Blenheim House, Ash Hill Drive, Pinner, HA5
But I'm getting ahead of myself. System 3 don't get to Pinner until 1989. The company was founded in 1982 by Mark Cale and is still going today (if you are reading this in the future, today was December 2021). "The last independent British publisher from
that evolving era," is how the System 3 website puts it. Thirty nine years of game production makes System 3 older older than Elite, also still going but founded in 1984, and the same age as Ultimate/Rare who became one with the Microsoft conglomerate in 2002.
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| November 2021 |
10 Marshalsea Road, London, SE1
10 Marshalsea Road turns out to be a skinny building round the corner from Borough underground station. It was getting late by the time I arrived so I've no idea if the ground floor shop is permanently shuttered, or just closed for the day. This is the business address on the first System 3 advert I've been able to find; COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES issue 33 (July 1984 page 15). The advert promotes three games; Death Star Interceptor, for the Commodore 64, Laser Cycle, BBC Model B, and Colony 7, Atari 400/800/XL. The System 3 website dates Colony 7 back to 1982, which is the UK software scene equivalent of the Cambrian life explosion when games companies burst forth and evolve in all directions. My ignorance of non-Sinclair computers means, to continue the evolution metaphor, I keep looking at System 3 like the first botanist to see a Duck-billed Platypus. A software house starting on the Atari, and expanding via the BBC Model B and Commodore 64 seems like finding a mammal that lays eggs. Is that a duck's beak? I need to remind myself not every company follows Bug-Byte's straight line path from ZX80 to ZX81 to Spectrum.
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| November 2021 |
South Bank House, Black Prince Road, London, SE11
South Bank House is all that's left of the Royal Doulton factory complex in Lambeth, and it's too big to fit in a single photo. Black Prince Road runs north-south to the Thames and is cast into shadow by tall buildings on either side. When I visited on the first really cold day of winter the street was a fridge-like canyon. Note the vile mother of pearl effect Ferrari parked out front. A group were admiring the car when I arrived, and they fussed round it for five minutes as I got colder and colder, and silently cursed them. Of course I then took a photo featuring the wretched thing so the owner must really think they've bought a conversation piece.
System 3 begin advertising again in BIG K issue 7 (October 1984 page 64). They'd moved advertising from EMAP (publisher of C&VG) to IPC Magazines who were the local firm based out of King's Reach Tower (now South Bank Tower) about 30 minutes walk away; or less by Ferrari. Laser Cycle and Colony 7 have been quietly archived, and Death Star Interceptor is the focus, with an orange flash alerting the reader to "SPECTRUM VERSION AVAILABLE SOON!" The Spectrum version duly arrived in March 1985 to surprisingly mixed reviews; very positive in CRASH and C&VG and lousy in SINCLAIR USER and YOUR SPECTRUM.
System 3 did its best work on the C64 but Death Star Interceptor is the exception. The overall presentation is more polished on the Spectrum, with sampled speech (manage your expectations, it sounds like a robot with laryngitis) and an officially licenced version of the Star Wars theme (oddly absent from the C64). The author was David Aubrey-Jones, who handled Activision's Spectrum versions of H.E.R.O and Ghostbuster, and also converted Mercenary from the C64. He also helped develop the Speedlock copyright protection system which made some games difficult to load, but no one's perfect.
Death Star Interceptor was the first of two occasions when System 3 impinged on my consciousness. I was a 13 year old whose previous Star Wars obsession was gradually being replaced by a gaming obsession, so Death Star Interceptor perfectly shaded the intersection between the two circles. I remember going into the local game shop and asking to have a look at the game but I never bought a copy. I don't know why. The game's spring release date may have placed it too far from my all important Christmas/birthday present axis, when I was most flush with cash. Ironically my big ticket purchase for Christmas 1984 was Ghostbusters so some of my money still went to David Aubrey-Jones.
And then comes Twister. The second time System 3 pinged my sonar. Adverts start appearing towards the end of 1985 for a game called Twister: Mother of Harlots. Three quarter-page adverts ran sequentially at the back of C&VG issue 47 (September 1985 page 93 to 95) bearing the slogans "BEWARE... SHE'S COMING..." "HER FANTASIES WILL OBSESS YOU..." "YOUR MIND WILL BE POSSESSED BY..." Oo-er matron! This was followed by some wry reporting of a fuss at the 1985 Personal Computer World show where System 3 had a stand.
