you can just load the files the normal way, from the OSD, but I really like using it like that, with bob_fossil's browser as a proto-OS.

[Chris23235]

Thank you very much, I have all ZX Spectrum games on all my Speccy devices already, so I know this compilation will be a blast for people not familiar with the platform or without the time to make such a fine collection as this themself.