Lookback at 2023

Happy Christmas. Last year December 25th intruded rudely on the publishing schedule of the blog. This year it's Christmas Eve but I like the idea of casting a self-indulgent eye backwards over the last 12 months.

Gremlin Graphics

 Alpha House, 10 Carver Street, Sheffield, S1

It's the eve of the millennium and you fall into conversation with an 8-bit time traveller from 1985. "What happened to all the software companies?" The traveller wants to know. "What happened to Ocean?" "Gone," you tell the traveller. "Lost two years ago."
"US Gold. They must still be around."
You shake your head, "US Gold were taken over by Eidos, who were themselves formed out of Domark."
"Mirrorsoft! A company supported by Robert Maxwell's business empire must be flourishing!"
"Gone, and there's quite a story attached to that."
"Ultimate Play the Game?"
"Gone."
"Melbourne House?"
"Gone."
"I loved Highway Encounter. What happened to Vortex?"
"Gone," you sigh.
"Mastertronic?"
"Gone."
"A&F Software?"
"Gone."
"CRL?"
"Gone?"
"Hewson Consultants?"
"Gone."
"Beyond?"
"Gone."
The traveller looks frightened and lost. "Is there no one left?" They whisper.
"Oh yes," you answer, "there's Gremlin Interactive, although you'd have known them as Gremlin Graphics."
The traveller looks confused. "The Monty Mole company?"

Bullfrog

3 Bridge Street, Guildford, GU1 4RY

Early Electronic Arts games used to include a high minded mission statement on the inlay:

"We're an association of electronic artists who share a common goal. We want to fulfil the potential of personal computing. That's a tall order, but with enough imagination and enthusiasm, we think there's a good chance for success. Our products, like this one, are evidence of our intent."  

It's present on EA's first UK game, PHM Pegasus, but (unfortunately for irony) I can't find any examples of it being used on Bullfrog games because, famously, Electronic Arts killed Bullfrog. The paradox of course is that EA only wanted the best for Bullfrog and without their patronage we'd never have seen Populous, Syndicate, Magic Carpet, Theme Park, Theme Hospital, or Dungeon Keeper. EA nurtured Bullfrog. EA grew Bullfrog. EA supported Bullfrog. EA killed Bullfrog.

Eye of the Moon

Eye of the Moon should have been the third part of Mike Singleton's trilogy which began with Lords of Midnight and continued with Doomdark's Revenge and then just stopped. The game was always talked about as being just on the cusp of release but Beyond kept diverting Mike Singleton onto other projects. Then the programmer fell out with the company, following the sale of Beyond by EMAP to Telecomsoft.

Beyond Software

Competition House, Farndon Road, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE19

Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight, Lords of Midnight. Lords. Of. Midnight. Lords of. Midnight. Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight. Lords; of Midnight. Lords, of, Midnight. Lords of Midnight -Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight. 

Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight.

Doomdark's Revenge.

Sir Clive Sinclair's Quantum Leap

This week I have mostly decided to be obsessed with the TV advert for the Sinclair QL and I'm going to look at it in an excruciating level of detail. Off the top of my head I'm not really sure what the point of this article will be. It might be helpful to go through the advert looking for any clues as the where it was filmed or I might point at stuff and try and show how clever I think I am. Who knows. Here we go. Theorising that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Sir Clive Sinclair stepped into 

Sinclair Research

25 Willis Road Cambridge, CB1

"No dessert until you've eaten your greens." Well this post is my dessert. I wanted this blog to be more than Sinclair focused nostalgia (although that's my origin story) so I made sure to eat my greens first with articles about Amstrad and Enterprise plus, still on the to-do list, Commodore, Acorn, and Jupiter Cantab (no, really). Even better, I can use the cover of another of my favourite games Stop the Express. Which, to continue the dessert-based metaphor, is the equivalent of smothering a big scoop of chocolate ice cream in jam, evaporated milk, jelly, spangles, etc, and then be told to stop running round shrieking or I won't be allowed to watch Blake's 7.

