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.
Llandudno makes an excellent keyword for searches and compensates for the names Mr Chip and Magnetic Fields both being almost impossible to look for online. November 1982 brings the first advert for Mr Chip that I was able to locate. Things go quiet for a few months and then Mr Chip emerges again in the pages of HOME COMPUTER WEEKLY, issue two. There has clearly been a rethink. The sensible VIC-20 utility software of the first advert is now bulked out with games. For the hefty price of £9.99 you can choose between; Quackers, a shooting gallery game; Krell, "Defend the poor Zymwatis from the evil ‘Tharg'; Orbis, "Defend your Uranium fuel dumps, from invading Zylons";Galactic Crossfire "Deadly Sligon phasers are above and below"; Alien Soccer, "So you think you can play football?"; Space Phreeks, "Voyage across the Universe and face many alien creatures known only as Space Phreeks"; and Adventure Pack "(Contains) Moon Base Alpha and Computer Adventure". Sligons, Zymwatis, and Phreeks, oh my.
9 Caroline Road, Llandudno, Gwynedd, LL30 2TY
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| C&VG April 1984 page 109 |
The problem is, 9 Caroline Road is yet another residential address. This is something of a bummer for me, given that the whole point of this blog is to go to and photograph the old offices of software houses. A quick check revealed that Magnetic Fields was also mainly based at Caroline Road. Fortunately, by the time I'd finished my initial round of research I had a whole list of places in the town to photograph. More than enough to justify my trip to Llandudno without taking any pictures of people's homes.
Shaun Southern was the star programmer for Mr Chip and Magnetic Fields. He gave an interview to French magazine JOYSTICK in April 1991, you can read my translated version here. The interview briefly covers his history with the company:
I had written games that I offered to publishers through classified ads. It was a company called Mr Chip Software, located in Llandudno, which responded, and which has since become Magnetic Fields... I've been programming since I got a Vic-20 in 1982, and at the time I did the graphics myself, which were quite simplistic... It only took a week to three months to write them.
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| POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY 13 January 1983 page 33 |
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| NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS Thursday 28th June 1984, page 7 |
The idea of a high-tech software house based in a North Wales seaside town was exotic enough to catch the attention of the local press. The NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS story above is a good natured piece, and their reporter catches Mr Chip not long after their move to Caroline Road. The photo shows Doug Braisby and Mr Chip's other full time employee Michelangelo Pignani[1] looking at the loading screen for Shaun Southern's game Olympic Skier. However, despite all the good news in the report things don't seem to have been going so well behind the scenes.
The software market was shifting away from mail order towards direct sales in shops. Companies like Mr Chip struggled as distributors inserted themselves between software houses and shops and became powerful gatekeepers judging what they thought would and wouldn't sell. Since October 1983, Mr Chip adverts had regularly carried another strapline on their adverts, "DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME," as they attempted to catch the eye of distributors.
The market has been ignoring me... The trade has ignored us; I don't know why. We have been hammering on the door to be let in. It gets to the stage where you get fed up with hammering on the door.
The market has been ignoring me... The trade has ignored us; I don't know why. We have been hammering on the door to be let in. It gets to the stage where you get fed up with hammering on the door.
That's a less upbeat Doug Braisby, talking to HOME COMPUTER WEEKLY (10 April 1984 page 5) about the challenges Mr Chip faced getting their software into the shops. Two months later he expanded on this theme while talking to YOUR SPECTRUM about a game called Westminster.
Although the game got a good response from both the public and the press, the distributors were unwilling to take it. And if their minds remain unchanged, this could lead to an even bigger problem now that we've decided to go for the (potentially) much larger Spectrum market.' Distributor reactions are awaited with interest.
Westminster went unreleased on the ZX Spectrum. To deal with a lack of interest from distributors, Mr Chip began licencing older titles to the newly formed Mastertronic. Doug Braisby's comments above, about hammering on the door, came from a HOME COMPUTER WEEKLY news story about the launch of the budget company:
Mastertronic have come up with a new idea in marketing and we could not afford to be left out. They saw the products and jumped at them. They saw the potential which has been there all along.
That said, Doug didn't seem to be happy to be talking to HOME COMPUTER WEEKLY.
Part of the arrangement was that our name was not supposed to be brought into this. They had no right to tell you.
