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.
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| PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD September 1981 page 43 |
Alligata Software was registered with Companies House, on 26 July 1983. They had spun
out from a hardware shop which opened two years earlier. Superior
Systems; run by Mike and Tim Mahony and (according to Wikipedia)
their father J.R. Mahony. Also in 1983, all of five minutes walk away, the founders of Gremlin Graphics Ian Stewart and Kevin Norburn, opened Just Micro. It's entirely possible that Superior Systems/Alligata was publishing games before Just Micro/Gremlin had even served their first customer in the shop. HOME COMPUTER WEEKLY (September 6-13 page 7) covered the launch of Alligata:
Another new name in software is Alligata which grew out of Sheffield computer dealers and duplicating house Superior Systems.
Managing director Mike Mahoney said the company had five full-time programmers and had spent £20,000 so far on setting up Alligata. He said: "we've been writing for more than six months so we would have a reasonable selection before release."
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| ACORN USER September 1983 page 4 |
This next bit is speculation so treat it with caution. By September 1982 Superior Systems hosted an Acorn Atom/BBC users group. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that the members of this group would be writing their own games and Alligata Software was born from there. It would account for the strong BBC focus of early Alligata titles, as seen in the advert from ACORN USER. The company was new enough that the address on the order form names Superior Systems rather than Alligata. The following month Alligata is advertising a couple of Dragon 32 games, and utilities, in the October 1983 issue of DRAGON USER; again with Superior Systems on the order form. Clearly Alligata's identity is not fully formed. Superior Systems gets another namecheck in the sniffy POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY review of their first Commodore 64 game Bat Attack: "Alligata is presumably a trade name for software from Superior Systems in Sheffield." Bat Attack was an early game by programming wunderkind Tony Crowther. He had a Saturday job at Superior Systems and as he told ZZAP!64 (May 1985 page 60)
I bought a Vic... It was a new machine - it had colour! So I started playing around with that obviously. I also started picking up machine code, not very well but. . . I wrote a type of Galaxian game, and I was quite pleased with that. But it didn’t get anywhere. Then I wrote a car game on it - I’d just got a machine code monitor for it, I was obsessed by it - so I showed it to Superior Systems who had just started. Mike looked at it and he said: Look, tell you what, Tony, I’ll give you a Commodore 64 on loan. I can’t pay you, but you can have it as advance royalties. The 64 had just come out, it was at £299. I thought: free computer, I won’t complain.
Bat Attack is, probably, the C64 version of the Galaxian game mentioned above. It's one of nine early games by Tony Crowther. The others being Balloon Rescue, Damsel in Distress, Aztec Tomb Adventure, Brands Deluxe (possibly a C64 version of the car game mentioned above), Haunted House, Frog 64, Bug Blaster, and Blagger. All these games are copyrighted 1983. Tony Crowther was a quick learner, compare the crude graphics and gameplay of Brands Deluxe with the more sophisticated Blagger.
Blagger seems to have been the first game to get any decent attention for Alligata and is quickly followed in 1984 by Killer Watt and Loco. And then Tony Crowther moved on to Gremlin Graphics. Going back to that 1985 ZZAP interview, the magazine asked:
You've had quite an interesting history over the last year or so. Some people feel you have a reputation for not being at all settled, for chopping and changing a lot. What actually happened? Why did you leave Alligata?
I know a lot of people who.ve got standard jobs, like working in insurance. If they're not happy with the people they're working with they leave. Some people stick at it some people decide to leave. I've become one of those people.
So were there particular reasons for leaving Alligata?
I think it's just the fact I wasn't happy working. I didn't get out of the company what I wanted to, I could have got a lot more. I was told in tact that I should do what [Jeff] Minter's doing - work on my own, get my own company. But obviously - I'd just left school. I didn't like that idea at all. What I did was leave Alligata and attempt to work along those lines. But as soon as I left I got tied up with Gremlin Graphics.
Were you actually lured away from Alligata by Gremlin Graphics?
No I had already left.