The dancing women were there to promote the Harlot's Mother under the slogan Naughty but Nice (lawyers for Lyons Cakes reach for their pen). "All the world came to see a trio of scantily clad dancers... it also attracted the attention of the show organisers who threatened to turn off the power to the stand if the naughty bits didn't cease forthwith." (Page 19). The second picture comes from the filthy beasts at SINCLAIR USER issue 44 (November 1985 page 130) It's captioned, "ORGANISERS of the PCW show attempt to prevent Mark Cale of System 3 from removing all his clothes in a desperate attempt to publicise Twister, Mother of Harlots. The game has nothing to do with sex, but that's show-biz..."On Youtube there's an episode of Channel 4's stuffy computer series Database, recorded at the 1985 PCW show. It doesn't feature the System 3 dancers despite host Tony Bastable's claim to cover, "all the highlights and all the top news stories."
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| November 2021 |
Davis House, 29 Hatton Garden, EC1N
System 3 moved North across the Thames to Hatton Garden, near the site of the 2015 burglary. Number 29 is the wooden door which seems to lead up to the floors above Riviere. This was the best angle I could get because of the car parked almost in front. I hung around hoping it would drive off but instead another car pulled up and beeped its horn. A group of people then got out of both cars, greeted each other enthusiastically, and walked off to meet another bunch parked in a third car further down the road. It was all rather odd, but apparently that's life in London's diamond district.
The Hatton Garden address is carried on adverts for Twister by March 1986; the same month the game was released. Written by Chris Yates and Jon Hare in pre-Sensible Software days, it picked up respectable reviews following a name change to Twister: Mother of Charlotte. Pick your own reason for the rebrand. "A little raunchy for the shelves of Smiths," according to YOUR SINCLAIR, "accusations of bad taste," suggested C&VG, "No one at System 3 quite realised what a harlot was apparently. The general view down at their HQ was that a Harlot was some kind of demon!" said CRASH. No word on who Charlotte was either.
23 Pond Street, Hampstead, NW3
Then System 3 goes dark for 18 months. There's a single advert for Bangkok Knights in ZZAP 64 issue 22 (February 1987 page 40) followed by another for The Last Ninja the following month, March 1987 page 30. Neither advert carries a business address. The silence breaks in September 1987, another advert for Bangkok Knights, ZZAP64 (issue 29 page 112) with a new address in Hampstead. Have System 3 spent 18 months looking for new offices? It's complicated. Going back to ZZAP 64 issue 23 (page 98), there's an advert for Activision's game Sailing which also carries the Pond Street address. System 3 games are now being published by Activision; who seem to handle all the sales, distribution and marketing; which explains why ZZAP credits those issue 22 and 23 adverts to Activision. Essentially System 3 have become an independent Activision label, like Electric Dreams, whose advert for Star Raiders 2 in ZZAP 64 issue 22 also carries the Pond Street address. This also explains why Activision's Wellingborough mail order address starts appearing on System 3 adverts. The Pond Street address appears irregularly all the way up to this June 1989 YOUR SPECTRUM advert for The Last Ninja 2 (issue 42 page 12).
23 Pond Street is a nice looking four-story Georgian style building opposite the Royal Free Hospital. It's been converted into flats which is why it's not pictured; it falls under my no-pictures-of-people's-homes rule. I just wish I'd realised that before I schlepped all the way to Hampstead.
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| November 2021 |
Blenheim House, Ash Hill Drive, Pinner, HA5
The same month as the Your Spectrum advert, ACE magazine carries a preview, ACE on the Road to Pinner (issue 21 page 29) and by November 1989 the same magazine is also carrying System 3 job adverts for programmers and graphic artists, with the Pinner address. There's a throwaway news article in THE GAMES MACHINE issue 14 (April 1988 page 10). "Just as we were putting the finishing touches to this issue, who should ring the office long after hours, but Mark Cale of System 3 to tell us that from Midnight on February 29 System 3's contract with Activision is officially ended and they are on their own again." The story is contradicted seven months later in ACE issue 14 (November 1988 page 8). "A longstanding association between Activision/Mediagenic has been officially renewed." Maybe both stories are true? The deal ended in April 1988 and was renewed, and had expired again by November 1989 and was renewed again. AMIGA POWER later wrote about what they described as a "doomed partnership" (November 1991 page 11): " A sales and marketing deal with Activision in 1989/90 went sour (for the usual business reasons). System 3 wanted out but were under obligation to write a couple more games for Activision -one of which was Last Ninja II. In the end Cale and his crew left Activision, who simply wrote Ninja II themselves and released it in System 3 packaging. It was not a success."
