I'll often set up posts in advance to make notes and store any useful information I stumble across. When I reopened this entry for the first time in several months, I was baffled to see it contained only the gnomic message "Untraeable? No address on Nodes of Yesod advert." That's woefully inaccurate. Odin's offices aren't untraeable. I know exactly where they were, or at least I do now. Anyway, there is a more basic decision to make; are Odin/Thor one company or two? Well. Two obviously. They had different addresses, different records on Companies House, and released different games. But, both companies had the same Managing Director and the same programmers worked on games for both companies, and some of Thor's games were sequels to earlier releases by Odin, although Thor was founded first. Yes. It's confusing.
Erskine Industrial Estate, Liverpool, L6
Thor was born on 18 November 1983, fathered in Liverpool by Paul McKenna. No. A different Paul McKenna. The similarity of name makes it virtually impossible to track down any information about Paul, there's a voluble interview with the ex-Odin team at Planet Sinclair which makes reference to him going "back to the construction industry," and that's it.
This advert appears in POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY (24-30 November 1983 page 12) two weeks after Companies House records Thor's founding . "WANTED PROGRAMS... HUGE REWARD" with a picture of a ... well I don't know what it is; a sort of hobo troll zombie. "More games" it demands. These games could be on the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Acorn Electron, BBC, Dragon, Vic-20, or Oric, which pretty much covers the waterfront of computers available at the time and makes the "etc" at the end of the list superfluous. The "more games" advert crops up again through early 1984 and we see the results of the search in issue 53 of HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY (March 13-19 1984 page 2). Megafruit by Bob Hitching, 3D Silicon Fish by Chris Stamp, Pyramid Painter by Chas Smith, Spiders Web by Peter Milne, and the copyright adjacent Desperate Dan by Reiner Bjerkeli. The artwork's distinctive. It's the same berserk style as Mr More Games and credited to Frankie Carney, who seems to be Thor's artist in residence. By July another seven games have been added to the catalogue; Twilight Zone by Nick Outram, Night Stalker by Frankie Dunn, Luv Bug by John Parker, Blocker by Martin Sykes, Under Worm by Kevin Bramhill, and Gremlins and Jack and the Beanstalk by Chris Kerry. Some of those titles suggest a company learning the ways of hype and the benefits of having a name which suggests a more famous association. The film Gremlins was a cause célèbre through the summer of 1984 as the BBFC struggled to decide on a suitable rating. BBC2 was showing The Twilight Zone in late 1983 and into 1984. Luv Bug echos the Herbie film The Love Bug. Even Night Stalker suggests someone at Thor tuned into a Granada repeat of the fine Darren McGavin TV movie The Night Stalker. As well as the titles, Thor was unusual in crediting its programmers. The most interesting name on the list is Chris Kerry who wrote four games for Thor; Gremlins, Jack and the Beanstalk and its sequel Giant's Revenge, and The House that Jack Built. These were the only games which got any traction with games magazines, and Thor quickly realised they were on to a good thing and advertised these titles separately. Chris Kerry moved on from Thor to Gremlin Graphics and went on to have a successful programming career.
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| December 2021 |
Thor's adverts always carried the same address, the Erskine Industrial Estate. This turns out to be just over a mile uphill from the Mersey, and I arrived towards the end of a long day as the light was starting to fade. Frustratingly I had a 50-50 chance of success. Google maps lists Erskine Street as having an industrial estate on one side and a trading estate on the other. Which is it? Both? Neither? To add to the jeopardy, the Erskine Street industrial estate is gone. Its site covered by something called True "all-inclusive luxury student living." Later, under less fraught circumstances I established it was the bit I'd photographed on my way up the hill, the site of True once housed the Erskine Industrial Estate. Thor's business premises are now buried below three enormous modern blocks; quite literally the giant's revenge.
