Fantasy

The way in which companies go bust is often telling, There are, of course, very strict legal rules covering the matter, but they are often easy to get around. Bug-Byte's receivers informed all creditors (including CRASH) of the situation Micromania's Dominic Wood wrote a letter to the effect that he was bankrupt — at least you know where you stand. Fantasy's demise was less ethical.

Sony Electronic Publishing / Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

This was supposed to be Pysgnosis but that will have to wait for another two weeks. I'd planned a quick look at Sony's UK presence as a follow up but events [1] have conspired to make me swap them round. This is a more bare bones article than normal. It's Sony. You know. Sony. The PlayStation. The console that sold 100 million units. You probably owned one or knew someone who did. If you don't remember the PlayStation then you probably remember the PlayStation 2 which sold 160 million units or the PlayStation 4 (117 million). It's only really the PlayStation 3 and 5 [2] which let the brand down, and they both managed sales of around 85 million so I imagine Sony is not to distressed. Anyway, that's why this is a less detailed write up than normal. Consider it an apéritif for Psygnosis. (Secretly, it's because this is being written to a very short turnaround and because I know bugger all about Sony in the UK. I hope to get out of here quickly before my ignorance shows too much.)

dk'tronics

23 Sussex Road, Gorleston, Great Yarmouth

Since the 48K Spectrum was launched the opportunities it offered has attracted peripheral manufacturers throughout the world.

One of these manufacturers was bound to emerge as the "brand leader" and in the case of the Spectrum this turned out to be DK'tronics. The company is based in Saffron Walden in Essex and proudly boasts a history dating back to the ZX80. All the company's products are manufactured in England at their own factory and they have now established themselves as world leaders, exporting to over 30 countries!

Electric Dreams

31 Carlton Crescent, Southampton, SO1

No, I haven't gone nuts and you are not seeing double. Electric Dreams really did release two different games called Aliens. One in the winter of 1986 and the other in the spring of 1987. Yes, it was confusing when it happened in the eighties as well. Electric Dreams is the story of what Rod Cousens did after Quicksilva, so lets catch up on the back story first. 

New Generation Software

Freepost Oldland Common Bristol, BS15 5BR
(really, 16 Brendon Close, Oldland Common, Bristol BS15 6QE)

It took me a while to understand that J.K. Greye Software and New Generation Software were two completely different companies. One appeared to take their name from an advertising slogan used by the other. Malcolm Evans wrote ZX81 games for one and ZX Spectrum games for the other. One sold old ZX81 games originally written for the other. One started in Bath and moved to Bristol. The other started in Bristol and moved to Bath. You can see why I was confused.

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!

Sportscene Specialist Press/Dennis Publishing

14 Rathbone Place, London, W1P

CRASH, YOUR SINCLAIR, and SINCLAIR USER which was your favourite?* I was a CRASH kid but around 1988 it was clear the crown was slipping from CRASH's head and YOUR SINCLAIR picked up that crown and wore it proudly for the next few years. ZERO, Dennis' 16-bit magazine, carried the YOUR SINCLAIR crown on to the next generation, and then PC FORMAT made it a hat trick. Newsfield never really succeeded in producing another magazine that matched the love/nostalgia for CRASH and ZZAP. I'm not familiar enough with EMAP's titles to say whether they passed the success of COMPUTER AND VIDEOGAMES forwards; although I know a lot of people have a soft spot for the MEAN MACHINES titles. And Future. Well, their titles were frequently wildly successful but they always seem stamped from a template; magazines like AMIGA POWER were the exception. I think the point I'm groping vaguely towards is that Sportscene/Dennis was unique in producing a trilogy of beloved magazines.
(*No one ever says SINCLAIR USER.)

Automata UK

65(a) Osbourne Road, Portsmouth, PO5

Most of the pages of this blog exist because they give me a warm hug of nostalgia. "I loved Highway Encounter," etc, etc, etc. But occasionally things get more complicated. Newsfield, for example, was supposed to be my lovely stroll down memory lane but instead forced me to consider the difference between the job of my dreams and the realities of working with actual fallible humans. Automata is also less straightforward. Positioned deliberately outside the mainstream of UK software, they were, and remain, a contradiction. A counterculture business. Simultaneously obscure and well known. Lionised, today, and yet my memory is of not liking them much. Was I a stuffy teen conformist, unable to cope with anything which didn't fit into my plastic-fantastic routine of Top of the Pops on Thursday and Howard's Way on Sunday? Am I, as Star Trek once put it, Herbert?

Quicksilva

Palmerstone Park House, 13 Palmerstone Road, Southampton

I didn't realise how interconnected the British software scene could be. The story of Mastertronic blurs into the story of Virgin Games. The Liverpool software houses give the impression of all living in each other's pockets. You can't write about Software Projects without writing about Bug-Byte and you can't write about Bug-Byte without writing about Imagine and you can't write about Imagine without writing about Denton Designs. The same is true of Quicksilva. Its story is part of the story of Argus Press Games. And also part of the story of Electric Dreams. And part of the story of Activision. Oh, and part of the story of Bug-Byte. I feel I should make one of those complicated maps with pins stuck in it and string joining the pins together.