Alligata got a sequel, Son of Blagger, out of Tony Crowther before he left midway through 1984. To give you some idea of his work rate; PERSONAL COMPUTER GAMES reviews Son of Blagger in July 1984 and the following month his first game for Gremlin. Both games get a PCG Hit rating. Undoubtedly feeling the loss of their star programmer, and workhorse, Alligata begin advertising for programmers, offering a salary of £20,000 plus bonuses.
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| COMMODORE COMPUTING July/August 1984 page 36 |
(Tony
Crowther didn't last long at Gremlin, he was gone within three or four
months of joining which might explain how he was available to write the
music for the third Blagger game, Blagger Goes to Hollywood.)
1985 saw Alligata expand on to new formats. Son of Blagger was converted to the Spectrum and CRASH commented wryly on the convoluted storyline:
Quite who the hero Blagger may be is not detailed in this game or why the son of Mr. Blagger should be called Slippery Sid who's real dad would appear to be another person called Roger the Dodger. It's all most confusing. What isn't so muddling is that Slippery Sid, attempting to out-emulate his famous dad, is working as an espionage agent deep inside Spectrum Security HQ on a task to collect all the golden keys dotted around the large scrolling complex. Quite why he should be doing this is not explained either and gives the feeling you've just walked into an exciting TV serial in the middle of episode three.
Then Alligata took their first tentative steps into the world of licencing. Jack Charlton was part of the World Cup winning football team of 1966. He had a long career as a professional footballer with Leeds and then became a manager. He pulled Sheffield Wednesday out of their seven year trough and got them back into the second division before moving on in 1983. Alligata produced a game called Jack Charlton's Match Fishing. It caused me such confusion that I spent five minutes frantically checking there wasn't an equally well known fisherman called Jack Charlton. There isn't. To be fair, the game isn't quite as random as it might seem. Between 1981 and 1984 Jack Charlton hosted a BBC2 series called Hooked! "television's popular knock-out match angling competition" and Alligata's licence allowed them to make a game-of-the-series while cutting out the BBC. In much the same way that Orpheus' The Youngs Ones was:
©1985
Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, Lise Mayer as creators of the "Young Ones"
characters, format, and storylines of the television series.
I remember Jack Charlton's Match Fishing mainly as the epitome of the style of advert that shows a family sitting round pretending to be gripped by something manifestly unexciting. "All the excitement of a real fishing match and you don't have to get your feet wet." You said it, Jack.
Commando by Capcom was the big arcade game of 1985. Alligata didn't have Capcom money but what they could do was what software companies had always done, and put together a clone to ride on the coat tails of someone else's success. Several titles in Alligata's back catalogue are clones; Bat Attack is Galaxian; Damsel in Distress is Donkey Kong; Haunted House is Atic Atak; and so on.
Alligata's version of Commando was called Who Dares Wins and it's not easy to find because it came and went quickly. 1985 was not like the early years of the software industry. Elite had spent big month to beat US Gold and Ocean to the home computer rights and they didn't want some Sheffield upstart stealing their glory. Also customers, as Who Dares Wins got to the shops before Elite's version of Commando.
The preview version of Who Dares Wins was reviewed by COMMODORE USER in October 1985,page 30. COMPUTER GAMER got an advert and a review in the same month. Elite's Steve Wilcox explains what happened next to RETRO GAMER:
We felt that if Who Dares Wins came out before we got Commando to market it would certainly take some of the shine off our product... We contacted Alligator [1] and made it aware that we held the rights to the Commando licence, and the people there basically told us to get lost!
(issue 13 page 83)
Elite took out an injunction which stopped Alligata from distributing Who Dares Wins. Alligata contested this and the case moved to court. What seems to have happened next is that Elite were required to demonstrate how Who Dares Wins infringed the Commando licence, and Alligata discovered that the injunction no longer applied if they changed the points of similarity:
Alligata's
Mike Mahoney told HCW, "There were 20 points of similarity talked about
in the court case and all of these have now been changed."
