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.

I really took the blog on the road in 2023. The longest journey I'd done by the end of 2022 was a run across to Taunton, home of Durell Software. This year I managed to get over the River Severn into Wales as part of a ludicrously ambitious trip which managed to take in -in no particular order- Swansea, Ludlow, bits of Birmingham, Sheffield, Corby, and other places. Mysterious stuff but all will be revealed.

I also started thinking about the end of this blog. Shhh! I'm not planning on folding any time soon but there are a finite number of UK software houses and sooner or later all good things come to an end.

I don't think anyone wants to be sitting here in 2047 reading about my trip to the Tonbridge megropolis to see where the offices of Bubble Bus Software once stood. Not that there's anything wrong with Bubble Bus Software. They produced some very good games indeed, including Starquake which was ace. I mention them just as an example of a small software house about whom it would be tricky to write more than a few words because they only ever had one office, at 87 High Street, Tonbridge.

December 2023

(It looks like this, now.)

No, I wanted the end of this blog to be big rather than Bubble Bus sized. The biggest UK software house I can think of was US Gold (Psygnosis¹ leave disappointed) and so I've made an executive decision that the blog will run as long as I want it to, and when you see the entry for US Gold that really will be THE END.

Back in 2022 the Top 10 of posts looked like this:

 1. Ultimate Play The Game/ACG/Rare
2. Software Projects

3. Mirrorsoft/Imageworks
4. Durell
5. Design Design/Crystal
6. Elite
7. Melbourne House
8. Micropower/Program Power
9. Silversoft
10. Denton Designs

Now it looks like this 

1. The Edge/Softek
2. Ocean
3. Melbourne House
4. Odin Computer Graphics/Thor (Computer Software)
5. Ultimate Play The Game/ACG/Rare
6. Elite
7. Software Projects
8. Durell
9. Design Design
10= Silversoft and Mirrorsoft/Imageworks

I'm not surprised to see the bigger and more well known software houses at the top of the list, I expect Gremlin will be somewhere in the Top 10 next year. I am a little surprised to see how much interest there is in The Edge/Softek. But I'd be lying if I said I hadn't written that entry with one eye on the notoriety of Tim Langdell.

This isn't a review blog but I do occasionally mention games which hit my nostalgia buttons. Here's a list. They're not necessarily the greatest games ever but I have a lot of fondness for them and they are all worth checking out. If only to see the breadth of software the UK was publishing in ye olden days: 

Paradroid
Quazatron
Death Chase
Worse Things Happen at Sea
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Football Manager
Dark Star
Daley Thompson's Decathalon
3D Starstrike
The Biz
Stop the Express

Skool Daze

Syndicate

Magic Carpet
Highway Encounter
T.L.L.
Starquake

One last thing. This blog wouldn't be possible without the Internet Archive and their astonishing collection of old computer magazines and the work they do with the Wayback Machine to preserve websites. If you have the opportunity, please consider donating to help cover their running costs.

¹ I actually wasn't planning to cover Psygnosis. It seemed too difficult. They operated during the nineties, a period when it gets increasingly hard to track down the physical address of a company. However, having located them on Companies House and seen that they were apparently founded in 1972, I'm now intrigued. Watch this space.