The RamJam Corporation

 

Just off Carnaby Street near the Old Coffee House Pub

A software publisher who quickly turned into a development house. The RamJam Corporation only released one game under their own name, the quirky and surprisingly difficult to spell Valkyrie 17. It came out at the end of 1984 when the UK market was maturing and it was becoming increasingly tricky for smaller software houses to get games into shops. The Ramjam Corporation ended up signing a distribution deal with Palace Software (a subsidiary of Palace Pictures) which generated the kind of amusing PR photos that magazines love to use to generate copy.

Mythos Games

19 The Rows, The High, Harlow, Essex, CM2

Julian Gollop quite rightly casts a long shadow over this blog. He created Rebelstar Raiders for Redshift, Chaos for Games Workshop, and, while I worked at Virgin Interactive Entertainment, I was lucky enough to be peripherally involved in the production of Magic & Mayhem. And then there's UFO: Enemy Unknown. Oh, UFO: Enemy Unknown. If there's one game that can eclipse my love for Highway Encounter, it's UFO: Enemy Unknown. It may be my favourite games ever. And it will be forever called UFO: Enemy Unknown, none of this X-COM nonsense.

Platinum Productions

Ayrshire

I'm slowly transferring residents of the Untraceables gulag to pages of their own (see the CGL article for a full explanation why). I was originally planning to move New Generation Software this week but they've unexpected turned out to be more complicated than expected, so they'll have to wait. We're off on a trip to Ayreshire instead. Can I learn anything new about Ocean and US Gold's preferred development house for converting games to the ZX Spectrum?

Gargoyle Games

74 King Street, Dudley, DY2

TO THE STARS!

Birmingham, generally lagging behind Manchester and Liverpool for games programming is now making a sterling effort to catch up. Brand new company Gargoyle Games, has launched its first game for the 48K Spectrum. It's called Ad Astra (to the stars), and is a 3D shoot em up like you've never seen before. The 3D perspective view is quite astonishing - see the review in this issue. 

Computer Games Ltd

Computer Games Ltd, CGL House, Goldings Hill, Loughton, Essex, IG10

Computer Games Ltd (CGL) were electronics importers in the early eighties; in the days when the UK market seemed to small for the big international companies to bother doing it themselves. They imported everything from Nintendo Game and Watch to chess computers to the Sord M5 computer. If you had an electronic handheld game in the early eighties there is a good chance it came from CGL.

 

The Digital Village

11 Maiden Lane, London, WC2E

The game with the magic words Douglas Adams on the cover. I remember Starship Titanic coming out. It was during that short period from 1996 to 1999 when I was gainfully employed by Virgin Interactive Entertainment and trying to work out if there was any way I could convert my job in Technical Support into some sort of meaningful career in the games industry. I had a friend who worked for a game magazine and I talked to them about Starship Titanic during the bubble of publicity which preceded release. What surprised me at the time was their response, they were already disappointed with it.

Angus Ryall

 This isn't an obituary. Angus Ryall is not dead; as far as I know. So what's it for? Well, writing about Games Workshop made me go back and read again Angus Ryall's short lived Front Line column in CRASH and I think it's great and contains some of CRASH's best writing about games (and also, frequently, not about games). I just want to talk about it. Sorry, this is one for me.

Games Workshop

27-29 Sunbeam Road, London, NW10

Welcome traveller. You stand at the dungeon gates and reflect on the words of the priest who led you here. "Only the very brave or the very foolhardy would risk the journey you are about to undertake." These dungeons are famous throughout the land. You have heard the stories about the danger, and the monsters, and the traps. And the stories of the fabulous treasure and those who entered, seeking it. And yet you have not heard any stories about those who returned. The dungeon gates open in front of you. Only the very brave or the very foolhardy would risk the journey you are about to undertake. Which are you?

NOW READ ON!

Mr Chip/Magnetic Fields

1 Neville Place, Llandudno, Gwynedd, LL30 3BL

Three covers? One just isn't enough for Mr Chip/Magnetic Fields. The company was the Three Doctors of UK software. Three distinct incarnations each with their own story. First as a publisher of their own games, then a developer for other software houses, and finally a complete rebrand. 

JOYSTICK magazine: Shaun Southern interview

the big ZOO

SHAUN SOUTHERN
INTERVIEW: DEREK DELA FUENTE

Shaun Southern is the author of Supercars I and II, and the hugely successful Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge. We went to Wales to worm the truth out of him.[1]

Alligata Software Ltd

178 West Street/1 Orange Street, Sheffield

This town ain't big enough for both of us. Software houses often cluster. EA has created an entire ecosystem in Guildford. Cambridge remains a hotbed of hardware and software companies. London was always big enough to support a whole load of publishers and developers, as were Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. So why am I surprised that Sheffield was the home of Alligata Software and Gremlin Graphics/Interactive? Maybe because Sheffield doesn't feel like a big city (the offices of both companies were within easy walking distance) and partly because Gremlin got so big so quickly that it's difficult to imagine another company surviving in its shade. But Gremlin and Alligata were never really rivals because Alligata was on the way down by the time Gremlin was on the way up.