Is the Amstrad CPC finally emerging as the best 8-bit computer of all time? As homebrew developers continue to push the technological boundaries of Lord Sugar’s machines amid massive interest in the scene, the platform is staking a strong claim

You may have a preconception about the Amstrad CPC – the computer often scorned as the greycased black sheep of the 8-bit family. But so too did some members of BG Games, the developer of the CPC’S jaw-dropping version of Pinball Dreams.

It was 2009, and the team – whose origins go back to the Amiga demo scene in 1991 as the Batman Group – had rediscovered its motivation to develop for old platforms, having become inactive some 14 years earlier. The crew began a debate over which 8-bit machine was the most powerful.

“There was a great consensus that the C64 was the winner, but I started coding on an Amstrad CPC which was the computer I’d learn to program when I was a child,” recalls team member Alejandro Del Campo Gomez. Two years and three months later, and a dramatic 11-minute demo called Batman Forever emerged. It proved to be a watershed moment for the CPC.

Kicking off with a bold claim that commercial software had not taken advantage of more than 6% of the computer’s real capacity, the demo boasted a cracking soundtrack which continued to play while sections loaded, as well as 50Hz overscan, stunning scrollers and an abundance of colourful, fluid graphics – including a wonderful rotating Batman symbol.

But there was some criticism.

“Some of the feedback proclaimed the Amstrad CPC didn’t have the ability to make smooth-scrolling games and that the techniques applied in Batman Forever couldn’t work in a game,” Alejandro says. This set the group another challenge, hence the creation of Pinball Dreams.

“We decided it had to run at 50 frames per second and that it would be a good way to show the Amstrad can run games that other 8-bit computers cannot,” Alejandro continues. “So we used scrolling techniques to take advantage of the Amstrad CPC’S architecture capabilities that were not officially documented.”

The resulting game is a smooth, spectacular-looking technological triumph with superb physics and responsive controls. It’s not a million miles away from the Amiga version and