Red Shift

12C Manor Road, Stoke Newington, N1

[GRAMS: Symphony No. 6, Beethoven] Late December 1984. I am a lamb, plump with Christmas cash and skipping to the computer shop. I have money for a new game for my new ZX Spectrum. What should I buy? My eye is caught by a picture of a fearsome three-legged beastie looming over the Houses of Parliament. The Tripods! I love The Tripods. "Oh shop keep! Take my £12.95! Post haste!" [FX: record scratch]. This blog isn't just about nostalgia or getting me out of the house, sometimes it's about exorcising the ghosts of poor decisions made by young me.

The funny thing about my purchase of The Tripods is, I never felt cheated. Although god knows, I should have done. I remember the excitement of seeing a game based on the television series. Back home, my brother and I started playing and... I don't know at what point we realised the game was boring. I don't know if we ever actually articulated that. We just stopped playing. The tape was put to one side and never loaded again.

And that's the story of the time I learned not all games were good. I know, obvious lesson is obvious but it was a revelation. Computers were new and exciting and I liked computers because you could play games on them so all games must be new and exciting. Except, here was one that wasn't. I brought a run of three games at the end of 1984 that were all bummers; Ghostbusters (I like that film!), Space Shuttle (I like space!) [1], and The Tripods[2]. Of the three, Ghostbusters most resembled a good game and was frequently replayed but I always had a nagging sense I wasn't enjoying myself as much as I did while watching the film; although I couldn't have explained what that meant. My £32.93 trilogy of error was a quick costly lesson in not buying a game because of the cover. Then in January 1985 I brought my first issue of CRASH and learned two more things.

A) Reviews existed and were a guide to effectively spending money.
B) Writing about games could be entertaining. 

CRASH reviewed The Tripods twice. both times in the April 1985 issue. This was long after I'd banished the tape to the back of my games draw. CRASH may have printed two reviews because no other magazine could be bothered to review The Tripods at all but it's more likely the game fell between two stools. Was it an adventure game or a strategy game? CRASH cut the Gordian knot by printing reviews from their adventure correspondent, Derek Brewster, and Angus Ryall who wrote about strategy games. Both reviews are funny and to the point and nail the failings of the game with an impressive degree of accuracy. But let's put The Tripods to one side and talk about the fiends behind it. Red Shift.

PERSONAL COMPUTER NEWS
March 25 1983 page 7

"Stoke Newington's FINEST HOUR!!!!!!!" Shrieks the 1983 advert. To quote Terry Pratchett: "Multiple exclamation marks... are a sure sign of a diseased mind." 12C Manor Road turns out to be the hub of a multimedia empire, as HOME COMPUTER WEEKLY explained:

Red Shift is run by Julian Fuller and Helmut Watson....
Red Shift started more or less by accident. Helmut and Julian started working on Miniature Wargames. a monthly wargaming magazine now into its second issue. Offices were needed, and the premises they found at 12C Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London N16, just happened to have a shop downstairs.

With help from the magazine's backer they opened Conflict, a shop selling board games, games of strategy, war game accessories — and a range of computer software. But they were not impressed with a lot of the software they saw, and so the idea of Red Shift was born.
(HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY, 24 May 1983 page 14)

HARLOW STAR
January 13 1983 page 26

Their first game was Time Lords, for the BBC Micro. It was written by Julian Gollop and based on a pen and paper game he had designed. It got a stinking review from PERSONAL COMPUTER NEWS:

Time-Lords is a bored game. In theory, I suspect it be tremendous fun . . . it’s a fabulous idea. But Red Shift should nip back to Time Zone 1 and have a meddle with the program and documentation.
(July 21-July 27 1983 page 54)

Julian Gollop recalled those early days of his programming career, in an interview with Eurogamer:

[Time Lords] was published by Red Shift, which was a company formed of a group of friends who were all gamers. I remember going to various computer fairs and selling it, in a bag with a cassette a cardboard insert. Very professional!

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
24 March - 4 April 1984 page 13

Red Shift got some good publicity in its early days. The picture shows the company's core team, identified from left to right as Woof! (that's Helmut Watson), Eric the Digit, Dave the Drink, Julian Fuller, and Joe Capricorn. The PCW article also mentions a brace of Red Shift games; Apocalypse, based a board game by Games Workshop and properly licenced; Islandia, the second game from Julian Gollop; English Civil War; and Rebelstar Raiders, described as "Redshift's latest Spectrum game" (on the back of the game box there's a warning for potential purchasers "this is not an arcade game!"). Rebelstar Raiders is another game by Julian Gollop and a foundation title for the rest of his programming career. He built on it to write Laser Squad, and then U.F.O (or X-Com as it ended up being called to distinguish it from the Gerry Anderson television show which provided much inspiration). The article closes by mentioning that: 

Red Shift hope to convert another Games Workshop boardgame — Battlecars — for the Spectrum, BBC and Commodore.

