This is where we nostalgise about the BBC Micro and the lovely games we used to play on it. (Do not read if you hate privileged children in the early 80s)

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I just remembered Citadel - what a weird creepy game that was! Also search: the whole Play It Again Sam series and Repton. Especially Repton IV which let you make your own characters and levels and had it's very own programming language!

dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

CEETADEL CEETADEL CEETADEL

Wulf in Sabre Wulf to thread.

Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

I never could get that far in Sabre Wulf, beautiful game that it was. There was a screen with pink mountains and an invincible four-legged creature that I was never too sure about. Nice beginning music too.

dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 15:00 (twenty years ago)

My only access to the BBC micro was at school so it was just Mallory and Suburban Fox for me.

robster (robster), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

Anyone remember Frak? Killer Gorilla? One of the best games was Skirmish, also known as Joust to Spectrum gamers.

dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

play them again!

zappi (joni), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 15:10 (twenty years ago)

Arcadians! Holy moley shit!

dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

i hated Frak, i couldn't understand why it was so popular. i preferred the educational game where you type requests to a big red blob to make him do funny stuff.

Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 21:18 (twenty years ago)

We used to have a BBC micro in the TV room at my middle school, and so geeky kids like myself were still playing BBC Micro games well into 1996.

They were all shit.

Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

(Do not read if you hate privileged children in the early 80s)

will do

sexy truck, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

8 Bit Heaven

RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

elite!!!

stevie (stevie), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 22:55 (twenty years ago)

The only thing we did on our old BBC computers at school was play Granny's Garden, if we were lucky.

I don't recall the point of that game.

Paul Kelly (kelly), Thursday, 16 June 2005 02:41 (twenty years ago)

I, also, only came across the BBC computers at school. Things we did included:

played Granny's Garden
played Repton (occasionally)
learned to program in Logo
used a word processor called Folio

caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 16 June 2005 06:36 (twenty years ago)

Oh, that was only primary school. In secondary school, we used the survivors to:

play Chucky Egg
use some sensor-monitoring software to do chemistry and physics experiments. It rarely worked.

caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 16 June 2005 06:38 (twenty years ago)

oh, at last. someone mentions chuckie egg, restoring my faith in humanity.

ah, the BBC. my introduction to networking. how did it go again?

>*remote 221

[beat]

"sir! sir! my computer's been taken over! it keeps typing 'you are a twat' and then deleting it again!"

of course, what i didn't know was how to turn the remote-takeover *off*. IIRC even a ctrl-break didn't work. i was locked in the computer room until i worked it out. (*roff, incidentally.)

i had a spectrum at home, and wanted a BBC more than life itself. repton is an all-time classic; i can't believe nobody's mentioned revs; frac looked lovely but was unplayable; there was a game by superior that involved being in space, running along the surface of a planet; and what was the blue game where you could morph into a wizard or a big ball thing? shit, i remember trying to get it to work on an emulator the other year and failing miserably.

happy fucking days!

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 June 2005 06:47 (twenty years ago)

http://www.rubybay.com/users/drbeeb/screenshots/imogen.gif

imogen. that was it. when i was 11, i thought that was the coolest shit ever.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 June 2005 06:52 (twenty years ago)

Was Granny's Garden the one where you had to say "Yes" when the monster asked you if you wanted to be eaten?

What kind of a message for a child is that?

Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 16 June 2005 07:04 (twenty years ago)

On the very rare occasions when my best friend would allow me access to her BBC, we would play Facemaker. Now there's a pointless game.

Archel (Archel), Thursday, 16 June 2005 07:07 (twenty years ago)

All I can remember about Granny's Garden is that loading it (from tape, I think) took *ages*. It displayed a hex number in the corner of the screen to tell you how far it had got; the teachers were all rather surprised that I knew what hex was, and how to convert it to decimal.

(this was in first year of junior school, so I would have been ... um ...about 7, I think)

caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 16 June 2005 07:50 (twenty years ago)

Frak!

Teh HoBB (the pirate king), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:08 (twenty years ago)

i remember Galaga being fun.

oh how i wasted my computer studies lessons

Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:13 (twenty years ago)

i spent nearly all my time on bbc micros making programs that switched logical colours to make proto screen savers.

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:13 (twenty years ago)

I remember a lot of Hype when Elite came out. It was crap. The whole concept of buying and selling goods at different space stations wasn't that thrilling for an 11-year-old anyway, but on top of that I never once managed to dock at a space station, I always crashed or got shot, so I was never able to buy or sell anything. The most pointless game ever. Six minutes to load the game off cassette then ten minutes drifting pointlessly in space followed by instant death.

Teh HoBB (the pirate king), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:14 (twenty years ago)

The L Game? Is that what it was called? Kind of an adventure game, with lots of writing and little action.

I did my GCSEs in Business and Information Studies on a BBC. It was easier to add up spreadsheets with a calculator and tap the answers in the boxes than it was to let the computer do it for you.

Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:16 (twenty years ago)

did anyone else school have all the music programs: bones, airwolf, etc? usually displayed some rudimentary animation and played a surprisingly good version of a tv theme or eighties hit? oh, how the hours flew by in 1986.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:28 (twenty years ago)

I was a real cunt to my brother when we got a copy of Elite. "Hey let's play it together! I'll do the fighting - you can do the docking!"

Tom (Groke), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:31 (twenty years ago)

I think the BBC Welcome Tape deserves its own post. It had:

- Alphasort
- Bat and Ball (primitive breakout)
- Awful poem by Roger McGough
- BIORHYTHMS = totally unscientific theory accepted without question by Acornsoft! = best thing evar
- there were something like 15 programs but I can't remember any of the others.
- oh probably a typing tutor.

Tom (Groke), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:34 (twenty years ago)

Anyway, we had an Acorn Electron.

Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:39 (twenty years ago)

Ian McNaught-Davies to thread

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:04 (twenty years ago)

but on top of that I never once managed to dock at a space station, I always crashed or got shot, so I was never able to buy or sell anything.

Hahaha I had the exact same problem with Elite Frontier on the PC. I was hopeless.

Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:19 (twenty years ago)

but didn't Frontier have an auto-pilot docking mode?

Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:24 (twenty years ago)

Yeah but you had to pay for it!

Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:25 (twenty years ago)

i remember the auto-pilot being a bit shit really, if you set it to fly to a faraway planet and switched on the 'speed-up-time' buttons it would just crash you into the wrong side of the planet.

but it wasn't as annoying as the space battles, which were just impossible.

Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

Awful poem by Roger McGough

jesus, so there was. that's been buried (unsurprisingly) in the mists of my mind for many years.

as for elite/docking: it was a piece of piss when you got the hang of it. something to do with rotating slowly in the opposite direction to the space station ... or the same way ... and accelerating when it was at about 45 degrees ... hmm.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:45 (twenty years ago)

does anyone remember the "lander" game on the old archimedes??? it was GROUND BREAKING cos it was 3D, but I had no idea how to play it, it was hard to even survive, and also i had no clue of what the objective of the game was!

ken c (ken c), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

ken that was a demo by the elite guy - he went on to make the succesful "Virus" game using the code from that.

http://www.birdsanctuary.co.uk/virus/i.php

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 June 2005 10:10 (twenty years ago)

http://www.birdsanctuary.co.uk/images/virus/lander.gif

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 16 June 2005 10:10 (twenty years ago)

o god, the archimedes. my cousin's mate had one. i remember going round to his house in the summer of 1988 and being absolutely fucking blown away by "lander". it blew my tiny little mind. hoo.

awesome machine. i loved it. a tragedy that it never took off.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 June 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

blagger was fun as well. well: until you realised it was fucking impossible, spent hours trying to get off the first screen, and then got knacked immediately on the second.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 June 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

Boffin! Boffin was great. Trampolines, and a brolly, and later on, HUGE scary realistic looking spiders. I was dead good at it.

JimD (JimD), Thursday, 16 June 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

I think the BBC Welcome Tape deserves its own post. It had:
- Alphasort
- Bat and Ball (primitive breakout)
- Awful poem by Roger McGough
- BIORHYTHMS = totally unscientific theory accepted without question by Acornsoft! = best thing evar
- there were something like 15 programs but I can't remember any of the others.
- oh probably a typing tutor.

The best thing about it was the Acorn Owl rendition at the beginning and it made a weird noise.

I Used to trick my little sister into hitting the space bar to make the witch from Granny's Garden appear. Muahahahah!

dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 17 June 2005 00:03 (twenty years ago)

When I was younger I thought that if I spliced a whole load of BBC tape noise together I could invent weird game hybrids. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 17 June 2005 10:06 (twenty years ago)

i still have a strongarm riscpc in a trunk

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 17 June 2005 10:13 (twenty years ago)

i sold a complete set of riscOS programmers' manuals for a friend on eBay a few years back. they went for a surprisingly good price.

it's funny: despite having never owned a beeb or an archimedes, my nostalgia for them knows no bounds.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 17 June 2005 11:48 (twenty years ago)

Did anyone play Exile on the BBC? That was the best game ever, I swear. Grand Theft Auto was supposed to be breaking new ground for it's open ended gameplay but EXILE HAD THAT IN 1988 MOTHERFUCKERS. It amazes me they managed to fit a game that size into 32k - was almost as big as San Andreas. At least in my memories of it.

Steve.n. (sjkirk), Friday, 17 June 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

i think i threw out my riscos3 prog ref guides :-( they became largely redundant with the hypertext/stronghelp version. oh for wimp programming in basic again :-)

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 17 June 2005 12:45 (twenty years ago)

Exile for the PC

robster (robster), Friday, 17 June 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

Yeah I've seen that robster -- would be great if it got finished.

