The latest ZX Spectrum Next campaign on Kickstarter has been a tremendous success so far, raising £1,836,515 against an initial goal of just £200,000 and unlocking a ton of additional stretch goals.
As a result, SpecNext Ltd, the company behind the new version of the legendary '80s computer, has revealed it is adding four more unlockable add-ons to the campaign to join the ZX81 core it unveiled in an update last month. These include three new games and another core for a classic 80s machine.
The first of these stretch goals, which has already been unlocked (thanks to its £1.8 million goal having been met), is a Spectrum Next remake of Mikro-Gen's Automata, a 1984 platformer that was part of the Wally Week series (a group of games that also contained Pyjamarama, Everyone's A Wally (The Life of Wally), Herbert's Dummy Run, and Three Weeks In Paradise).
And this is joined by other listings for a Amstrad CPC core (unlockable at £2.5 million), a Spectrum Next version of Mike Singleton's The Lords of Midnight sequel Doomdark's Revenge (£2.7 million), and a brand new adventure in the Monty Mole series (£3 million).
The Amstrad CPC, as you may already be aware, was a series of 8-bit home computers released by the British consumer electronics company Amstrad, and debuted in 1984 with the launch of the Amstrad CPC 464.
It was a contemporary of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, and became popular with gamers at the time, thanks to its extensive library of titles — many of which you'll be able to find on our list of the best Amstrad CPC games.
Given it has already been revealed that the Spectrum Next will also contain a bunch of other cores, including cores for the Sinclair QL, C64, and the Sam Coupé, this addition would help the Next on its way to becoming the ultimate gaming computer for fans of 8-bit-era home computing.
If you're interested in backing the project, you can do so here. The campaign will end on Monday, August 18th 2025 at 7:59 AM BST.