The Podium, Steers House, Canning Place, Liverpool, L1
The House that Jack Built gives away that changes are afoot. The advert still carries the old address but the cassette inlay has a new one; Canning Place. It's likely that Stairways (for the Commodore 64), Thor's last game of the 1984- early 1985 block also carries the same address but I can't track down a copy of the inlay. Marc Dawson wrote Stairways. He'd worked for Imagine, and after Stairways he joined the Odin team. And what was Odin? In defiance of Norse mythology, Odin was the son of Thor. A completely new company also set up by Paul McKenna. A CRASH profile later in 1985 (issue 20, page 42) would fill in the details: "Thor is a publishing company, rather than a programming company, concentrating on the marketing and distribution side of software, rather than on writing games. Towards the end of last year, when the ideas for Nodes of Yesod began to take shape, a new company was formed. Totally separate from Thor, it was set up to produce original software rather than publish it, and a team of programmers was assembled."
The new team included several people from Software Projects and Imagine, which was declared bankrupt in July 1984. This included ex-Imagine founder and director Mark Butler. CRASH had told its readers about this development in issue 13 (February 1985 page 8 ) in a sniffy editorial: "My article on Imagine in the Christmas Special certainly stirred up a hornets nest of comment, much of it from the city of Liverpool, and ripples are still spreading outwards as I write. But one ex-Imagine director is up to his old tricks again. We were rather startled to receive a telephone call from Mark Butler, now a director of the software company Thor (Jack and the Beanstalk), to say that they would not be paying for their advert in the Christmas issue. He added that there was no point phoning him back as he didn’t want to talk to anyone and that was that. To be fair, another director of Thor when contacted, seemed a bit surprised at Butler’s call but pointed out that the ad was badly placed on a left-hand page, when it is their policy to book only right-hand pages. Our paperwork, confirmations of which they were sent, shows that no special conditions were placed on the booking. Considering how much advertising Imagine placed with computer magazines and never paid for over many, many months, it just goes to show that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks — like behaving decently for instance."
The Mark Butler/Paul McKenna alliance didn't last long, as the issue 20 profile gleefully notes: "Mark Butler was made a director of Odin, having worked as a freelance consultant for Thor — but it wasn’t long before the deal set up between Paul McKenna, Mark Butler and Mark’s friend Heather Lamont went sour. Mark departed at Paul McKenna’s insistence — and Paul is not best pleased with what went on. Something to do with having the Odin telephones disconnected, as a result of Mark’s call to BT... what an Imagine-ation the lad has! But enough of that." It's Mark Butler's digitized voice at the start of Nodes of Yesod saying "Nodes of Yesod from the Odin Computer Graphics team."
[As an aside. CRASH had an understandable beef with Mark Butler. Imagine failed owing CRASH several thousand pounds of advertising revenue. Issue 20, in addition to the Odin profile, also contains a strange item at the bottom of the news page: "USEFUL NUMBER Following a number of telephone requests for assistance on Arcadia, we feel the most public spirited thing to do is pass on an address through which Arcadia freaks should be able to contact Mark Butler himself. Rabbit software freaks should also be able to get their fan mail to Heather Lamont via the same letterbox, we hear tell."(followed by an address and phone number).]
Nodes of Yesod was Odin's first game although I wonder if Stairways might be their first unofficial title. As well as being written by Mark Dawson, it was worked on by Stuart Fotheringham (graphics), and Fred Grey (music); all three filled the same roles at Odin, and the 1985 copyright date suggests it was being worked on around the same time ideas were being kicked around for Nodes of Yesod. If Stairways came first, why did it get released as a Thor title? Maybe Odin just wasn't ready to be presented to the world. Or maybe Nodes of Yesod was seen as a better debut for the company. The plot of Stairways is what makes it distinctive. It's bonkers even by the standards of eighties computer games; revolving around a nightclub called Stairways, the legendary amulet of the great budgie WONGA, and staying drunk enough to project psychic bubbles which dispose of armies of floating brown boots. Nodes of Yesod was well received, and deservedly so, and so was Odin's next game Robin of the Wood. Continuing my theory that someone at Thor/Odin was media savvy, Nodes of Yesod used imagery from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Robin of the Wood was released between series two and three of ITV's Robin of Sherwood.
