The Hunt For Artic House

Artic House, Main Street, Brandesburton, Driffield, YO25 

Right from the start, Artic was a company forever being put on and then taken off my to-do list. The problem was simple. Artic only had two addresses; one was a house and the other couldn't be located in the real world. This is suboptimal for a blog dedicated to tracking down and photographing the offices of old software houses. I kept a draft page on standby in case I turned up anything relevant. It sat in the background of this blog for a couple of years until one Sunday around the middle of 2024 I was in a ruthless mood and culled it and a load of others on the grounds they would never be used. So long, The Sales Curve. See you in hell, Aardvark Software. No room for you, The Electronic Pencil Company. Goodbye, Artic. And that was it. Deleted. Done. Dusted. I'd never follow Artic up now. Then I got an email. Most of what follows is Neil's fault.

Gargoyle Games

74 King Street, Dudley, DY2

TO THE STARS!

Birmingham, generally lagging behind Manchester and Liverpool for games programming is now making a sterling effort to catch up. Brand new company Gargoyle Games, has launched its first game for the 48K Spectrum. It's called Ad Astra (to the stars), and is a 3D shoot em up like you've never seen before. The 3D perspective view is quite astonishing - see the review in this issue. 

Questions in the House

It's there in black and white on page 15 of THE GUARDIAN (29 August 1985). "Questions were asked in Parliament." The questions were about US Gold's game Raid Over Moscow -tag line, "Play it like there's no tomorrow." Except THE GUARDIAN is wrong. The game was controversial in the UK, just ask Monsignor Bruce Kent of CND, but no questions were asked in the UK Parliament. It was in Finland where a communist MP questioned distribution of the game. This was disappointing to learn but I found myself wondering whether any of our MPs did ever talk about games or home computers. There's only one way to find out.

Gremlin Graphics

 Alpha House, 10 Carver Street, Sheffield, S1

It's the eve of the millennium and you fall into conversation with an 8-bit time traveller from 1985. "What happened to all the software companies?" The traveller wants to know. "What happened to Ocean?" "Gone," you tell the traveller. "Lost two years ago."
"US Gold. They must still be around."
You shake your head, "US Gold were taken over by Eidos, who were themselves formed out of Domark."
"Mirrorsoft! A company supported by Robert Maxwell's business empire must be flourishing!"
"Gone, and there's quite a story attached to that."
"Ultimate Play the Game?"
"Gone."
"Melbourne House?"
"Gone."
"I loved Highway Encounter. What happened to Vortex?"
"Gone," you sigh.
"Mastertronic?"
"Gone."
"A&F Software?"
"Gone."
"CRL?"
"Gone?"
"Hewson Consultants?"
"Gone."
"Beyond?"
"Gone."
The traveller looks frightened and lost. "Is there no one left?" They whisper.
"Oh yes," you answer, "there's Gremlin Interactive, although you'd have known them as Gremlin Graphics."
The traveller looks confused. "The Monty Mole company?"

Vortex Software

Vortex House, 24 Kansas Avenue, Salford, M5

I've written before that the foundation of this blog was a list of companies I wanted to cover for different reasons; some were big names, some had an interesting story, some were of niche interest, and some hit my nostalgia button. This is the latter. I've got a huge soft spot for Vortex Software. I spent hours playing T.L.L. and even more playing Highway Encounter. I love Highway Encounter. I think it's brilliant. It's a real neglected gem of a game as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't get talked about anywhere near enough when the ZX Spectrum is mentioned. It's a Top 10 title. It looks great. It plays great. Its got some really clever gameplay elements. And that ending! We'll get to the ending later.

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? 

The Edge/ Softek

12/13 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E

It seems silly to sit here and worry about whether I should write about Softek and their better known label The Edge, but that's exactly what I'm doing. I know it's silly. I don't have to write about anyone if I don't want to. I'm not a journalist. I have no obligation to history. I will suffer no consequences if I don't write about Softek, it's not like someone's going to drop an anvil on my head. Plus, I'd quite like to write about Softek. They were one of the first companies I thought of when I started planning this blog. They wrote some notable games. So why am I so worried? Because Softek's founder was Tim Langdell.

Ocean

6 Central Street, Manchester, M2

There's a running joke in the Mary Whitehouse Experience Encylopedia where Rob Newman gets increasingly frustrated at having to define simple words. I feel this entry for Ocean should read a bit like his definition of Tree. Ocean: "Don't be stupid you know who Ocean are. You know, Ocean. OCEAN! OCEAN! It's Ocean. Jesus..." The company is already well documented. There's a history of Ocean by Chris Wilkins and Roger Kean. Mark R Jones wrote Load Dij Dij which covers his experience working there and captures the excitement of going from an external observer of a company, to an insider. RETRO GAMER has half a dozen articles, there are umpty-hundred videos on Youtube about Ocean's best games and their worst and their history and their rise and fall. The BBC covered Ocean at least twice, in their notorious 1984 Commerical Breaks documentary, and they sent Keith Chegwin there to check it out in 1988. This blog entry might be redundant before its even begun.

Design Design / Crystal

125 Smedley Road, Manchester, M8
 

 "I look upon Design-Design as a viable commune," S. Brattel. 

There was always something different about Design Design (née Crystal). The games were great but the twiddly bits round the edges seemed more important; obscure references on high score tables, the password to SPECTACLE, was/is Big Simon taller than Kevin Toms, and so on. Design Design built a loyal fanbase on these details and through a good relationship with CRASH magazine cultivated a reputation as a subversive company who were seriously irreverent about games. I'm tap dancing around the word cult here, because that's a term normally associated with niche interests and Design Design were never niche.

Durell

Castle Lodge, Castle Green, Taunton, TA1

DURELL SOFTWARE ARE STILL IN BUSINESS! This is almost unreasonably exciting. Sure, there's quite a long list of companies who are still going, Elite, System 3, and Rare spring to mind, but they're often either mining their own past for nostalgia or they've moved on and are essentially unrecognisable. Durell on the other hand are still going, still have a nameplate outside the same building they were in the 1980s, and are still making software. Admittedly it's financial services software which is pretty dull but it feels like there's much more of a direct line to the company's history than there is with, say, Ultimate Play The Game. Robert White, who gave an interview to CRASH in 1986 (February 1986 page 39) is still listed on the Durell website as Founder and Technical Director. 

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.

Ultimate Play The Game / Ashby Computers and Graphics / Rare Limited

The Green, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, LE6

Ultimate Play the Game was the trading name of Ashby Computers and Graphics. You probably already know the name if you're interested enough to read this blog but not including Ultimate would be like writing about football teams and not covering Manchester United because they are too famous.

Their first game, Jetpac, was released in May 1983, initially for the 16k ZX Spectrum and followed by versions for the VIC-20 and BBC Micro. The lead time of magazines in 1983 was so long that the first review comes two months later in COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES issue 21 (July 1983 page 136) where the unnamed reviewer can't wait to tell us, "the tape loaded successfully first time and while the game was loading an impressive title screen was displayed."

Why?

My imagination was captured by the advert on page 89 of CRASH issue 47 (October 1987). It wasn't the far-out salaries (£10K a year to design games, imagine that!) but the accompanying picture. A futuristic cityscape showing a monorail delivering bright-eyed citizens to a multi-level plaza. This could only be the headquarters of Elite Systems Ltd. What an amazing, fantastic, futuristic place it was. How I wished I could live in Anchor Road, Walsall.