State Soft

Business & Technology Centre, Bessemer Drive, Stevenage, SG1

This is where I rectify a mistake made in the planning stages of this blog. I wanted an early entry to cover a company responsible for a notable Commodore 64 game, and Boulder Dash was always an unmistakably C64 title for me; probably because of trips to a friend's house where the game was always on the menu. However because my background is the C64's bitter rival the ZX Spectrum I defaulted to the World of Spectrum entry for my research and concluded Front Runner was solely responsible for all UK versions of Boulder Dash. It wasn't. It turns out Boulder Dash in the UK has the most convoluted licencing history possible with every version released by a different company; C64 (State Soft), Spectrum (Front Runner), Amstrad (Mirrorsoft), BBC (Tynesoft), MSX (Orpheus). It's tempting to wonder what First Star (the original USA publishers) were thinking but I suspect they were thinking, "cor, aren't we making a lot of money licencing this game."

Spirit Software

 1 1/2 Pembroke Mews, London W8

It began innocently enough. An advert in PERSONAL COMPUTER NEWS (January 21st 1984 page 67). "FORMULA ONE AND STEERING WHEEL," was the eye-catching headline. Followed up by, "Naturally you cannot steer a racing car effectively by pressing buttons or wiggling a joystick so we have developed a steering wheel that fits to the Spectrum... the wheel is strongly made and thanks to a brilliantly simple design we have been able to keep the cost down to a minimum. It will be used for many games in the future but is now only available with FORMULA ONE." How intriguing. And all for the (relatively) low price of £8.95. It's more expensive than a standard game admittedly, but how many games come with an innovative add-on?