Software Projects

 Bear Brand Complex, Allerton Road, Woolton, Liverpool, LS25

Another day, another Tesco superstore. This one is in Woolton, Liverpool and it's built on the site of the old Software Projects office, a place with the odd name of Bear Brand Complex.

The Bear Brand Complex was a massive factory in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton. Like Blenheim House, System 3's home in Pinner, it seems to have been taken for granted and despite being a huge blot local landmark there are surprisingly few photos. Google brings up some pictures of the building being demolished in June 1997, around the same time Blenheim House was also being knocked down and ironically Blenheim House met the same fate in the foundations of a Tesco superstore.

December 2021

Software Projects was descended from Bug-Byte, like several of it's Liverpool contemporaries. Dispatch Manager Alan Maton left Bug-Byte, to be joined by Imagine's Colin Stokes. CRASH reported (August 1984 page 32) that: "when Colin Stokes, sales manager for Imagine, left the company and went lo work for Alan Maton's Software Projects, he was faced with the same barrage of invective, both verbal and legal, with Imagine publishing in their Newsletter a whole chunk transcribed, it is claimed, from telephone conversations between Colin and Imagine's competitors in the business. Colin had come under the heading of 'unreliable'. in the Butler/Lawson cannon and so his office phones had been bugged." This is amazing stuff and if anyone has a copy of the relevant newsletter please make it available on the internet. The bitterness of Imagine's attitude to Software Projects can be seen in this quote from spokesman Mike Crofton to YOUR SPECTRUM (August 1984 page 5), in an article about the failure of GOSH (the Guild of Software Houses) to invite Software Projects or Imagine to join and the possibility of Software Projects and Imagine working together: "We're not interested in working with, seeing, or touching them. In fact, our pet name for them is Software Defects."

Alan Maton and Colin Stokes were joined by star programmer Matthew Smith who brought with him the rights to Manic Miner. The exact circumstances which allowed him to revoke Bug-Byte's licence to produce the game are not clear but it revolved around a clause in his contract. Smith recalled in an interview with POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY volume 3, number 14 (April 1984 page 13) that, "there was a clause which said that should a game be withdrawn from the market upon written request, it would be returned to the programmer - I don't think anyone had expected that a programmer would withdraw his own game!" A couple of months later in BIG K issue 4 (July 1984 page 19) Tony Baden of Bug-Byte gave his side of the story. "There was a clause in our original contract... which, due to a comma in the wrong place, or a missing comma, can't remember which, was a bit ambiguous. Rather than spending a lot of time and money fighting it in court, we agreed to let him take the game with him. At the time, you see, Matthew was a minor, and our legal people told us that against a minor in open court no one has a chance." November 1983 saw the unique situation of two companies competing with versions of the same game. Software Projects' edition came on to the market while Bug-Byte sold off its remaining stock. Then in 1984 came Jet Set Willy, which managed the extraordinary trick of balancing hype against public expectation and might be, despite Imagine Software's efforts, the first megagame for the ZX Spectrum. 

It's difficult to get much sense of life in the Bear Brand Complex. The description in SINCLAIR USER issue 33 (December 1984 page 88) goes no further than "the reception area is stylish," and, "the zoo is an area of the building set aside for programmers. To reach it you must climb a concrete staircase." It also gets a mention in Shahid Kamal Ahmad's excellent Twitter memoir Code Is Just, when he remembers being commissioned to convert Jet Set Willy to the Commodore 64. "We visit the office in the Bear Brand Complex on the Allerton Road. It's impressive. It's huge."

Image from Grace's Guide
to British Industrial History
https://gracesguide.co.uk

I've seen this picture dated to 1934, when the factory operated under the name of Howard Ford & Co Ltd and Bear Brand was the name of their range of lingerie. The company failed in 1976 and called in the receiver, and the city of Liverpool Corporation agreed to buy the factory site to offer financial support for local jobs. 1976/77 is the point where the Bear Brand Complex comes into existence as a scaled down clothing factory, with additional business units for rent. 