Mr Chip initially licenced two games to Mastertronic; Kwazy Kwaks and Jackpot. These 1983 games, for the VIC-20, were early Mr Chip games by Shaun Southern. Mastertronic cannily rebranded them as the more marketable Duck Shoot and Vegas Jackpot. It worked. According to the Mastertronic
Collectors Archive, using information originally from Anthony Guter who
was the Financial Controller for Mastertronic, Vegas Jackpot went on to be Mastertronic's sixth best-selling title, 331,000 copies, while Duck Shoot had sales of 102,000. A third game licenced to Mastertronic, a 1983 Mr Chip title called Darts was smartly renamed Bullseye' cleverly associating it with the ITV quiz. Shaun Southern handled the C64 versions of Duck Shoot and Vegas Jackpot. Both games are credited to him and a company called Shuttle Soft. It's not clear if this is Shaun Southern's company or a way
to distance Mr Chip from Doug Braisby's apparent discomfort at licencing out
his games. According to the Mastertronic Collectors Archive, Bullseye was also credited to Shuttle Soft, but the on screen credit was made invisible by using the same colour for the ink and paper settings.
Mr Chip carried on publishing original games through 1984 but the licencing deal with Mastertronic gradually changed the direction of the company. Kikstart was possibly Mr Chip's most notable release in 1984. A motorcycle trials game with a title one letter removed from the BBC series Kick Start. A cunning way to avoid negotiating a licence for the show, although the in game music was eerily familiar. When Kikstart was later licenced to Mastertronic it became their ninth best-selling game, 291,000 sales. How long did Mr Chip resist the obvious? That their games sold better when handled by Mastertronic. It looks as if the company didn't bother advertising after June 1984 and the last two games released under their own name might be two Shaun Southern titles, Kikstart and AD Infinitum which came out in time for Christmas 1984. After that, Mr Chip moved over to being a developer for hire. They expanded away from working exclusively for Mastertronic and delivered Trailblazer for Gremlin Graphics
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| ZZAP!64 Christmas Special 1986 page 63 |
Shaun Southern was the company star. Look at the wording on the invitation for programmers to "join SHAUN SOUTHERN and the Development Team at MR CHIP SOFTWARE." Not the other way round.
Gradually the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST computers were becoming more popular. It was natural that Mr Chip move with the times and begin developing games for the new machines. When Shaun spoke to JOYSTICK he talked about the name change:
Two and a half years ago, we changed from Mr Chip to Magnetic Fields, it
was more evocative. This coincided with our entry into the 16-bit
market.
I also wonder if changes at Mastertronic encouraged Doug Braisby to have a rethink about Mr Chip's future. In late 1987 Virgin brought 45% of Mastertronic and acquired the rest
of the company in 1988. Virgin wanted the Sega franchise rights held by Mastertronic. They were less interested in home computer budget software and that side of Mastertronic was slowly wound down. Mr Chip was branching out to work with Alternative and Gremlin, on full price games, and a name change might have been seen as a good way to break with the past.
Also, did Mr Chip ever become a limited company? I can't find a record at Companies House. If Doug Braisby was still working as a sole trader then he was liable for any business debts or legal obligations. A rebrand would be a logical time to use the new name for a new company and sure enough, on 24 May 1988, Companies House records the registration of MAGNETIC FIELDS (SOFTWARE DESIGN) LIMITED.
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| NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS Thursday 22 March 1990 page 23 |
These games got the attention of the media, and the Magnetic Fields team began to appear more frequently in magazines and newspapers.
First up was the ever reliable NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS who printed a picture of Doug Braisby sitting at a computer apparently set up in the same corner as in their 1984 story. The story covered the success of Super Cars, then sitting at three in the Gallup 16-bit chart. An excited Doug Braisby told the WEEKLY NEWS:
Last week we came straight in at number 14 and made a rapid climb jumping up the charts.
Next up was the March 1991 issue of AMIGA ACTION who carried a short report and photograph to cover the launch of Super Cars II at Brands Hatch.
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| AMIGA ACTION March 1991 page 22 |
April 1991 was when French magazine JOYSTICK came knocking, for a six page interview with Shaun Southern. The feature is great because it includes several pictures taken around 9 Caroline Road and I can reproduce them without feeling like I'm invading someone's privacy.
Shaun (Southern), Doug (Braisby), Andrew (Morris), and Jeremy (Smith) standing outside of the front door to 9 Caroline Road.
Shaun sitting at a workstation in what appears to be be the Magnetic Fields fitted wardrobe. Shaun told JOYSTICK magazine:
Magnetic Fields is located in Llandudno, on the North Wales coast.
Andrew and Jeremy live three miles away, so they go to the office every
day. The office, in fact, is just a room! I live in Oswestry, almost 100
miles away, so I work from home and only go into the office
occasionally to discuss ideas with them.
