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?
6 Parklands. Whitefield, Manchester M25
I can't account for why Software Creations left an indelible blank on my memory. It turns out I've played and brought several of their games over the years. It might be because as a developer, rather than a publisher, their name wasn't plastered all over the packaging. Fortunately other people remember Software Creations much better. If you want the real history, start with this piece from RETRO GAMER and this interview with founder Richard Kay. Pop quiz hotshot. What's the first Software Creations game? I don't know, obviously, but according to Mobygames it's a conversion of an arcade game for Firebird, called Peter Pack Rat, and released in 1985. I smell a rat and it's not called Peter. Software Creations wasn't founded until 1986. Mobygames gets the 1985 date from the release of the Peter Pack Rat arcade machine and Software Creations version is copyright 1988. It's a long way from being their oldest game. I mention this not just to show how jolly clever I am (brane the size of a planet and all that) but to show how in the dark I am. It feels like I'm learning about Software Creations while I'm typing this, and I've got a lot to learn because Software Creations were huge. Embarrassingly huge. I'm at a loss to explain why I hadn't heard of them before August 2022. I feel like someone answering questions on Mastermind about the Titanic, and not knowing about the iceberg.
Software Creations founder Richard Kay started out working for Ocean when it was still called Spectrum Games, during it's early Ralli Building days. He talked to Chris Wilkins and Roger Kean for their book Ocean the History:
"Over my time at Ocean I produced Mr Wimpy on the BBC, Hunchback on the first prototype Amstrad CPC 464. I then did Hyper Sports on the BBC – that was a fantastic machine. And then I left in 1985 to join the RAF... The RAF career was short-lived due to Richard having less than the required degree of eyesight. ‘When I left I joined an Enterprise Allowance scheme and with the money started Software Creations. I believe I was the first to pay royalties, which ensured that I retained my staff and meant that they did a good job."
Richard also wrote the Commodore 64 version of Mermaid Madness for Electric Dreams. A game credited on its loading screen to Soft Design (an early, and ultimately unused name for Software Creations?) Then as Richard told RETRO GAMER:
"The business really took off... If you had worked at Ocean in those days it was like you’d been to Oxford University, it was a free pass... Firebird Software and loads of other companies contacted me, and being the businessman I didn’t want to turn this work down. I was working out of my bedroom at the time and I started on the Enterprise Allowance; it was about five pounds more than the dole but it gave you a bit more dignity. It was £40 a week but I didn’t need a lot in those days, and allowed me to run the company. And so I put an advert in the Manchester Evening News and Steve Ruddy responded."
This would have been 1986. I can't track down the Manchester Evening News advert but I did find this one from POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY, which ran across September 1986. It's using Richard's then home address of 6 Parklands. Once I did make it across to Manchester I didn't photograph 6 Parklands because it's someone's house. If you really want to see it, it's on Streetview. A nice looking bungalow tucked away in a corner plot, with it's double-garage and angled shape it looks almost American in style.
2/4 Oxford Road, Manchester, M1
Software Creations' Manchester offices are all helpfully listed in a couple of tweets from Kevin Edwards, @KevEdwardsRetro. The first proper office was more or less opposite the BBC Manchester studios on Oxford Road (home of, amongst other programmes, the first three series of Red Dwarf, and Filthy Rich & Catflap). Software Creations were at Oxford Road from 1987 to 1992 and the idea of a 22 year old running his own business caught the attention of the MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS.
That MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS story was printed around the same time the gaming press was reviewing Software Creations' first really well regarded title, the ZX Spectrum version of Geoff Crammond's The Sentinel. "They said it couldn't be done but we did it," was how POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY quoted Richard in their review (8-14 May 1987 page 51). The Sentinel was followed by a C64 conversion of Kinetik (the first time, I think, the loading screen mentions Software Creations). Then came Bubble Bobble, a conversion of the Taito arcade game which Firebird seem to have contracted Software Creations to convert to all the major 8-bit and 16-bit home computer formats. We're still in 1987 by the way. A year when Software Creations handled the following titles; The Sentinel, Kinetik, Bubble Bobble, Denarius, The Mystery of the Nile, (all Firebird);and Agent X II The Mad Prof's Back (Mastertronic). That's an astonishing workload.