Then, something happened.

That's a bit vague. I can be more specific.

Then, something definitely happened.

Red Shift slugs it out

RFD Shift, the war games specialist company has suffered a split. The five-strong programming team - Julian Fuller, Julian Gollop, Clive Norman, Helmut Watson, and Joe Capricorn- have set up a freelance group, to be called Slug.  

"We will now be selling our games to other companies while we will continue with war games we hope to branch out into strategy games in general", said Julian Fuller. Negotiations with The Games Workshop and K-Tel are currently in progress, and Slug will be writing two games -Battlecars and Talisman on the Spectrum for The Games Workshop. The games are due for release in spring 1985.
(POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY, 5-11 July 1984 page 7)

Red Shift splits up with itself? I don't really know how to describe it. Julian Fuller and Helmut Watson were the two founders. If they leave then surely there's nothing left except an empty office?

The split did for the planned expansion packs for Rebelstar Raiders, something fans kept hoping for years after Red Shift went bankrupt. More seriously, the split nearly also did for Red Shift. The company goes very quiet for the next couple of months. A single advert for Rebelstar Raiders appears in August 1984, which given magazine lead times might actually be the last advert placed by Julian Fuller and Helmut Watson before the Something That Happened happened. Then there's nothing until December 1984 which suggests the all-new-Red Shift burst into life around November 1984  (magazine lead times, again). The advert in the December 1984 issue of GAMES COMPUTING looks pretty much like old Red Shift and presents something of a mystery. The advert lists seven games English Civil War, Islandia, Time Lords, City of Death, Apocalypse, Nebula, and Rebelstar Raiders. Of these, Time Lords, Apocalypse, Nebula, and Rebelstar Raiders are pre-Something That Happened titles. City of Death is new (and is marked on the advert with a "NEW" flash). What about English Civil War and Islandia. The March PCW profile had described them as "the next two games on the BBC machine." I think they were due for release around spring/summer 1984 but got caught up in the Something That Happened. The advert also promises Commodore 64 versions of City Of Death, Islandia, and Rebelstar Raiders, which I don't think ever appeared.

The Tripods was released in November 1984 just as the first series was coming to an end on BBC1. The game is considered important enough to be advertised separately. Actually, it gets a pair of single page adverts. Advert one is all text and advert two is all picture (okay, except for the logo). I suspect the adverts was paired like this to make the game seem like a big deal and also get all the text out of the way so the unobscured picture could be printed.

GAMES COMPUTING 
January 1985 page 61 and page 69

Advert one features the BBC series logo followed by a bold claim: "the first in interactive multiplayer adventure games...." A quote which seems to be true since Mike Singleton dropped a multiplayer mode from Doomdark's Revenge. The Red Shift logo follows, and check out that slogan "back on the map!" Red Shift is back, baby! Then at the bottom of the page a copyright message:

ⓒWATERMILL PRODUCTIONS

Watermill Productions is the company owned by The Tripods producer Richard Bates. He's the son of H.E. Bates (author of The Darling Buds of May) and had a long and distinguished career in television and radio (everything from The Avengers to Public Eye to Chocky, and, yes, the ITV adaptation of The Darling Buds of May). Wikipedia thinks this means the game was designed and created by Watermill Productions. I disagree. I think the copyright message just refers to the elements borrowed from the television series, and is a chopped down version of the one that appears on the back of the box and the manual:

© Watermill Productions Ltd
Under Licence from BBC Enterprises Ltd

The second advert is a brilliant photo composite, a weird alien machine looming over the Houses of Parliament. It's eye-catching and memorable, and much like the PR for the television series turns out to be accidentally much more representative of the game than intended.

RADIO TIMES
15-21 September 1984

RADIO TIMES covers I remember from childhood. Number one in a series of two (Threads, being the other. 1984 was a great year for RADIO TIMES covers).  The cover promises week-on-week red hot Tripod action (note to self, revise sentence later) but the series delivers a slender plot from which hang a few memorable images. The plot of the television series grinds to a halt for three episodes, an eternity when you are thirteen, for a slow coming of age love story. A couple of weeks later there are at least one to many episodes about making wine in a vineyard. Or as Derek Brewster put it in his CRASH review:

Laboured dialogue fit for a tortoise's coming of age party.

