Have you ever fancied yourself as a ZX spectrum developer? Do you think you could have rivaled Horace Goes Skiing and The Hobbit back in the day? Well, the YRGB 2025 Retro Game Developer Contest is fully underway with budding developers being invited to create original, brand-new games for the ZX Spectrum 48K and 128K.
And yes, there are cash prizes for the winners!
YRGB 2025 judge and former artist at Ocean Softer Simon Butler says, "Through this competition, we aim to achieve two things. First, to support the Spectrum enthusiast community — those restoring retro machines and writing programs for them. Second, to give people a reason to reconnect with the hobbies of their youth. But above all, crafting games for hardware this limited isn’t just a technical challenge — it’s an art form in its own right."
As a pioneer of pixel art in the '80s, Butler will be a hard man to please, with he and the other judges awarding points for gameplay, graphics, and the soundtrack of all submitted games. The game that comes top in all three categories will bag a grand total of $1,000, though there are more prizes to be given out across the competition. There will also be a fourth-category winner as voted for by the general public.
So what do you have to do? Well, all the games need to work with original ZX Spectrum hardware and need to be compatible with either Kempston, Sinclair, or Cursor joysticks, or a Beta Disk Interface. Make a game, submit it on the YRGB 2025 website before July 28th, 2025, and then wait for the winners to be announced on August 30th. All the rules can also be found on the website.
YRGB 2025 Jury Chairman Mikhail Sudakov explains, "If you want to create a game for the ZX Spectrum computer but lack experience, don’t worry — there are ready-made engines and tools to help you build dynamic games. For those who code, you can write in assembler, BASIC, C, or other languages supported by this machine. We encourage young developers to join and immerse themselves in the creative process of making games for the ZX Spectrum, just as many of us did in the 1980s."
Considering Mikhail is the owner of one of Russia’s biggest collections of licensed ZX Spectrum titles, he, like Simon Butler, will be looking for titles that could have seamlessly landed on the console back in the 80s, titles that push the boundaries of the console while still harnessing that sense of imagination that those early titles invoked in gamers around the world. I'm excited to see what you all come up with over the next couple of months, and we'll see you on July 28th once all of your entries have been made!