The companies have both gone their separate ways by 1991; ZERO issue 17 (March 1991) has an advert for The Last Ninja 3 showing System 3 still in Pinner while Activision have left London for Reading.
And on that unsatisfying note that's where things end, kind of. Blenheim House was apparently so unattractive it was never photographed or all records have been destroyed. I wrote to the Harrow Local History Collection and Archive but I haven't had a reply as yet. An article in the PINNER OBSERVER, 7/10/1993, described the site as "disused offices and an operation depot for Eastern Electricity." I assumed from the name that Blenheim House was an old, but architecturally undistinguished 1930s building, reading that description I wonder if it was a flat-roofed sixties block which would match the other buildings round the Tesco site. Planning permission for the Tesco superstore seems to have been kicked back and forth for the next few years until it's sayonara Blenheim House around 1996.
EXCITING UPDATE: February 2022. I received a very nice email from the Headstone Manor & Museum, Pinner.
"In regards to your enquiry for photos of Blenheim House, after extensive searching we finally found a planning application for the Tesco in January of 1994. In this application it notes that Blenheim House, the three storey office building, has been vacant since 1991 but was still standing on the site. Tesco opened in 1996. We have tried to narrow it down further than that but have failed to do so. We have not found any photographs of the building but are working on digitising a collection of street photos of Pinner from the 1970s so it is possible we could find one in the future."
"In regards to your enquiry for photos of Blenheim House, after extensive searching we finally found a planning application for the Tesco in January of 1994. In this application it notes that Blenheim House, the three storey office building, has been vacant since 1991 but was still standing on the site. Tesco opened in 1996. We have tried to narrow it down further than that but have failed to do so. We have not found any photographs of the building but are working on digitising a collection of street photos of Pinner from the 1970s so it is possible we could find one in the future."
Okay, so maybe it's not that exciting but it's good to have it confirmed that Blenheim House was empty by 1991, and fingers crossed the digitising project turns up some pictures of the building. Stay tuned!
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| November 2021 |
Second Floor, Berkeley Square House, Berkley Square, London, W1J
Except that's obviously not the end. Ironically, it's easier to track companies in the 1980-90 period when business addresses were an essential part of promotion in those pre internet/email/fax machine days; and magazines have been lovingly kept and archived. Post 1991 it's not clear what happened to System 3. Companies House carries a listing for System 3 Software Limited (company number 01781145) with a dissolved date of 1996 which matches a three year gap on Mobygames between Putty Squad (1994) and System 3's next game Constructor (1997). Was System 3 folded and reincorporated? Maybe. That's broadly what happened to Imagine after the brand was declared bankrupt and resurrected by Ocean.
Mark Cale is listed with a company called System 3 Software Limited (company number 05087372), and their website gives a Berkeley Square address. This obviously needs to be catalogued for completeness (completenessssssss, my precious). I assumed it would be the office of a solicitor or chartered accountant -like Rawdon House for Ashby Computers and Graphics. I was expecting an anonymous door and a discrete brass plate but it's fair to say my expectations were very confounded.
Forget nightingales, I know of Berkeley Square from a mass-market kids paperback about ghosts* which labelled 50 Berkeley Square as one of the most haunted buildings in England. The author took great pleasure in describing the hideous clawed thing which drove men mad or killed them with fear, or both. There was a picture as well. It sits in my memory as some weird flaming Thing with mean eyes and claws coming towards the reader. Thinking about it still puts the wind up me. So, I was confused to hear shrieks as I walked towards Berkeley Square. Had The Thing returned in broad daylight? It seemed unlikely, especially when the shrieks were followed by cheers and applause. The answer was mundane. In the park in the centre of the square was a crowd and banners advertising Britain's Got Talent. They were having great time which is super for them.
Berkeley Square House is on the other side of the square from number 50. It's a massive 1930s brick colossus which seems to occupy the entire east side of the square. The building is way too big to fit into a photo which is why I just took a picture of the glass atrium.
System 3's website occasionally has a poignant air, "our contribution to modern day gaming could be taken for granted. Please don't." It's a fair request but lets end on something more fun, which links back to the heyday of eighties excess and, oddly, the car parked outside South Bank House.
System 3 founder Mark Cale just took me for a spin around Mayfair in his latest Ferrari. Pretty cool.
— Selma Day (@selmamayfair) November 8, 2010
*If, as I'm 80% sure, it's The Hamlyn Book of Ghosts in Fact and Fiction then I can only shake my head at the coincidence that the book has a cover by Oliver Frey.
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