Finally, here's Jeremy, Shaun, and Andrew lurking round the back of number 9.
Two months later, June 1991, there was a profile and interview in GAMES -X. "The World's Only Weekly Computer and Console Games Mag!" This is the first time the team are dragged up to the top of the Great Orme, a limestone headland which looms over Llandudno.
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| GAMES -X 7th-13th June 1991 page 38 |
As well as pictures of the Magnetic Fields team clowning around on the Great Orme and getting in the way of anyone who wanted to use the slide, there was also a double page poster of the team in a blue car (a Lotus?) in the Great Orme car park; should you wish to stick them to your wall.
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| GAMES -X 7th-13th June 1991 page 24 |
All this publicity was all rapidly followed up by the NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS who ran a story on 20 June 1991 with a little more information about the Magnetic Fields office, it's the front room at 9 Caroline Road. I think the picture the paper uses might be an uncropped version of the same one from the 1990 news story.
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| NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS Thursday 20 June 1991 page 19 |
Things go quiet on the publicity front until September 1994 when THE ONE visited Llandudno and dragged the team back up the Great Orme for some photographs.
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| THE ONE September 1994 page 26 |
This interview is mainly to promote their forthcoming Amiga game Kid Chaos. It's not a massively revealing interview but it did give me a couple more places to track down on my visit to Llandudno. My visit was scheduled for Monday 8th December. This turned out to be a worry as Storm Darragh lashed the UK across the weekend of 6th December. Would my trip still be possible? Yes, was the answer when I set out down the A55 on a cold, clear, and still windy day.
I didn't bother stopping in Penrhyn-side but once I'd parked up in Llandudno I walked passed 9 Caroline Road just to verify it was still someone's house. It is. Next up was 29 Augusta Street -an address I'll get to later- and then a pub called The Cottage Loaf which, I think, is the pub mentioned in THE ONE interview as The Cottage. It's all of a six minute walk from Caroline Road. Llandudno isn't a big town.
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| December 2024 |
I didn't go in, even though its a nice looking pub and time was dragging on past lunchtime. My plan for the afternoon included an ascent on the Great Orme and every pint knocks 20% off my mountaineering skill level. Instead I walked round to the Take A Break cafe on Gloddaeth Street where the topic of conversation was, unsurprisingly, the weather. It really had been pretty windy.
Fortified and utterly bold, I set out to drive to the top of the Great Orm. Well, there was no way I was walking and the cable car was closed for winter. At the top, I got out of the car and upgraded the weather from cold and windy to hurricane force freezing blasts. Whoever founded Llandudno was no fool. The Great Orme shields the town from the worst of the wind and now I was fully exposed to it. I scuttled across the car park to the summit building and half-heartedly looked for the children's play park. I assumed it was long gone, under a crazy golf course, but it is actually behind the cable car building. I didn't go round there. I can only apologise for this failure of journalistic integrity.
I'd spotted signs for the Copper Mines as I drove up. They were were discovered in 1987 and opened to the public in 1991. December 2024 and they were closed for the winter but I thought I might be able to get a picture from the road. I walked out of the car park and trotted down the road, glad to be mostly on the lea side of the headland. Long term fans of this blog (Sid and Doris Bonkers) will know I've previously claimed that the stupidest things I've ever done are:
1. Driven to South Wales to photograph a place which no longer exists because it was
once photographed from a different location at night for a computer
game cover. (Forbidden Planet, Design Design)
2. Drove to Milton Park to take a picture of the nearly empty overflow car park where the Hewson Consultants building used to stand.
Well, walking a third of a mile down a steep road in the teeth of a freezing gale to awkwardly slither across wet grass to photograph a hole in the ground from next to a flimsy fence, is now the new winner. Here's the photo.
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| December 2024 |
Rubbish, isn't it? I hoped I might be able to get an angle like the one used in THE ONE interview but I couldn't.
It turned out the Wikipedia page had the ideal picture so here it is.
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| The entrance to the Bronze Age Copper Mine complex on the Great Orme by |
The ever reliable NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS printed a follow up story to THE ONE's visit and reused one of the interview photos.. The main snippet of information: the "tiny company" "operates from the first floor of a Llandudno house" so maybe Shaun Southern's workstation really was in a fitted wardrobe.