As is so often the case in Liverpool, there's also a Beatles connection. One of the houses near the slip road into Tesco's car park, from Allerton Road (to the right of the picture), is called Dairy Cottage. It was the shop for Smith's Dairy Farm, owned by George Toogood Smith, John Lennon's uncle by marriage to aunt and parental guardian Mimi Smith. Lennon briefly lived in Dairy Cottage, before the family moved to a semi-detached house slightly further west down Menlove Avenue.

It seems astonishing that such a slab of a building could just disappear and it's hard to see how the site fitted in to modern day Woolton but fortunately I have access to the world's worst photoshop artist, who's had a go.

"I don't want us to become just the 'manic miner' software house," was how Alan Maton ended the interview in POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY number 14. Unfortunately that's pretty much what happened. Despite Software Projects' best efforts it was stuck in the shadow of it's most famous character and struggled to build an identity of its own. They toyed with importing and converting American games like BC's Quest for Tires and Lode Runner. They experimented with a budget range called Software Supersavers. They released arcade conversions, including two well regarded versions of Dragon's Lair. They released original games; Tribble Trouble and Hysteria. But ultimately what got people excited was the prospect of something new from the mind of Matthew Smith. Rumours abounded of a game called Willy Meets The Taxman or another called Mega-Tree (or maybe they were the same game). Whatever it was called, the game never appeared. Jet Set Willy II was, depending on where you stand, an opportunistic cash-in or an expanded reimagining of the original, but it didn't help dispel the image that Software Projects was the 'manic miner' software house.

And then something happened. Something wonderful. 

In June 1987 with no fanfare a full page colour advert appeared in CRASH issue 41, and the same month's issue of YOUR SINCLAIR, for a game called Attack of the Mutant Zombie Flesh Eating chickens From Mars or, to give the game it's full title, Attack of the Mutant Zombie Flesh Eating chickens From Mars Starring ZAPPO the DOG. The title is immaterial. All ZX Spectrum games had names like Fat Worm Blows a Sparky or One of our Wombats is Missing and, as demonstrated by @ReheatedPixels quiz on Twitter many were indistinguishable from songs by The Fall; I scored 13/20. What was exciting of course was the flash "A new game from MATTHEW SMITH author of MANIC MINER & JET SET WILLY" Could it be true? The adverts were repeated the following month. They couldn't print it if it wasn't true! And SINCLAIR USER issue 64 (July 1987) had a Q&A with Matthew Smith (page 92) and a preview (page 90). "Speedy scrolling roads and some birds and a dog (for that's what the game entails) may not sound like the makings of a wonderful epic but, technically, it's pretty damned neat. The graphics are enormous and everything zooms round at impressive speed. It's looking very good" (no screenshots in the preview, sadly)... Anticipation mounts. And then the following month. "Matthew Smith is having to rethink his latest title... Matthew's label has decided not to release the game in its present form and he's been instructed to take the game to bits again and reconstruct it somewhat." But it hasn't been cancelled, right? In November 1987 SINCLAIR USER listed the title in its The Games Time Forget feature. The game was quietly abandoned some time around Christmas 1987. 

Confusingly, in September 1987, Software Projects released a well reviewed game called Star Paws for the Commodore 64. It was a side-scrolling arcade game featuring a lead character, who was a dog, chasing weird birds. Not unreasonably people have assumed it was a repurposed Attack of the Mutant Zombie Flesh Eating chickens From Mars Starring ZAPPO the DOG. It wasn't, broadly the two games developed in parallel from a similar inspiration, but for the full story you should read The Games That Weren't from Bitmap Books. The ZX Spectrum version of Star Paws was released in spring 1988 at the fire sale price of £2.99 and seems to be the last Software Projects game. Wikipedia says, "[Matthew] Smith closed Software Projects in 1988." A statement crying out for a [citation needed]. He certainly could close the company because he was one of the directors but a small mystery remains. According to Companies House Software Projects Limited was finally dissolved five years later, on 23rd March 1993.

Before we go, let me indulge in some speculation. A very short walk from the Bear Brand Complex/Tesco, on the other side of Menlove Avenue, is Allerton Towers a park featuring the remains of an old manor. It's the ideal place for a programmer who wants some space to walk and think. Not much of the building remains but one very prominent feature that does is the Orangery.