Papers, Please

This post is a shameless attempt to piggyback on a better article about the history of one of Yes, Prime Minister's best and most well known routines.

Argus Press Software

KNOWLEDGE CHECK! Which magazine publisher was the first to open a software house? If you said Thalamus, the label from Newsfield Ltd, then sit down because they weren't founded until 1986. Mirrorsoft is not right but it's a better guess than Thalamus, as is Beyond Software, owned by East Midlands Allied Press (or EMAP to their friends), both companies were founded around the same time in late 1983. Obviously the correct answer is Argus Press Software because that's who this update is about.

Vortex Software

Vortex House, 24 Kansas Avenue, Salford, M5

I've written before that the foundation of this blog was a list of companies I wanted to cover for different reasons; some were big names, some had an interesting story, some were of niche interest, and some hit my nostalgia button. This is the latter. I've got a huge soft spot for Vortex Software. I spent hours playing T.L.L. and even more playing Highway Encounter. I love Highway Encounter. I think it's brilliant. It's a real neglected gem of a game as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't get talked about anywhere near enough when the ZX Spectrum is mentioned. It's a Top 10 title. It looks great. It plays great. Its got some really clever gameplay elements. And that ending! We'll get to the ending later.

Enterprise / Entersoft

31-37 Hoxton Street, London, N1 

Once upon a time there was a company called Samurai Computers Ltd. Unfortunately for boring business reasons it had to change its name to Elan. This name also didn't stick and the company briefly toyed with the name Flan but everybody laughed. So the company changed its name again, to Enterprise. And then it finally released the computer it had been developing for nearly three years.

Legend

1 Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4

Legend's first game Valhalla was steeped in Norse mythology. Players were sent on a quest around Asgard searching for six mythical objects (Ofnir, Drapnir, Skornir, Skalir, Felstrong, and Grimnir) and encountering gods and heroes. Of course, given the way the company fell, the legend they should have been paying attention to was Icarus.

Electronic Arts

"American Invaders on the Way," was how COMPUTER & VIDEOGAMES announced the existence of Electronic Arts to British computer owners. "Electronic Arts is the name of a new American software house set up by a group of independent games designers." (January 1984 page 16 ). The news was a little out of date. The company had been founded two years previously by ex-Apple Director Trip Hawkins. Now, for the first time, its games would be available in the UK, distributed by Centresoft, who would go on to launch US Gold later in 1984. "If US are Gold then we must be Platinum!" Trip Hawkins later told C&VG*

A&F Software

Unit 8, Canal Side Industrial Estate, Woodbine Street East, Rochdale, OL16

A was Doug Anderson and F was Mike Fitzgerald and when they got together it was murder to establish a software house in Manchester. A&F Software is now mainly remembered for a single game, Chuckie Egg, but the company was more than a one-hit-wonder. It shares some similarities with Silversoft. Both companies were pioneers of the early computer games industry and struggled as the market became more established and professional in the mid-eighties, and finally sold out to a bigger brand. The first question, of course is, is the company called A&F or AF or A+F or A'n'F? The answer, it was known as all four at various times across its history. I'll try to use the correct version as we go on because I find that's the kind of perverse pedantry I find funny.

Activision / Mediagenic / Activision Blizzard

15 Harley House, Marylebone Road, London, NW1

Good grief. No other company has sent me trekking so far around and about London and the outer reaches of the M25. I've occasionally thought I could organise these articles into nice walks. I could do you a trip around Liverpool, or Manchester, or along the line of Domark's southwest London offices. I couldn't do that for Activision. Just the addresses inside the M25 produce a walk 22 miles long. I didn't know true existential despair until I'd compiled all 13* addresses Activision UK used -and continue to use- in their long history. Even now I'm worried I've missed one**. If Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through that could mean another move for the company. Oh god, no. No updates. No updates.

*Wrong. It's actually 16.
** I did.