And then Odin fizzled. After the success of Nodes of Yesod and Robin of the Wood, Paul McKenna signed a deal with Telecomsoft to produce games for their Firebird label. The terms were fierce. a six-figure fee in return for ten games in one year. Ironically Imagine had signed the same sort of deal with Marshall Cavendish and the strain of trying to be creative to a fixed schedule broke them, as it did with Odin. Programmer Steve Wetherill talks about this on his blog, and mentions the terms of the deal (original titles counted as one game, while conversions to another format counted as half) and the effect it had on the company. The timeline gets a little confused at this point because Paul Mckenna also briefly resurrects the Thor brand, so let's see if I can work things out.
December 1985. The Arc of Yesod and I.C.U.P.S. are advertised and credited to Thor. There's no obvious reason for resurrecting the Thor brand. Both games were eventually sold at a slightly lower price; £8.95 rather than the £9.95 charged for Nodes of Yesod and Robin of the Wood. Maybe Odin was seen as the premium label for original games, and Thor was for sequels. Or possibly Odin's games would go to Telecomsoft and Thor would become the label for anything to company wanted to release themselves. Who knows.
March 1986. The Commodore 64 and 48k Spectrum versions of The Arc of Yesod start to be reviewed in magazines.
April 1986. CRASH covers the upgraded 128k Spectrum versions of Nodes of Yesod and Robin of the Wood. There's a note on page 35 that the upgraded The Arc of Yesod is expected "any day now". The instructions for both games are printed on paper with a distinctive pink colour.
Any day now after April 1986. The 128k version of The Arc of Yesod is released. The cassette inlay is printed on pink paper, like Nodes of Yesod and Robin of the Wood but the game is credited to Telecomsoft via the cunning medium of a sticky label covering Thor's printed contact details. The label gives Telecomsoft's name and address at Wellington House, London. Assigning the game to Telecomsoft is clearly a last minute decision made after the packaging was produced.
June 1986. Adverts are printed for the Amstrad version of Nodes of Yesod. These first appeared in May 1985 in AMSTRAD COMPUTER USER and then everything went quiet. Spot the difference between the two adverts? The May 1985 advert lists the game as copyright of Odin Computer Graphics in tiny letters at the bottom left of the page, by June 1986 this has changed to "copyright of B.T. PLC" and the ubiquitous BT logo has been added. I can't track down a copy of the inlay.
August 1986: Reviews start to come in for Odin's next game, Heartland, with versions for the C64, Spectrum, and Amstrad. The printed instructions record the game as "copyright 1986 Odin Computer Graphics" but the contact details have been updated to Telecomsoft's new New Oxford Street address. Telecomsoft are not mentioned by name, but there's a British Telecom logo at the bottom of the inlay and a note that the game is "made in (Liverpool) England". Adverts also don't mention Telecomsoft by name, there's just another British Telecom logo at the bottom.
September 1986. I.C.U.P.S. is reviewed in magazines. Like Heartland the adverts now carry a small British Telecom logo. Unlike Heartland the instructions carry the old Wellington House address for Telecomsoft, so I.C.U.P.S. was originally planned to be released before Heartland and held back. The same month the C64 game Mission A.D. is reviewed. The game advert carries the BT logo and apparently so does the box cover, for the first and only time.
October 1986. POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY (30 October-5 November 1986 page 10) carried a story reporting: "Odin appears to have blown the release date for a game called The Plot (5th November and all that)".
Christmas 1986: Hypaball is released for the C64 and Spectrum. The British Telecom logo is present on the advert but not on the front cover. Inside the manual Telecomsoft are credited at their New Oxford Street address but the Odin copyright date is listed as 1985; is this a mistake or was the game really held over for nearly a year?
July 1987: UFO is for the C64 but unlike all the other Odin games it comes out on the Firebird Silver label, in the £1.99 price range. The demotion to Telecomsoft's budget label suggests they weren't impressed by the game; see also the 1986 copyright date which indicates the game has been on the shelf for a while. Steve Wetherill's blog mentions four other unreleased games; Lusitania and Spartacus which both had demos on an AMSTRAD ACTION cover tape (January 1987 page 20) and PLOD and Tank Game. Steve's blog goes on: "The situation with Telecomsoft became very tense. Paul's position was that we had delivered the agreed-upon number of titles, Telecomsoft did not agree. We were at an impasse, with Telecomsoft refusing to accept or pay for a number of titles. This turned out to be the fatal blow for Odin who had invested everything into building the Telecomsoft games. As a last resort, we did try to shop some of these titles around to other publishers, but nobody was biting. Honestly, some of them were pretty poor games." Assuming The Plot still hasn't been handed over to Telecomsoft, then the four unreleased games plus Heartland, I.C.U.P.S., Mission A.D, Hypaball and UFO, and the half-games (from Telecomsoft's point of view) Arc of Yesod (128k version) and Nodes of Yesod (Amstrad) would have completed Odin's ten game deal within the agreed time limit.