The game
now bears no resemblance to Capcom's Commando stated Mike, "It is a
completely different game in which the central character carries a
machine gun and throws hand-grenades. But although scenes and objects
have been changed it is still a one man against the enemy wargame."
(HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY, 8th October 1985 page 6)
I'm full of admiration for how quickly Alligata moved. There can only have been a small window between approximately September and October 1985 for them to withdraw the original game, rewrite it, slap a II on the advertising and cover, and then get it back in the shops by Christmas. The entirely different Who Dares Wins II was being reviewed by December 1985 but Commando made it to the shops first so Elite were satisfied and got their Christmas 1985 Number 1 game.
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| Spot the difference Who Dares Wins advert, COMPUTER GAMER October 1985 page 28 Who Dares Wins II advert, ZZAP!64 November 1985 page 43 |
Alligata must have been cock-a-hoop. They'd successfully thumbed their nose at one of the bigger boys of the software industry. If you want to see how much fun they were having going into the 1986, check out the redesigned Who Dares Wins II advert. It is presented like a comic strip from Victor or Warlord but go back and re-read the captions with knowledge of the legal dispute between Elite and Alligata.
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| ZZAP!64 December 1985 page 23 |
The enemy's crack Elite forces shot up our front line.
We regrouped to consolidate our plan of action.
The reply was launched.
The secret masterfile is carefully landed behind enemy lines.
At this point, even Alligata's standard line "available at all good software dealers" reads like a challenge to Elite.[2]. COMMODORE USER reported:
Alligata were so pleased at the changes that they were forced to make to the game that a representative expressed the wish that ". . . we get a writ every time we try to put out a game if that's what happens..."
(February 1986 page 66)
Later in the year Alligata had more fun with Elite, after ZZAP ran an interview (September 1986 page 104) with programmer Chris Butler. He departed Alligata for Elite where the first game he worked on was the C64 version of... Commando. Chris Butler described leaving Alligata:
They basically made me redundant because they couldn't afford to pay my wages anymore.
Mike Mahoney of Alligata wrote in to ZZAP, who printed his letter in full.
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| ZZAP!64 November 1986 page 105 |
April 1986 might be peak Alligata. YOUR COMPUTER printed a two page profile of the company; Who Dare Wins II was a success; Alligata had launched two new labels Rhino Marketing and Budgie; and the prodigal Tony Crowther had returned. He had left Alligata for Gremlin, and then left Gremlin for his own company Wizard Developments, and then left Wizard Developments for Alligata: "I became bored with running a business," He was working on a new game called Trap.
And yet, 1986 wasn't Alligata's year. It was the year Gremlin Graphics really started to grow and it's possible Alligata just wilted in the shade. Gremlin got so big so quickly it might have become the obvious focal point for all the local programming talent. Also not helping, 1986 was the first year of transition from 8-bit to 16-bit computers. A lot of companies struggled with the need for greater resources to produce the enhanced graphics and sound expected on the new fancy computers.
Alligata got a few games out in 1987 but things must have been going on behind the scenes. Alligata was preparing a game called Addictaball for release on Atari ST, C64, Amstrad, Spectrum, and MSX. The game doesn't seem to be advertised anywhere, a bad sign, and then despite some very positive previews the Spectrum version just disappears:
Addictaball, Alligata’s scrolling Batty clone that made lips quiver and mouths drool in these offices, is now no longer to be released. “Not of reviewable quality” was the cry — haven’t we heard that before? Never mind — but it’s fab on the ST...
(YOUR SINCLAIR, January 1988 page 7)
The C64 version was released but doesn't seem to have been reviewed. There are clips of the MSX version being played on Youtube. The one I've linked to carries the comment, "I wrote this ... that was a long time ago ..." Meanwhile rhe fate of the Amstrad version can best be described using the punctuation that is, ?.