Grandslam Entertainment

Grandslam House, 56 Leslie Park Road, Croydon, CR0

Grandslam Entertainment was born in 1987, renamed from Argus Press Software, which had been spun off from Argus Specialist Publications, which was itself the hobby magazine division of Argus Press, which was itself a publishing company owned by BET PLC. Until 1985, BET PLC had been known as British Electric Traction and they were an absolutely enormous conglomerate who owned absolutely everything from Wembley Stadium to waste disposal specialists Biffa. They were big. And big was out of fashion in 1985. So BET PLC began divesting itself of its share of laundry companies and television companies and crane companies, and slimmed itself down. Until, in 1996, BET PLC was taken over by Rentokill and that's the end of their story.

Thalamus

 1 Saturn House, Calleva Park, Aldermaston, Berks, RG7

I'm pretty sure only four magazine publishers set up software houses; EMAP with Beyond, Argus Press with Argus Press Software, Mirror Group Newspapers with Mirrorsoft and, of course, Newsfield with Thalamus. The surprise is not so much that other publishers didn't dip their toe into the water, it's that Newsfield were so late to the party. Thalamus was founded in 1986, when smaller software houses were being squeezed out of the market and either making the decision to become developers rather than publishers, see Design Design and Realtime, or stepping back from the market completely like Durell and Microsphere.

Newsfield Ltd

1/2 King Street, Ludlow, Shropshire

So we're doing magazines now are we? Well yes, obviously. The tagline of this blog is "seeking out Britain's pioneering software houses," but I've covered Argus Specialist Press and assorted computer manufacturers under the fig leaf justification that those companies did occasionally chuck out a few games. I could have done the same for Newsfield because they spun off a software house called Thalamus but it seems unnecessary. Newsfield were an essential part of the UK software scene in their own right, as were other publishers like Future (AMSTRAD ACTION) or Sportscene/Dennis (YOUR SINCLAIR and YOUR 64), or hardware companies like Romantic Robot (the various Multiface machines) and joystick kings Konix. A whole support industry grew up around software companies like the ecology of a coral reef and to not talk about it is to not tell the whole story.

Beyond Software

Competition House, Farndon Road, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE19

Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight, Lords of Midnight. Lords. Of. Midnight. Lords of. Midnight. Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight. Lords; of Midnight. Lords, of, Midnight. Lords of Midnight -Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight.

Lords of Midnight. 

Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight Lords of Midnight. Lords of Midnight.

Doomdark's Revenge.

Argus Press Software

KNOWLEDGE CHECK! Which magazine publisher was the first to open a software house? If you said Thalamus, the label from Newsfield Ltd, then sit down because they weren't founded until 1986. Mirrorsoft is not right but it's a better guess than Thalamus, as is Beyond Software, owned by East Midlands Allied Press (or EMAP to their friends), both companies were founded around the same time in late 1983. Obviously the correct answer is Argus Press Software because that's who this update is about.

A&F Software

Unit 8, Canal Side Industrial Estate, Woodbine Street East, Rochdale, OL16

A was Doug Anderson and F was Mike Fitzgerald and when they got together it was murder to establish a software house in Manchester. A&F Software is now mainly remembered for a single game, Chuckie Egg, but the company was more than a one-hit-wonder. It shares some similarities with Silversoft. Both companies were pioneers of the early computer games industry and struggled as the market became more established and professional in the mid-eighties, and finally sold out to a bigger brand. The first question, of course is, is the company called A&F or AF or A+F or A'n'F? The answer, it was known as all four at various times across its history. I'll try to use the correct version as we go on because I find that's the kind of perverse pedantry I find funny.

Domark

Ferry House, 51-57 Lacy Road, Putney, SW15

When I started this blog I diligently wrote out a list of companies I wanted to cover. Some companies went on the list because they hit my nostalgia buttons, some went on the list because they were big names and it would be odd if they were missing, some went on the list because I thought they might be of specific niche interest to some people, some went on the list because I had a story about them I wanted to tell, and -let's not beat around the bush here- some went on the list because I knew they would be easy. Domark didn't make that first list. Or the second one. Or a couple of the subsequent follow up lists. They didn't even make my backup in-case-of-unforeseen-emergencies list. It's clear I really like lists. What is less clear is, why is there a Domark-shaped hole in my nostalgia? 

Bug-Byte

Mulberry House, Canning Place, Liverpool, L1

Last year, on an intermittently showery day in December, I went for a walk round Liverpool. My route was carefully plotted and I managed to take in the ex-offices of Software Projects, Imagine, Odin, Thor, Denton Designs, and Bug-Byte. What I hadn't taken into account, because it was the early days of the blog, was this material effectively represented five months of updates and once it was spread out I'd be writing about my grand day out almost a year later. Still, here we are, ending with the company that began it all. This then is the final movement of my Liverpool Oratorio.