Tynesoft

≠Unit 3 Addison Industrial Estate, Blaydon, Tyne & Wear, NE21

Tynesoft is my story of failure, hope, failure, more hope, more failure, a bit more hope, and a disappointing final near miss. The company was always on my would-be-nice-to-do list but I just couldn't justify a trip to Newcastle upon Tyne. The city is just too far out of my normal orbit to be practical. So I set the company aside, which was a shame because it's definitely one I wanted to cover. (Failure).

State Soft

Business & Technology Centre, Bessemer Drive, Stevenage, SG1

This is where I rectify a mistake made in the planning stages of this blog. I wanted an early entry to cover a company responsible for a notable Commodore 64 game, and Boulder Dash was always an unmistakably C64 title for me; probably because of trips to a friend's house where the game was always on the menu. However because my background is the C64's bitter rival the ZX Spectrum I defaulted to the World of Spectrum entry for my research and concluded Front Runner was solely responsible for all UK versions of Boulder Dash. It wasn't. It turns out Boulder Dash in the UK has the most convoluted licencing history possible with every version released by a different company; C64 (State Soft), Spectrum (Front Runner), Amstrad (Mirrorsoft), BBC (Tynesoft), MSX (Orpheus). It's tempting to wonder what First Star (the original USA publishers) were thinking but I suspect they were thinking, "cor, aren't we making a lot of money licencing this game."