I love when developers take inspiration from older consoles and try to craft a new game with that console in mind. For example, Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight for the 3DS absolutely feels like it could have been a genuine NES game back in the late ’80s or early ’90s. Or the sadly-no-longer-available-for-iOS Dark Void Zero, a “de-make" spinoff game of the Dark Void console shooter which the developers billed as a “lost" NES-era project that was miraculously “found" in the Capcom vault and promptly released to the world (it even has awesome NES-style “box art"). Anyway, I love that stuff, and I get that same sort of vibe from the upcoming shooter Z-Exemplar from Suminell Studios. All the usual suspects are listed as their inspirations–R-Type, Gradius, Nemesis and more–and they’re shooting for a visual look similar to that of the ’80s home computer from Sinclair, the ZX Spectrum. Not just the looks though, but everything about Z-Exemplar feels like an early ’80s video game. Take a look.

I feel like they totally nailed the ZX Spectrum feel with Z-Exemplar, and being that I absolutely love side-scrolling shooters and I grew up on those old consoles, I’m really looking forward to its release. There’s no word on just when that may be, but there’s a bit more information (as well as some animated .gifs!) in the game’s forum thread, so keep an eye out and once we get some more details on Z-Exemplar we’ll let you know.