Molimerx

1 Buckhurst Road, Town Hall Square, Bexhill

I was browsing the first issue of COMPUTER & VIDEOGAMES when I bumped into an advert for a company called Molimerx. I'd never heard of them. I would love to claim my spider-sense tingled and I realised this was something worth writing up, but I didn't. I just moved on to the next page. A few months later I was trying to dig up some information on Program Power and there on page 158 of the August 1980 issue of PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD was another advert in the same style. A full page advert with eye-catching black and white art, and the slogan "INNOVATIVE TRS-80 SOFTWARE FROM THE PROFESSIONALS." This was odd. Molimerx were old. They were a big professional software house at a time when, my understand was, big professional software houses didn't exist. 

Bitmap Brothers

C1, Metropolitan Wharf, Wapping Wall, London, E1

What's cooler than being cool? Ice cold! Obviously. What did it take to be cool in the 1990s? Shades. Check. A leather jacket. Check. White shirt. Check. Jeans. Check. Helicopter (optional). Check. No one was cooler than the Bitmap Brothers.

Software Creations

2/4 Oxford Road, Manchester, M1

"I can't believe I walked past the Ocean offices for years without realising the significance of the building, likewise Software Creations." This sentence, posted at the Spectrum Computing forum by user Daveysloan sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I'd prepared a trip to Manchester in August 2022, taking in Ocean (obviously), Design Design (also, obviously), Vortex (hopefully), A 'n' F (maybe, if I could make the train to Rochdale work). However the trip was cancelled at the last minute because of the chaos caused by Avanti West Coast's new and improved timetable. The day I should have been in Manchester I read a thread on the Spectrum Computing forum which spun off into a discussion about the addresses of software houses. This was obviously right up my street, until Daveysloan mentioned Software Creations. I could add them to the Manchester list. That wasn't a problem. The problem I'd got was, who the heck were Software Creations?

Domark

Ferry House, 51-57 Lacy Road, Putney, SW15

When I started this blog I diligently wrote out a list of companies I wanted to cover. Some companies went on the list because they hit my nostalgia buttons, some went on the list because they were big names and it would be odd if they were missing, some went on the list because I thought they might be of specific niche interest to some people, some went on the list because I had a story about them I wanted to tell, and -let's not beat around the bush here- some went on the list because I knew they would be easy. Domark didn't make that first list. Or the second one. Or a couple of the subsequent follow up lists. They didn't even make my backup in-case-of-unforeseen-emergencies list. It's clear I really like lists. What is less clear is, why is there a Domark-shaped hole in my nostalgia? 

POWER PLAY magazine: Realtime Games interview

 Fast-paced reality

Where the programmers of »Realtime Games« are at work, the processors smoke. Fast 3D graphics and thrilling games keep home computers busy and players in suspense

Realtime Games Ltd

 Prospect House, 32 Sovereign Street, Leeds, LS1

"Why would you order a taxi from where I don't know where it is? Why didn't you order it from the station?" The person on the phone outside Leeds station was having a bad day. Don't drive to Leeds I was told but public transport apparently carried its own frustrations. I left him to it, and headed towards Prospect House which I was delighted to discover was barely five minutes walk from the station. If only they could all be this easy.

The Edge/ Softek

12/13 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E

It seems silly to sit here and worry about whether I should write about Softek and their better known label The Edge, but that's exactly what I'm doing. I know it's silly. I don't have to write about anyone if I don't want to. I'm not a journalist. I have no obligation to history. I will suffer no consequences if I don't write about Softek, it's not like someone's going to drop an anvil on my head. Plus, I'd quite like to write about Softek. They were one of the first companies I thought of when I started planning this blog. They wrote some notable games. So why am I so worried? Because Softek's founder was Tim Langdell.

Cascade

 Suite 4, 1-3 Haywra Crescent, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG1

"It is impossible to tell you everything about the 50 games on CASSETTE 50 but they include many types such as maze, arcade, missile, tactical, and logic games to suit most tastes in computer game playing. CASSETTE 50 will appeal to people of all ages and the games will provide many hours of entertainment for all the family at a fraction of the cost of other computer games." I remember seeing the advert for Cassette 50 and crunching the numbers in my head. Alien 8 was lots of fun at £9.95 and that was just one game. Logically Cassette 50 had to be fifty times better than Alien 8. It's just mathematics. And it comes with a free calculator watch. Neat! 

