16 Park Street, Bath, Avon, BA1
I don't think I believed my friend when he said he had a computer at home. In fact, I don't think I really knew what a computer was at the time. We're taking late 1982, early 1983 at the most, and my friend was telling me about this scary game he played which was "not suitable for those of a nervous disposition." It had a dinosaur in it and you had to escape a maze, and that was pretty much all I knew. It sounded terrifying. By the time I actually sat down to play the game I was all wound up. Not suitable for those of a nervous disposition. They wouldn't be able to say that if it wasn't true. And how did you know if you were of a nervous disposition, anyway?
REX LIES IN WAIT
Even the reliable RETRO GAMER goes all coy when describing the early days of J.K. Greye Software:
J.K. Greye Software was one of the first software houses to begin producing ZX81 software. Although its early games titles were simple 1K affairs, we didn't have to wait long for Malcolm Evans, who joined John Greye's company a few months after it was formed, to produce the utterly amazing 3D Monster Maze.
(issue 112 page 14)
There's a distinct lack of dates and facts about J.K. Greye Software. John Greye never gave an interview and I haven't been able to track down any contemporary coverage; these were the incredibly early days of computer magazines, before they had worked out their readers were interested in things like profiles of software houses. The story of the company is most frequently told by Malcolm Evans who went on to found New Generation Software. He gave a trio of interviews to HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY, October 1983; CRASH, June 1984; and SINCLAIR USER, September 1984. Using these it's possible to build a skeletal timeline for J.K. Greye Software.
Let's start with the obvious, Clive Sinclair launched the ZX81 in March 1981. The first advert for J.K. Greye Software that I've been able to track down comes in the January 1982 issue of YOUR COMPUTER.
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| YOUR COMPUTER January 1982 page 78 |
At the time Malcolm was a keen classical guitarist and played occasionally in folk clubs locally. At a club meeting in Bristol he met John Greye, who was also writing games for the ZX81, and the two of them decided to form J K Greye Software Ltd. Malcolm took 3D Monster Maze to a ZX Microfair and the game sold well. "I was pleasantly surprised,' he says, ''probably because I had not seen many other games."
Malcolm Evans worked for a company called Sperry Gyroscope, in Bristol and wrote 3D Monster Maze
as part of the process of exploring what could be done with his
birthday present ZX81. He met John Greye around the time the Sperry
Gyroscope factory closed, which dates their meeting to October
or November 1981. The CRASH interview gives a release date of February
1982 for 3D Monster Maze, so there's just enough time
for John Greye and Malcolm Evans to meet, decide to form a company,
place their first advert in the January 1982 issue of YOUR COMPUTER, and
get 3D Monster Maze on sale by February. And then, as SINCLAIR USER explains:
In the spring of 1982 Greye and Malcolm decided to go their separate ways and Malcolm founded New Generation Software
FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING
HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY dates the founding of New Generation Software to September 1982. Events are moving fast; less than a year from writing a game to joint founding a company to leaving and founding another company. Those three interviews brush over what happened at J.K. Greye Software but Malcolm Evans has gone into a little more detail in recent years:
"John
Greye ended because after about six months my wife and I realised he
was doing very little to promote the company. Even though he was
supposed to be the marketing manager I was actually doing all that part.
My wife and I were working about 15 hours a day together doing all the
mundane jobs, mail order shipping and programming games. We worked at
his flat in the morning but we seldom saw him and in the afternoon he
never answered his phone. It was me that was actually doing all the
marketing and all he was doing was the advertising. When the Spectrum
came along it was an inevitable split. It was somewhat acrimonious
unfortunately. He was demanding 50 percent of my profits from my future games and things like that"
(Malcolm Evans interview, 2023, Geek Retrospective)
3D Monster Maze was an immediate hit. SYNC, a magazine for Sinclair owners joint published in America and the UK, raved about the game after it appeared at the January 1982 Microfair:
If a prize were to be given for the most effective and stunning use of the graphics on an unmodified ZX81, it would surely have to go to J. K. Greye Software for their 3D Monster Maze which actually shows a moving, walking Tyrannosaurus Rex wandering around an apparently three dimensional lair. It has to be seen to be believed.
Month by month, you can follow J.K. Greye Software as it rides the success of 3D Monster Maze. WH Smith were early fans and their first order was for 10,000 copies (Malcom Evans Interview at Crash Live 2022). Screenshots are added to the advert in February 1982. March sees the company take out small eighth-page adverts in COMPUTER & VIDEOGAMES. The advertising budget increases in April 1982 to include SINCLAIR USER. In May the regular YOUR COMPUTER advert expands to half a page.
