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Image: Scott Bateman Art

For veteran video game fans, perhaps nothing sparks the nostalgia quite like seeing the iconic sprites from your favourite childhood games. These are characters that, despite being constructed from a mere pocketful of pixels, became permanently embedded in our minds and memories - simplistic designs that immediately conjure up wonderful and indelible images of the halcyon days of home computing.

A delightful animation, crafted by artist Scott Bateman, spotlights some of the heroes and villains that populated the 8-bit era, specifically as they appeared on Sir Clive Sinclair's rubber-keyed wonder: The ZX Spectrum. Created in Photoshop and Blender, "A Walk through the 8-Bit" features a parade of Spectrum superstars, gathered together to celebrate an era of monochrome majesty.

(The tweet below is compressed; you can see the full HD version on Bateman's website.)

Well over 30 notable characters (some simply popping by for a bit of parallax action) appear in the clip, some more instantly recognisable than others. But any reader who grew up with the 48K platform will no doubt spot many familiar faces among the menagerie. While the hoary old cliché of "It was all about the gameplay back then" is somewhat trite, it's impossible to deny that these basic-looking sprites were able to keep players enraptured for just as many hours as the million-dollar models of today.

I don't want to list any of my faves in the mix here - that takes the fun out of it for all of you - but I can't not shout out my boy Horace (and his Spiders), as he was the star of the first Spectrum game I ever played: Horace Crosses The Road in a Valiant but Ultimately Fruitless Attempt to Go Ski-ing (1982)

There's still time to back Golden Slumbers' upcoming book The Rubber-Keyed Wonder: The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Story.