{"id":666,"date":"2026-08-23T14:09:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T14:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/?p=666"},"modified":"2026-08-23T14:12:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T14:12:57","slug":"i-c-u-p-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/i-c-u-p-s\/","title":{"rendered":"I.C.U.P.S."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I can\u2019t say I have any overwhelming memories of <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrumcomputing.co.uk\/entry\/2446\/ZX-Spectrum\/ICUPS\">ICUPS<\/a> from the time, like a lot of Thor\/Odin titles, my tape recorder seemed to take an excessive dislike to the loaders and it was largely hit and miss as to whether I\u2019d ever make it to the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some (Nodes of Yesod, Robin O\u2019The Wood) I\u2019d put the effort in even if it took a few tries because they were especially great, ICUPS never really felt worth the bother of maybe waiting half an hour or something before being able to play it. Such was life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But! I do still have a love for the eighties <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Athena_(retailer)\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Athena_(retailer)\">Athena-core<\/a> of the box art. Never quite hitting the heights of <a href=\"https:\/\/wearethemutants.com\/2017\/09\/21\/ultimate-play-the-game-cover-art-1982-1985\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/wearethemutants.com\/2017\/09\/21\/ultimate-play-the-game-cover-art-1982-1985\/\">Ultimate box art<\/a>, they were striking all the same and you could spot a Thor\/Odin title half a mile away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bored a couple of months ago, I thought I\u2019d take a pop at my own version of the ICUPS box art as there\u2019s a couple of things I needed to practice anyway so why not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t think it turned out too bad though the lightning needs work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-scaled.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"724\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-724x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-724x1024.png 724w, https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-212x300.png 212w, https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-768x1086.png 768w, https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-1086x1536.png 1086w, https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-1448x2048.png 1448w, https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0483-scaled.png 1810w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can\u2019t say I have any overwhelming memories of ICUPS from the time, like a lot of Thor\/Odin titles, my tape recorder seemed to take an excessive dislike to the loaders and it was largely hit and miss as to whether I\u2019d ever make it to the game. Some (Nodes of Yesod, Robin O\u2019The Wood) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Got bored a few months back and took a shot at the box art for ICUPS, which isn\u2019t really a great name for a videogame if you stop for a second and mull it over. So don\u2019t ever stop.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,26],"tags":[57,128,127,11,126,88,86],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-videogames","tag-1980s","tag-icups","tag-odin","tag-robs-art","tag-thor","tag-ultimate","tag-zx-spectrum"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":669,"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spooky.punchingrobots.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}