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| YOUR COMPUTER May 1982 page 102 |
July, just before everything goes weird, is the best month for J.K. Greye Software. The company shifts to a new style vertical half-page advert which I'm not including here because they are buggers to fit text around. This is what they looked like; YOUR COMPUTER. Note the quote from J.N. Rowland, Product Manager for WH Smith: "Without question the finest machine code games available today" and also consider the advertising strapline "the new generation software house". Now consider the name of Malcolm Evans' next company. In 1983, HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY directly asked about the name, as if they thought there was a story there, and got a bland answer in return:
Why New Generation? "Well it's mainly the new generation buying software, isn't it?", Malcolm explained.
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| DAILY MIRROR 26 August 1982 page 10 |
You can fly through your income tax or fly through the sky with the flight simulation game. You can study geography or fight through the 3D Monster Maze.
That advert lists six titles. Three are from Sinclair; VU-CALC, Flight Simulation and Backgammon. Mikro-Gen's Chess is another. The other two are both by Malcolm Evans, 3D Defender and of course 3D Monster Maze.
16 Brendon Close, Oldland Common, Bristol BS15 6QE
The same month J.K Greye Software moves to the address above, from Bath to Bristol (YOUR COMPUTER August 1982 page 10). That's not odd in itself, software companies move offices all the time. September is when it all starts to get a bit strange as the first advert appears for a new software house.
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| POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY 30 September 1982 page 24 |
Let's start with the address; Freepost Oldland Common will later turn out to be 16 Brendon Common. It's a house. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume it's where Malcolm Evans lived. Presumably the Freepost address was a fig leaf cover so New Generation and J.K Greye Software didn't appear to be run from the same place.
Then there's the New Generation name and the way it hijacks the J.K. Greye slogan from barely three months ago. Finally, there's that cute picture of an adult and baby T-Rex holding hands. You can see why, when I was doing early research on New Generation Software, I thought they and J.K. Greye were one firm who decided to use one name for ZX81 software and another for ZX Spectrum games; and also confusingly moved from Bath to Bristol and then back to the same address in Bath.
This is, I think, the start of the period Malcom Evans described in a very understated way as "somewhat acrimonious, unfortunately." It's clear from Malcolm Evans comments that he was fed up and saw himself as being insufficiently rewarded for doing what he regarded as most of the work. He clearly wanted to write games for the Spectrum but didn't want to sell them through J.K. Greye. Why not set up his own company and do 100% of the work for 100% of the cash. Seen through this lens, naming that company New Generation seems like a very deliberate two-fingered insult[1].
I can't work out what's going on with J.K. Greye Software and the move to Bristol and the New Generation name. It looks like Malcom Evans is conducting a coup, and maybe he was, but it could also be a gesture of goodwill; I'm going to start my own company but in my own time I will also keep your business going and promote the company which gives you half the money for less than half the work.
REX HAS SEEN YOU
We're not privy to the dispute between John Greye and Malcolm Evans but clearly it rumbled on and on . Both companies are effectively frozen from August 1982 to March 1983. New Generation runs its small adverts to promote Escape and, from the start of 1983, 3D Tunnel. J.K. Greye Software keeps its half-page advert selling the same six titles as in July 1982. And for eight months that is the status quo. The 2023 interview with Malcolm Evans describes how he invited his
brother Rod to join New Generation Software and his first job:
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| SINCLAIR USER April 1983 page 18 |
The HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY interview describes brother Rod as joining the company in June 1983 but it looks like the "best endeavours" agreement kicked in earlier, before the end of the financial year, because some new text is added to J.K. Greye's March 1983 advert:
J.K. GREYE SOFTWARE LIMITED has no connection with NEW GENERATION SOFTWARE or J.K. GREYE ENTERPRISES which are the businesses of the respective directors
Then in April, a one-off advert runs in SINCLAIR USER and ZX COMPUTING:
ZX81 GAMES
from J.K.GREYE SOFTWARE LTD
PLEASE NOTE
As from March 31st the ZX81 games currently available from this company will be marketed solely by two separate companies as follows
Gamestape 1 — 10 games for 1k
Gamestape 2 — Starfighter, Artist Pyramid
Gamestape 3 — Catacombs
From:
J.K. GREYE ENTERPRISES
16 Park Street
Bath
Gamestape 4 — 3D Monster Maze
Gamestape 5 — 3D Defender
Gamestape 6 — Full Screen Breakout for 1k
From:
NEW GENERATION SOFTWARE
16 Brendon Close
Oldland Common
Bristol
Any enquiries concerning the above games should be made to the respective companies.
John Greye sells his games. Malcolm Evans sells his games. At the end of the year all the profits are split 50/50. It's like that episode of Steptoe and Son where they divide the house in half. The same issue of SINCLAIR USER also sees a new company spring forth as J.K. Greye Software is replaced by J.K. Greye Enterprises Ltd.