Bubble Bobble was a remarkable piece of work, particularly the C64 version. In an echo of The Sentinel, Richard Kay remembers, "I went to see [Firebird], met with Colin, and Colin said to me 'look no one will touch this conversion with a bargepole. They say it can't be done. It's not possible.' I mean, that's red rag to a bull." The finished game rightly received rapturous reviews and was the making of Software Creations. Richard Kay in RETRO GAMER:
"Once we had done that conversion we got a lot of calls from America... Taito themselves asked us to do a lot of games for them like Sky Shark [aka Flying Shark] and Puzznic.... And we became well-known for doing coin-op conversions and took a lot of stuff on that other people wouldn’t do. So we were starting to grow and the company ended up with about 105 staff, and we had an office in Seattle which was exciting, and that was really to service Nintendo."
Software Creations genuinely seem to have enjoyed overnight success; 1987 > move to new offices > convert The Sentinel > convert Bubble Bobble > international success. I'm probably overlooking a massive amount of concentrated hard work but it really seems to have been that quick.
"Software Creations' offices are parked quite conveniently (and some might say, ironically) above a computer shop which, in turn, is almost directly opposite a pompously white-washed building signposted as The National Computer Centre. Yep, this is computer country all right.
Creations shares a hallway with a libel solicitors and an Italian hairdressers, but the modesty of its offices is no reflection on the quality of its output."
The article also goes some way to explain how the company had mushroomed in the wake of the success of Bubble Bobble:
"Software Creations is one of those companies whoso name rings a bell, but you can't actually match the name with a game. "That's because the company has something of a split personality." explains Richard Kay. "There's Software Creations and then there's Software Creations Ltd."
Huh' "The former is the home-micro software development department. It deals with all the arcade conversions and other stuff in Europe." Whereas the limited company is a banner for all the ROM (Read Only Memory) development the company now does. ROM developments seems a bit of an obscure term. What exactly does it mean?
Richard waves a few important looking papers in my direction, but I only catch the words 'CONFIDENTIAL' and 'NINTENDO' stamped across them (in blood for all I know)... We're official developers on the console." He grins proudly... There are only three other official Nintendo developers in the UK. The others are Elite, Ocean and Rare (formerly the legendary Ultimate - Play The Game). His grin is also widened by the fact that 1 in 4 families in America own a Nintendo- that's 80 million units, 80 million potential sales, 80 million possible Software Creations logos adorning 80 million possible US television sets..."
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| December 2022 |
I came into Manchester through Oxford Road station and walked the short distance to 2/4 Oxford Road. I couldn't find it. The problem was, I was looking for the wrong building. I'd seen the tweet by Kevin Edwards and I was looking for a three story white brick faced art-deco building. What I didn't realise was the building I was looking for had been demolished barely a decade ago, between 2008 and 2011. BBC Manchester lasted slightly longer and was demolished by 2014. I spent too long being confused by a twin of the building I was hunting on the other side of Hulme Street. When I finally realised my mistake, it was the work of moments to walk back down Oxford Road and grab a picture of the nasty grey Holiday Inn Express which now squats on the site. If you look back at the old pictures of the Software Creations building, there's a Spar on the corner of Hulme Street which was once the computer shop mentioned in the ZERO article. Weirdly, the Spar is still there as if the new building was somehow built around it.
(Let's quickly go back to Peter Pack Rat. The conversion is given a copyright date of 1988 but the C64 and Spectrum reviews all come later in 1989. The game was also released straight on to Firebird's budget £1.99 Silverbird range which seems odd. I'd expect a full price release first. Telecomsoft, Firebird's parent company, was put up for sale by British Telecom in early 1989, did plans to release a full price version of Peter Pack Rat get lost in the sale preparations?)
4 Park Place, Manchester, M4
Software Creations got bigger and a move across Manchester followed. Oxford Road is south of the city centre, Park Place is a mile away to the north. Kevin Edwards dates Software Creations time at Park Place from 1992 to 2002. SUPER ACTION magazine visited in 1994 and spoke to Richard Kay (
February 1994 page 62):
“In 1990 we were the first company to do SNES work and we were the second company in Europe to do NES work. Back in 1988 there were only ourselves and Rare and three million machines. Now there are 30 million machines and about 20 licensees. I wish we had done more back then, but we only had one machine to work on. We didn’t produce our first games until the end of 1989 when we did Super Off Road, Spiderman and the X men and Solstice 2” he says.
The SUPER ACTION profile comes on the cusp of the company setting up an office in Seattle. "All our clients are American anyway and we are already doing work for Nintendo, so it makes sense to have a Seattle base to handle our submissions. Five UK nationals will be going out to train up people over there."
For reasons which will never become clear the author of the article, credited only as Dave, includes a lone photo of the front door of 4 Park Place. It looks as if he had one picture left to use on the film before it could be developed. The front of the building has been lightly changed since then but if you set Streetview to
2012 you can see it looking like it did in SUPER ACTION.