October 1987: Telecomsoft didn't agree. After a pause, three more games were released at full price; Scary Monsters and On the Tiles for the C64, and Sidewize for the Spectrum. The Odin/Telecomsoft relationship is clearly not what it was. Previous Odin games were marketed like prestige brands with matching art on the loading screens, covers, and adverts, these three are lumped into the Firebird full-price range and given the generic packaging. The inlay for Sidewize describes the game as "©BT 1987". The only place Odin gets a credit is on the loading screens, which are different to the box cover art because presentation is not important any more.
June 1988. The Plot is finally released for the Spectrum and Amstrad, about 18 months late. Like UFO it appears on the budget Firebird Silver label. Presumably it completes the ten game deal, and is shoved out by Firebird at £1.99 to try and recoup some costs. Odin had fallen apart in the meantime. Steve Wetherill recalls "Sidewize was completed without pay." It sounds really grim and goes to explain, something I've literally only just noticed, that one of the bosses in Sidewize is a repurposed Thor logo, from the old adverts.
The photograph above shows Canning Place during the 1980s. The Podium was divided into three blocks, Steers House, Mulberry House, and Foster House. In their issue 20 profile, CRASH described Steers House as: "an office block in the middle of a windswept plaza in Liverpool’s dockland, just across the way from the deserted and sorry-looking offices of Bug Byte." Bug-Byte were based in Mulberry House. Odin in Steers House. But which was which? It's difficult to find any information. Google just brings up people who remember the building and want to rubbish it. "Not everything was
better in the old days;" "Oh my god, what a dump;" "My Mum used to work in
Steers house always said it was freezing in the winter and like a
hothouse in the summer;" and "Ugly looking building" are just some of the responses to another photo on Facebook. The Odin interviews here mention "a nice river scene through the windows" so based on that one throwaway reference I decree Steers House to be the rectangular building front right, closest to the Mersey. Mulberry House the L-shaped building at the back across the windswept plaza. Foster House must be the weird little nub of a building at bottom left, but no software houses were based there; so who cares? The Podium no longer exists. It was demolished around 2006 to make way for the huge Liverpool ONE redevelopment. Canning Place, where the Podium was, now looks like this.
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| December 2021 |
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| Picture 1 |
But wait! That's not all! I thought it would also be fun to try and locate where the Odin team pictures were taken, for the CRASH profile. Picture 1 was easy. It's looking across Canning Dock towards the Liverpool Pier Head and what are called the Three Graces; the Royal Liver Building, The Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building. It's a short walk from where the Odin office used to be, across the Strand to Salthouse Quay. An exact match is difficult because someone has built an art gallery in the way and also parked a ship most inconsiderately; which accounts for the bowspit across the middle of my photograph.
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| Picture 2 |
Picture 2 proved more difficult to locate. All I really had to go on was the distinctive pattern of blocks along the bottom of the doorframe in the background. I made two assumptions, both of which could be wrong. Assumption 1, the pattern of bricks wouldn't change in the intervening years. Assumption 2, everyone is lazy like me and so it wouldn't be too far a walk from where Picture 1 was taken. I think I found it round the back of the Merseyside Maritime museum, near the bridge leading over to Hartley Quay. If the 1985 photographer had looked right they would be looking straight into Albert Dock. The 1985 picture was taken in the middle of the renovation of the Albert Dock area which accounts for the boards in the background. I hope. If I'm wrong, I was in completely the wrong place. There is a second problem with my modern version of Picture 2. It's a photo of a wall. It would have been a lot more useful if I'd stood back and taken a picture which took in more of the area. But I didn't. What a rube.
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