Likewise, the game advert promises excitement and threat but delivers a slow and sparse world. You can pick up grenades but not use them. You can visit towns full of shops but not enter them, even as you starve to death with a wallet full of money. The most common response the game gives is "you cannot move there." And every now and again there is a Tripod.

I spent far too long trying to work out if Watermill Productions had lent Red Shift a model tripod for a photoshoot. I don't think so. I think the advert is a photomontage, possibly using a version of the photo printed as part of this 1985 interview  (and note that photo is copyright Watermill Productions while the picture of Jim Baker is copyrighted BBC). The final composite has been expertly tinted red (Red Shifted you might say, ho-ho) to both make it look all exciting and moody and also tie the different elements together. If I have one note, it's that the Tripod's legs look weird where they've been cropped to appear to go into the river. Apparently someone at Red Shift agreed because the game cover is zoomed in slightly to obscure this detail.

[UPDATE 27/24. Thanks to the excellent book The Tripods: All For Nothing? I've learned the cover image came from an A2 sized promotional poster for the television series. This accounts for the ⓒWATERMILL PRODUCTIONS message, it's for the picture not the game].

The January 1985 issue of GAMES COMPUTING includes a preview of The Tripods which goes into a little detail about the Something That Happened:

There was to be a follow up [to Apocalypse], of a different game called Battlecars, but there were problems: ‘‘The programmers left after three months when the program was 90% complete, taking the program with them. I believe that they sold it to Games Workshop Software for £4000".

The person telling this story is a new name. "Charles Ablett of Red Shift". Who he? To answer that question we need to turn to the March 1985 issue of a magazine I've never heard of before, called A&B COMPUTING. This one page profile turns out to be the Rosetta Stone for understanding what happened to Red Shift:

Red Shift have been in business for almost two years but Ablett, also a director, took over last May. The company was originally formed by a couple of programmers and a financial backer in order to produce what they considered “thinking games for the computer”. Although they had the ideas, they lacked commercial experience and became bogged down in paper work. Disillusioned and losing money they gave up and Ablett, who worked in the shop below [presumably Conflict, the Red Shift board game shop], saw his chance.

With the help of Chris Shafte, a professional salesman, and two administrative staff, he took a month to completely reorganise the firm, sort out the debts, arrange finance and commission new programs. He has learned from the previous mistakes and realises the importance of good management, distribution and advertising.

Now I was ready to go to Stoke Newington.

June 2024

It's difficult not to be underwhelmed. The A&B profile describes the Red Shift office as: 

A tatty office over a shop in a residential street 

That statement remains true in 2024. I wasn't sure what to expect but it turns out that although 12B and 12D are shops, 12C is nothing but a door leading to a flat. Presumably 12B is the old Red Shift shop but I was unable to get a good picture because in Manor Road everyone parks on the pavement. If I'd stood further back, the result would just have been a picture obscured by cars. There were also two pizza delivery drivers doing something complicated with a set of jump leads and a truculent moped. I didn't want to include them in my picture and it looked like they would be there for a while. So, this is it. The place where my poorly spent £12.95 ended up. I'm tempted to say Red Shift could at least have spent my money on a lick of paint but it wasn't to be. There was no time to buy paint. Angus Ryall ended his CRASH review on a perceptive note:

I gather that The Tripods was going to be the game that would revive a rather aiding red Shift but I have the feeling that it may be their death warrant instead.

Reader, it was.

LONDON GAZETTE
28 May 1985

[1] Actually, Space Shuttle was a game I got my brother to buy with his Christmas money. A fact I still feel obscurely guilty about today.

[2] I am absolutely willing to concede that my love for The Tripods television series exceeds all rational bounds. I brought the repacked books with stills from the series on the cover. I brought the first series release on VHS (four tapes at £12.99 each). I brought the first series again on DVD (£19.99). I brought the second BBC DVD release which finally included both series (£19.99). And I brought the game. If it was possible to buy The Tripods socks, I would. There are points when my Tripods fandom resembles that @dril tweet:

Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
The Tripods merchandise $3,600
Utility $150

someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying

Obviously I should end things here. Except, I've just discovered a book about the television series is due for imminent release. It looks ace. My ghosts remain unexorcised.

Photos of Tripods merch can be sent to whereweretheynow@gmail.com. Leave a comment, or follow me on Bluesky @shammountebank.bsky.social and Instagram, shammountebank.