Virgin Interactive Entertainment

@338a Ladbroke Grove, London, W10

This post should have been easy to write. I worked for Virgin Interactive Entertainment for several years but the words seemed to drip onto my keyboard and lacked any real impact. That's wrong for this incarnation of Virgin Games (parts one and two of the story are here) because the company was all about buzz and sensation (or hype and cheap shock tactics, if you are more cynical). Then I found a link to a Kickstarter for Sex, Drugs & Video Games! The 90s Virgin story- London & LA by Tim Chaney, Managing Director. The "warts and all" story of the company's rise to fame "or more correctly infamy," It sounds like an amazing work of gonzo journalism. Hyperbolic. Bombastic. Pyroclastic. It doesn't match my memory of working there but I was in the basement.

Hewson Consultants / 21st Century Entertainment

56b Milton Trading Estate, Milton, Abingdon, OX14 4RX 

I like RETRO GAMER magazine a lot but sometimes they make life difficult for me. I was in the very early stages of thinking about this update when I settled down to read issue 241, and what did I find on page 38? An article called A Tribute to Hewson by Graeme Mason. A full page on the history of the company plus another seven pages of game highlights, along with Andrew Hewson's memories of each title. [Public service announcement -Most UK libraries subscribe to a free service called PressReader which includes RETRO GAMER. If you log on via the PressReader app you should be able to see a couple of years worth of back issues. End of public service bit]. With RETRO GAMER covering the history of Hewson Consultants this is, I guess, the story of how I recently drove to an industrial estate near Oxford. I'll try not to be too passive aggressive. 

Piranha / Macmillan Software

 4 Little Essex Street, London, WC2R

"It's a lovely pub isn't it?" The question was directed at me as I started to line up my camera. It was one of the two men who had been standing at the side of Milford Lane discussing the Cheshire Cheese pub and a point of maintenance. "Yes," I agreed, because it is a nice pub. The pair were, I learned in the subsequent conversational back and forth, investigating alternative ways of lighting the sign because the current lack of access is a pain whenever the bulb blows. "Good luck with the sign," I said cheerily as I took my picture and walked away. I didn't have the heart to tell the bloke I was actually more interested in the blandly modern office on the opposite side of Little Essex Street.

Roger Kean

Roger Kean, the co-founder of Newsfield magazines and editor of CRASH and ZZAP!64 died on 3rd January this year, barely five months after the death of his partner Oliver Frey.  This isn't an obituary as such, it's more a way to try and get down my thoughts on someone who I never met but who had a huge impact on my life. I wouldn't be sitting here in front of my computer on a sunny January morning if I hadn't picked up issue 13 of CRASH from the Hempstead Valley WH Smith's*. What's surprising about that issue of CRASH is how opaque it is to the first time reader. The first page of the magazine talks about the failure of a Great Space Race, what? Then references "a piece of PR from Hutchinson Computer Publishing", what's PR? Oh, and someone called Angus Ryall has upset John Merry of Scorpio Gamesworld; is that bad?

Ocean

6 Central Street, Manchester, M2

There's a running joke in the Mary Whitehouse Experience Encylopedia where Rob Newman gets increasingly frustrated at having to define simple words. I feel this entry for Ocean should read a bit like his definition of Tree. Ocean: "Don't be stupid you know who Ocean are. You know, Ocean. OCEAN! OCEAN! It's Ocean. Jesus..." The company is already well documented. There's a history of Ocean by Chris Wilkins and Roger Kean. Mark R Jones wrote Load Dij Dij which covers his experience working there and captures the excitement of going from an external observer of a company, to an insider. RETRO GAMER has half a dozen articles, there are umpty-hundred videos on Youtube about Ocean's best games and their worst and their history and their rise and fall. The BBC covered Ocean at least twice, in their notorious 1984 Commerical Breaks documentary, and they sent Keith Chegwin there to check it out in 1988. This blog entry might be redundant before its even begun.