16 Park Street, Bath, Avon, BA1 (again)
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| YOUR COMPUTER May 1983 page 80 |
The new product is a four pack of games called The Arcadian. Versions of Scramble, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and the Tron light-cycle game. The big gimmick seems to be that you can also load a menu which allows you to select which game you then want to load, thrilling; this is the 1983 equivalent of "interactive menus" as a DVD special feature. CRASH slated the game in May 1984 and rated it "Generally a waste of money." The inlay lists Minefield (the Tron variant) and UFO (Asteroids) as copyright J.K. Greye while Invasion (Space Invaders) and Kamikaze (Scramble) are copyright Astral Software, whoever they were. The copyright year for both sets of games is 1982, which suggests John Greye had been sitting on these until the dispute with Malcolm Evans was resolved.
From May 1983 the bottom of the J.K. Greye Enterprises advert sells the "ZX81 GAMESTAPES as previously sold by J.K. Greye Software ltd." The equivalent New Generation adverts do the same for Malcolm Evans' games. Over the remainder of the year New Generation Software grows as J. K. Greye Enterprises Ltd stagnates. The vertical half-page advert runs unchanged through May, June, and July. Much to my relief, it changes in August to a horizontal half-page advert which at least has the advantage of being easier to fit into the format of this blog.
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| SINCLAIR USER August 1983 page 114 |
There's also a new game on offer. It has the Malcolm Evans baiting title 3D Vortex. Reviews noted the similarity of the game to New Generation's 3D Tunnel, released around January 1983. SINCLAIR USER went with:
ANYONE who has seen 3-D Tunnel will find Vortex for the 16K Spectrum familiar
While POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY started their review:
J.K. Greye Enterprises was once the home of Malcolm Evans who went on to found New Generation Software. Since his departure, little has been heard of the company -until now.
PCW accidentally summed up J.K. Greye Enterprises with that one throwaway sentence: when they lost Malcolm Evans they lost what made the company distinctive. J.K. Greye Enterprises carried on advertising through autumn and Christmas 1983 and then unexpectedly made one last throw of the dice with a full page colour advert in the January issue of SINCLAIR USER.
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| SINCLAIR USER January 1984 page 149 |
It's such an odd thing to do. Why spend what must have been a reasonable chunk of money to advertise a line up of games that hadn't changed for six months? And why do it in January, rather than December when the games could be properly advertised for the Christmas market? This wasn't quite the last sighting of J.K. Greye Enterprises, their half page advert cropped up a couple more times in the January and February issues of YOUR COMPUTER. And then presumably the one year agreement with Malcolm Evans expired. New Generation Software never looked. J.K. Greye Enterprises departed with the impression they had never really looked forwards.
RUN HE IS BESIDE YOU
There are, as you might have noticed, no office pictures. That's because there were no offices. 16 Park Street is a traditional Georgian terraced house halfway up a steep-ish hill. 16 Brendon Close, about eight miles away, is a much newer detached house tucked away on a seventies new-build estate on the outskirts of Bristol.
I didn't think much of 3D Monster Maze at the time. I was an 11 year old philistine. I didn't understand why ZX81 games didn't look and sound like arcade machines. I was used to faster thrills than the slow tension of 3D Monster Maze and I struggled with the ZX81 membrane keyboard. I was slightly too old to be scared by the game and slightly too young to appreciate the ways it was really innovative. I was much more impressed by my friend's cardboard Death Star play set, the only time I ever saw one of these in the wild.
Well meaning people like me will name 3D Monster Maze as an very early example of the survival horror genre. It is, but that sort of retrospective classification crams the game into a genre for which it was never intended. It strips away what makes it unique in its own right. The game is full of things which don't need to be there but stoke the atmosphere. There is no need for the tetchy message at the end of loading, "Anyone there? pause Well Press Something Then". A bland "press any key to continue " message would have done the job but without the same personality. There is no need for the Carnival Barker/Circus Clown who introduces the game with a scrolling text message but removing him would lose the idea you've loaded a sinister circus sideshow into your computer, and more importantly it would lose the marvellous phrase that Rex has been "preserved in silicon". This is a world in 16K black and white and I love it.
Malcolm Evans has often spoken about the development of 3D Monster Maze, and this is an excellent Making Of. For me, the key exchange of that article is this one detailing the first meeting between Greye and Evans:
"I Mentioned to him in passing that I was writing this program, and he said "Has it got a monster in it?" "no". he said: "oh it might be a good idea to put a monster in it, then it might be saleable, you see. “
“I had nothing better to do, so I created a monster"
John Greye had good instincts. 3D Monster Maze would still work as a game without Rex [2]. It could have been a Mazogs style treasure hunt or a simple challenge to escape the maze before time runs out. The graphics would have created a splash but the game would never have had the lasting impact.
The mists of time will pass over you for about 30 seconds while transporting you to the lair of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Best of luck.....
[1] The name actually makes the J.K Greye slogan read differently. It may have been intended to read as "the software house for a new generation", but now it becomes "the software house owned by New Generation."
[2] Obviously a name change would be required to avoid stern letters from Trading Standards.
The 3D Monster Maze cover comes from Spectrum Computing.
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