What a time to be alive, eh?
Way back in September 2024, I was hungry. Not for food, but for a fab and skillo Speccy mag. At that time, that meant me yearning for the crap (and I don't mean that) Your Sinclair (YS); although not a Speccy owner back in the 1980s, I had one by proxy as me and some mates used to try to write games on the rubber-clad microcomputer. Nothing too advanced, and not as advanced as the now infamous Advanced Lawnmower Simulator, of course. But hey, it was a great time to be alive, and YS was a great mag, even for part-time or honourary Spec Chums like myself (was that allowed???). I got a ZX 48K rubber key machine in the early 1990s, while everyone else was upgrading to supposedly better machines. And it was around this time that I found my passion and fascination with 8-bit technologies again. So, modern computers could do more, but that didn't mean anything to me. The unsophisticated home computers of the 1980s, when programmed well, brought a whole new world to life, and as I was a programmer first, seeing well timed interactive code executing on a television set was like a someone with the eye admiring a work of art.
It was around this time [September 2024] when I was approached by Chris Thacker, who had ideas for a new gaming magazine. I was surprised that he contacted me, and even knew anything about me. The last significant feature I had published in a gaming mag was probably around 2006 for gamesTM. And whilst my Micro Mart (MM) column continued after that, life circumstances meant it was difficult to meet any deadlines, and I ended up losing it likely due to over-work and burn out, amongst other issues. But at least by that time I had stopped invoicing MM, in fact for a number of years before. Anything printed after around 2007 was submitted at no cost to the magazine as, and rightly so in my view as I couldn't commit the time to it that I once had.
I think it was around April 2025 when I first heard about FREEZEZX; it was wryly touted as an April Fool's joke, but it turned out to be real. At that time, I had a Cruise to Norway to prepare for (after the long, cold Winter, Norway was the ideal destination for a break). And after spending too much on the Ship (Iona) I was skint. But as soon as I could, I pre-ordered issue one, knowing that its sister mag, FREEZE64, is the best Commodore C64 gaming mag that money can currently purchase (unless you're buying old issues of Commodore Format or something from eBay or wherever).
In my skint state, I noticed another Speccy gaming mag - BreakSpace - and it was FREE! Hurrah! Available from itch.io, this is a mag with real heart, giving you a lowdown on the most recent releases for the old ZX Speccy, although this one is in digital form only, and not printed (I personally prefer printed matter, but that's just because of my age).
FREEZEZX can be pre-ordered (or ordered, depending on when you are reading this) from here and BreakSpace issue one is available here