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| NORTH WALES WEEKLY NEWS Thursday September 15 1994 page 32 |
Kid Chaos started development as Cosmic Kitten, the name of the blue cat star of the game. The fast-running spiky haired blue cat became something less likely to upset lawyers acting for Sonic The Hedgehog. A kid. Kit Vicious became Kid Vicious. And if you believe Mobygames, the name was then changed from Kid Vicious to Kid Chaos following protests from lawyers acting for the Sex Pistols over the Kid Vicious/Sid Vicious pun. Hmm. The September 1994 issue of CU AMIGA reckoned the game was "originally called Kid Vicious, but then people realised that this cute platformer from Ocean isn't vicious at all." The last minute name change was noted in AMIGA POWER's review which starts with a dig at the August 1994 issue of THE ONE AMIGA:
Phew. Good job we held off reviewing Kid Chaos until it had been completely finished and had had its name finalised, eh? Otherwise we might have done something embarrassing like writing "Kid Vicious" on our cover.
Crystal Dragon came next. Magnetic Fields, like Grandslam, had been a staunch supporter of the Amiga but the format was dying following the bankruptcy of Commodore International in April 1994. Magnetic Fields next few games were for the PC and published by Europress Software.
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| THE CHRONICLE 29 May 1998 page 31 |
Unit 4b, Bridgegate North, The Pavillions, Chester Business Park, Chester, CH4 9QH
Magnetic Fields left Llandudno. It must have been some time around early 1998 because the recruitment advert refers to "our new Chester offices." The website www.magneticfields.co.uk is archived by the Wayback Machine but the Meet The Team page wasn't archived on the first capture in 1999; the page is gone by the next capture. What happens in the gap between 1994 and 1998? Doug Braisby, Andrew Morris, and Shaun Southern are still all involved in the company according to the Mobygames credits for Mobil 1 Rally Championship (1999). Maybe Chester was seen as a reasonable mid-point between Llandudno and Shaun Southern's house in Oswestry?
Europress were taken over by Hasbro in 1999. The loss of their publisher seems to have done for Magnetic Fields. Shaun Southern and Andrew Morris went on to found a new company in 2000, called Eugenicy. The company dissolved in 2004 without releasing a game. Andrew Morris described what happened to THE RETRO HOUR podcast (episode 115):
For various reasons I won't go into we had complications with Magnetic Fields and how we finished the third game... business, contractual problems... we set up the next game under a new... we came up with a new company. Eugenicy, we called it rather than Magnetic Fields. The problem with that is when we went to people for funding and to tell them who we were. They knew who Magnetic Fields were but they didn't know who Eugenicy were and they couldn't understand the name change. So, despite having pretty much agreed the [car brand] licence and having a good idea and all the best people from the previous team... we just couldn't get the backing for it.
The move to Chester finally gave me an office to chase down. However the address gave me three problems. First, I couldn't find anywhere called The Pavillions. It was only after tracking down this site that I worked out the area had changed its name to Honeycombe. That website also helped me solve problem two. Which of the four units housed 4b? It was the green one, now called Honeycombe West. Finally, the Honeycombe and Chester Business Park are most inhospitable. You can only get there by car. There was no parking for random idiots who want to turn up and take photos. I solved this problem by using the nearby Wrexham Road Park and Ride site and crossing the A483.
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| December 2024 |
Andrew Morris has a YouTube channel and in 2009 he uploaded a promotional video for Eugenicy which also talks about the making of Mobil 1 Rally Championship. You can imagine how delighted I was to see it included a shot of Andrew Morris zooming away in his red Ferrarri, with the Magnetic Fields building closest to the camera on the right.
Basford House 29 Augusta Street Llandudno Gwynedd LL30 2AE
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| December 2024 |
The only address I've got left is this one in Llandudno. It's the address of accountants John Pratt & Co and also the address given on the Companies House record for Magnetic Fields Retro Ltd; incorporated on 14 July 2009 and dissolved on 4 September 2012. It's connection with the original Mr Chip and Magnetic Fields is tenuous and I include it only out of completeness (all hail completeness!) The directors of Magnetic Fields Retro Ltd were listed as Andrew Morris and Shaun Southern. I don't know if Doug Braisby was still involved but the three kept in contact. Shaun Southern told a 2019 edition of THE RETRO HOUR (episode 184) that:
We went and met him a couple of weeks ago, and he's about 74 now. We went on the big zip wire in Snowdonia. It's a mile long. He loved it.
[1]I never found a place for it in the article, but in July 1985 Michelangelo Pignani wrote to PCW's Adventure Helpline column asking:
Starcross and Infidel on C64. How do you get the red rod from the ratant's nest? How do you find the pyramid in Infidel?
Starcross and Infidel on C64. How do you get the red rod from the ratant's nest? How do you find the pyramid in Infidel?
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