Rabbits, Gold, and Old-School Hardcore: The Tale of Rabbits is Here

A year ago, the ZX Evolution team dropped Lone Lunner. I remember being genuinely stoked that someone finally built a proper, good-looking Lode Runner for the Spectrum – instead of those sad, monochrome homebrew projects we got used to in the 90s.

Now, out of nowhere – a sequel. Meet The Tale of Rabbits.

The core loop is classic: run around, grab gold (well, carrots now!), dig holes, and run for your life. But the devs didn’t just swap out the sprites. This is a full-blown sequel running on that same clever engine that handles two seemingly different platforms at once: the western ZX Spectrum Next and the eastern TS Conf.

Honestly, that tech aspect is what gets me. Getting these two pieces of hardware to play nice together is no small feat. The fact that these guys keep polishing their cross-platform engine deserves serious respect. It’s not just “another game” – it’s proof that these scenes can actually be bridged.

What’s inside:

• Visuals: Still rocking that pleasant style that feels like a mix of NES and Sega. Bright, juicy, readable.

• Gameplay: Pure hardcore. If you played the first one, you know the enemies aren’t just following a script – they’re actively trying to end you. The AI here is sharp again. This isn’t a casual stroll; it’s a reflex puzzle. The first level actually drove me up the wall – it took me 2.5 hours to beat! Thank god they included level codes so you don’t have to restart from scratch every time.

• Setting: As the name suggests, it’s about rabbits now. It looks cute, but trust me, your hero is going to die just as often.

I genuinely don’t know where the devs find the patience to code for retro platforms in 2026, but I’m glad they do. If you have a Next or a TS-Conf, you can’t skip this.

Where to grab it & how to support:

The game is already up on ZX Online. I highly recommend buying it there. First, it’s cheaper. Second, payments are painless – Robokassa handles both Russian and worldwide cards without issues, and you can even pay via Volet or crypto. There’s a version on itch.io, but the price tag is higher (fees and transfers eat up a chunk of the money before it reaches the creators).

So download it, play it, and don’t say I didn’t warn you about the difficulty. And seriously, drop the authors a kind word – enthusiasm costs a lot these days.

One more thing: The ZX Evolution crew launched their own Telegram channel – worth a look. They’re currently wrapping up their next big project: an RTS for the ZX Spectrum Next and TS Conf. No idea how it plays yet, but it looks killer. You can also support them on Boosty just like before.

Stay tuned!