The BBC games archive has a comment from Dave Palmer who worked with Mike Mahoney until 1986. He writes:
Mike Mahoney packed in as MD of Alligata somewhere in 1988 I think it was, he started a market garden near Retford where he lived, Mike said to me he did not like how the industry was becoming and what it was doing to him as a person. Mike was a really nice guy. I do not know what he is doing now. His younger brother Tim took over Alligata and it was not long before it closed down and some titles were sold off to someone in the North East (trying to remember who?).
The who was Leeds-based Superior Software. The news rated a short story at the bottom of page 11 of the November 1988 issue of ACORN USER:
Superior has bought the Alligata games company. The joint Superior/Alligata label will be used on C64, Spectrum and Amstrad games.
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| September 2023 |
I'd gone to Sheffield for the day with a friend. The goal was to visit all the offices of Gremlin, with Alligata as a backup objective. The company were second to Gremlin, again. Depending on how long you have been reading this blog you may or may not be surprised to learn I got lost. I had West Street, but I'd forgotten the building number and spent too trying to locate 144 West Street while standing outside Molly Malone's Irish Tavern "Lively, late-night gathering place offering beers, live music & sports on TV, plus trivia nights." Once I'd realised the mistake, my friend and I walked the short distance to the approximate location of number 178.
In the picture above, the green fronted building is 160, then there's a gap for the side road, and then the knackered looking building covered in scaffolding, and then a Japanese restaurant called GUYSHI Bar + BBQ, which is 180 West Street. Ergo, 178 West Street must be the knackered looking building covered in scaffolding. The internet confirms this:
Sheffield University: New life for former archaeology building propped up by scaffolding for six years
Northgate House, at 178 West Street, opposite Tesco, needed ‘emergency works’ in 2016 due to problems with external walls. It was used by the archaeology department but was closed and later sold.
I later found an old pre-Northgate House picture of 178 West Street on a website called Picture Sheffield. It's an unremarkable fifties or sixties flat roofed building. I clicked around on the Picture Sheffield site and found a photo captioned:
West Street viewed from site of the demolished Royal Hospital, premises from Orange Street towards Mappin Street, Nos. 178, Superior Systems Ltd, Gestetener; 182, Hallamshire Hotel
I think I'm okay to share the picture here with an appropriate citation.
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| www.picturesheffield.com Ref No:s20417 |
Yes, much to my surprise, I'd found a November 1981 picture taken two months after Superior Systems opened. What a lovely coincidence. Now to find 1 Orange Street. Wait, what did that caption say?
That's right. 178 West Street stands on the corner of West Street and Orange Street. I'd learned this in Sheffield when, after taking my picture, I looked up directions to Orange Street and was told it was 30 feet away. I could not find 1 Orange Street. On the right, a short distance down from West Street, is an arch into Hutton's Buildings yard. Next there is a door labelled No 2 Orange Street. Could 1 Orange Street be the arch into Hutton's Buildings Yard? Possibly, although if that was the case I'd expect Alligata's address to be Hutton's Buildings Yard rather than 1 Orange Street.
Go back to that 1968 photo of 178 West Street. Look at the wall just behind the Ford Corsair waiting to turn out of Orange Street. See that door in the side of the building? I think that could be the entrance to 1 Orange Street. Possibly a separate entrance into offices at the back. Either that or 1 Orange Street was right behind the Superior Systems building and was knocked down at the same time, as part of building Northgate House. I did check the Picture Sheffield site for another angle on Orange Street, but I'd used up my luck for the day and couldn't find anything. Unless anyone knows differently, I'm going to declare my one picture covers both addresses; 178 West Street and 1 Orange Street.
[1]Sic, for shame RETRO GAMER.
[2]Elite's legal action made Ocean very cautious about how they presented their game Rambo to magazines. As early as October 1985 YOUR COMPUTER magazine previews Rambo noting:
Ocean programmer Bill Barna compares the game under development to an old arcade favourite called Commando, but stresses the greater complexity and sophistication of the Ocean product. "Rambo can move in all directions, not just from side to side, and there is a problem solving adventure element to the game."
The Who Dares Wins II C64 cover comes from Lemon 64
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