It's not just the front of 4 Park Place that looks different. The whole far side of Cheetham Hill Road has changed since 1994. Slick modern blocks tower over the street and form the front edge of a wave of gentrification which hasn't, yet, crashed down on Park Place. The other side of the road is the edge of the Green Quarter, an area which
visitmanchester.com brilliantly describes as having "parameters" which "aren’t yet fully understood." Nice one guys. Very helpful.
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| December 2022 |
I'm trying to find a nice way of saying that Park Place is a bit run down and tatty. It's a mixture of old and new, with a lot of the buildings boarded up because the area falls within the boundaries of a thing called the Great Dulcie Street Strategic Regeneration Framework. Within the
framework document Park Place is described as "flanked to the north and south by nineteenth century brick built warehouse buildings." 4 Park Place is a modern extension to one of these warehouses and seems unlikely to be kept. It's days are probably numbered, depending on how long regeneration takes. If you are planning a pilgrimage then do it sooner rather than later and why not use the car park at the end of the road which has one
review: "Car didn't get nicked, would park again."
140 Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester, M8
Software Creations opened a second office less than half a mile up Cheetham Hill Road. If Park Place looks rough, 140 Cheetham Hill actually was rough to judge by Kevin Edwards entertaining
Twitter thread: "140 Cheetham Hill Road office was on 2 floors and had the dead body in the car park and people tried to nick things through the open windows using wire coat-hangers."
Richard Kay stepped down as manager of Software Creations in March 1996 and the company stayed at Park Place/Cheetham Hill Road until 2002, when the company was taken over by Acclaim. Over on Youtube
Marc Wilding has uploaded a video called The Leaving of Creations, "The last day in 140 Cheetham Hill Road, home of Software Creations and the early days of Acclaim Studios Manchester. We were moving out to Merchants Warehouse in Castlefield."
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| December 2022 |
Follow Cheetham Hill north and eventually you get to Smedley and, a bit more eventually after that, Smedley Road where Design Design used to live but I wasn't going that far north on this trip. Cheetham Hill Road is wide and feels very open because it's an odd low-rise area with no buildings taller than two stories. Number 140 itself is an unremarkable squat red brick building, early to mid-1980s (maybe), but right before it are an old synagogue built in 1889, and the 1876 yellow-brick former Cheetham Hill branch of the Manchester Free Library; both are now used by a clothing and jewellery wholesaler called Cleopatra Trading. I nipped across the road to take a picture of number 140 and someone walked up to the bus stop which sits right outside the building. The next bus was in three minutes so I decided to wait and take a picture after they'd left. This was when Manchester decided to give me its traditional greeting. Light drizzle began to fall. I fussed around on the other side of the road trying to fit all of 140 into a photograph and occasionally wiping down my damp screen. The bus came, and went, and I decided I didn't much like the photo I'd grabbed and was about to take another one when someone else walked up to the bus stop. By now the drizzle was threatening to turn into actual rain and I didn't feel like sticking around. Looking at the photo now, I can't work out what I didn't like about it. It's fine. The best bit of the Marc Wilding video starts 39 seconds in when he walks into reception and briefly points his camera out onto the road. The view in 2002 is the same as the view in 2022.
21 Castle Street (this one doesn't count)
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December 2022
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Acclaim rebranded Software Creations as Acclaim Studios Manchester and moved the company to 21 Castle Street which by a strange coincidence had previously housed Ocean; just before they were taken over by Infogrames and, you guessed it, renamed Infogrames Manchester. I don't think Acclaim and Ocean/Infogrames were in the building at the same time. It's difficult to be certain but I think Infogrames Manchester had moved out by 2001 -there's a reference
here to Warthog (based just down the A34 in Cheadle) making a deal with Infogrames which included "the transfer of 15 developers and programmers from Infogrames' Manchester studio". Acclaim declared bankruptcy in 2004.
Meanwhile, over in Seattle, Software Creations of America Inc had an office at the Terminal Sales Building, Suite 409, 1932 1st Avenue. Seattle readers (hello Seattle) are welcome to send a picture of the Terminal Sales building to shoutingintoawell@yahoo.com
Given the Software Creations shaped hole in my knowledge, I wouldn't be surprised if there are mistakes or incorrect assumptions in this update. Please leave a comment or send abuse to twitter.com/ShamMountebank
For reasons which will never become clear the author of the article, credited only as Dave, includes a lone photo of the front door of 4 Park Place. It looks as if he had one picture left to use on the film before it could be developed. The front of the building has been lightly changed since then but if you set Streetview to 2012 you can see it looking like it did in SUPER ACTION.
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