Platinum Productions

Ayrshire

I'm slowly transferring residents of the Untraceables gulag to pages of their own (see the CGL article for a full explanation why). I was originally planning to move New Generation Software this week but they've unexpected turned out to be more complicated than expected, so they'll have to wait. We're off on a trip to Ayreshire instead. Can I learn anything new about Ocean and US Gold's preferred development house for converting games to the ZX Spectrum?

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.

Dragon / Dragonsoft

Kenfig Industrial Estate, Margam, Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, SA 13 

Dragon computers are one of the "nearly" stories of the UK hardware industry. A good design and early success undermined by a parent company in financial difficulties. My aunt brought one on clearance in 1984 because she wanted to get one of these new-fangled computer thingies everyone was going on about, and for a long time that was my only experience of the Dragon range. A bit of a joke. A cautionary tale about what happens when go into Dixons and ask the salesman what computer they recommend and trust them to sell you the latest technology.

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.

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. 

Denton Designs

30 Rodney Street, Liverpool, L1

When Imagine software went bang in 1984 it's ex-employees scattered across Liverpool; some went to Odin, some to Software Projects, and six went off and set up Denton Designs, their own development house. Steve Cain, Ally Noble, John Gibson, Karen Davies, Graham Everitt, and Ian Weatherburn were the original six. Karen Davies later told CRASH: 'We just sat down and rang round the major software companies offering our services... We were surprised at the reaction we got from companies -it was invariably favourable. Business wise people were naturally a bit wary at first, because of the Imagine reputation, but as programmers and artists we had a good grounding and reputation, and people had heard of us through the Imagine name." (June 1985 page 30)

Ariolasoft

Carl-Bertelsmann-Str 161, 4830 Gütersloh

In 1983 Ariola Records, the music division of German conglomerate Bertelsmann, set up a software company. This company was named, unsurprisingly, Ariolasoft and went to become the German distributor for Activision, Electronic Arts, and the Sega Master System. The company also published original games including Vermeer, Kaiser, and Ooze: Als die Geister mürbe wurden. Ariolasoft renamed itself United Software in 1990 and was taken over by the German division of MicroProse in 1993. Which is all very interesting but this blog is about the UK software industry and Britain hasn't been a part of Germany since Doggerland was submerged by the rising North Sea.

Odin Computer Graphics / Thor (Computer Software)

The Podium, Steers House, Canning Place, Liverpool, L1

In the lands of the north where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long, the men of the northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale.

Amstrad / Amsoft

Brentwood House, 169 King's Road, Brentwood, CM14

Brentwood not Brentford. Brentwood not Brentford. Brentwood. Brentwood. I've got a blind spot on the location of the Amstrad HQ which must be a result of reading too many Robert Rankin books.  I'd normally weed out mistakes before publishing but in this case I'm going to allow rogue Brentfords* to remain; to see how many there are. Let's call it a science experiment. Amstrad moved to Brentwood in 1984, 16 years after the company was founded and the same year the CPC 464 was launched.

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."

Elite

Anchor House, Anchor Road, Aldridge, Walsall, WS9

The spiritual home of this blog is Anchor Road, Walsall. I've written before about my long fascination with the artwork on Elite's 1987 job advert and it's Gerry Anderson-esque vision of Anchor Road as the Moonbase Alpha of the Midlands. A trip to Anchor House was inevitable at some point. It just took slightly longer than expected because The Great Petrol Panic of autumn 2021 put paid to my first set of plans. It's going to be a while before the Travel Tube brings us to Anchor Road and before that address, before in fact Elite was even called Elite, the company had a more humble origin.

Software Projects

 Bear Brand Complex, Allerton Road, Woolton, Liverpool, LS25

Another day, another Tesco superstore. This one is in Woolton, Liverpool and it's built on the site of the old Software Projects office, a place with the odd name of Bear Brand Complex.

The Bear Brand Complex was a massive factory in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton. Like Blenheim House, System 3's home in Pinner, it seems to have been taken for granted and despite being a huge blot local landmark there are surprisingly few photos. Google brings up some pictures of the building being demolished in June 1997, around the same time Blenheim House was also being knocked down and ironically Blenheim House met the same fate in the foundations of a Tesco superstore.