Steve.n. (sjkirk), Friday, 17 June 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

1 WELCOME
2 INDEX
3 KEYBOARD
4 SKETCH
5 CALCULATOR
6 ALPHASORT
7 POEM
8 TELEPHONE
9 BAT’N’BALL
10 MUSIC
11 CLOCK
12 PHOTO
13 PATTERNS
14 KINGDOM
15 BIORHYTHMS
16 MESSAGE

mzui (mzui), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

KINGDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tom (Groke), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

Jesus, what was Kingdom all about again?

One of my favourites was a text adventure called Terrormolinos where you had to go on holiday and it was absolutely impossible. Also, Hampstead!

dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:45 (twenty years ago)

hampstead is available all over the net innit.

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

http://ifarchive.flavorplex.com/if-archive/games/spectrum/

download melbourn.zip for:
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings (3 parts)
Shadows of Mordor
Hampstead
Terrormolinos
Dodgy Geezer (2 parts)
Sherlock
Mordon's Quest

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

beeb version at http://www.wurb.com/if/game/874 too

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:49 (twenty years ago)

christ, terrormolinos.

YOU ARE IN A HOUSE. THE TAXI IS OUTSIDE, BEEPING ITS HORN. YOU HAVE TO FIND SEVERAL McGUFFINS AND GET YOUR FAMILY INTO THE TAXI TO THE AIRPORT BEFORE YOU CAN EVEN BEGIN THE FUCKING GAME. EXITS LEAD NORTH, WEST.
>west

YOU ARE IN THE LIVING ROOM. YOU CAN SEE THE CAMERA.
>pick up ca

TOO LATE, OUT OF TIME. YOU SCORED 0 OUT OF A POSSIBLE 1. PLAY AGAIN?
>no thanks, i think i'll go and smoke fags down by the chip shop.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:50 (twenty years ago)

Too many evenings lost to The Hobbit. Never got past the spiders.

robster (robster), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

something to do with their eyes, IIRC. either a) you closed your eyes so you couldn't see them, or b) you attacked their eyes with the short sword. (well, it worked for everything else. except the goblin's dungeon, natch.)

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:55 (twenty years ago)

Lol @ Grimly.

YOU FINALLY MANAGED TO GET ALL THE NICKNACKS YOU NEEDED, CROSS THE ROAD WITHOUT GETTING RUN OVER, PUT YOUR RETARDED FAMILY IN THE CAR AND NOW YOU'RE ON THE PLANE. THERE IS A SICK BAG IN FRONT OF YOU AND AN AISLE RUNS TO THE NORTH AND SOUTH. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?
>take sick bag
WHAT SICK BAG?
>go west
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND GO WEST
>west
TOO LATE! A CAN OF SHAVING FOAM EXPLODES IN YOUR LUGGAGE WHICH IN TURN COCKS UP THE FUSELAGE OF THE AEROPLANE CAUSING IT TO HURTLE TO THE GROUND WHILE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY SHRIEK AND SHIT THEMSELVES IN FATAL PANIC. THAT'S THE END OF YOUR HOLIDAY!
PLAY AGAIN?
>ch."arcadians"

dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 17 June 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

Jesus, what was Kingdom all about again?

I think you controlled a Kingdom, and had to decide how much crops to plant each year in order to feed the growing population. But a river kept bursting its banks causing floods which would drown people and/or wipe out crops leading to starvation the following year. At least that's how I remember it.

Teh HoBB (the pirate king), Friday, 17 June 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

Oh god, those machines are the story of my life. I remember my grandad teaching me to read on the Acorn Electron I later inherited. And setting it up All By Myself. Reading the accompanying catalogue of Acornsoft programs, and wondering at the majesty of such titles as DateMaker and Go. There was a spreadsheet, too IIRC.

Then Granny's Garden at primary school, and fiendish-esque activities at Secondary with the networking. Teaching everyone to write !BOOT files that just happened to copy their passwords to a text file, while showing groovy menus with double-height text.

One day, a superuser account was left logged-in, and MRBIG was born.

Years later, I discovered an abandoned Master, complete with CUB monitor and disk drive, sitting in a field. Took home, cleaned it up, hurra hurra. Shift-Break, motherfuckers.

*I AM MRBIG

stet (stet), Friday, 17 June 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

heheheh, i knew you'd crop up here sooner or later.

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 17 June 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

I think you controlled a Kingdom, and had to decide how much crops to plant each year in order to feed the growing population. But a river kept bursting its banks causing floods which would drown people and/or wipe out crops leading to starvation the following year. At least that's how I remember it.

ah yes, there as a dyke in it i recall

dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 17 June 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

[waits for inevitable joke]

grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 17 June 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

What's ET short for?

Teh HoBB (the pirate king), Friday, 17 June 2005 21:15 (twenty years ago)

I'm not sure if that was the inevitable joke or not, but you can find the answer here.

Teh HoBB (the pirate king), Friday, 17 June 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

Teaching everyone to write !BOOT files that just happened to copy their passwords to a text file, while showing groovy menus with double-height text.

Oooooooooooooh yes

Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 17 June 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

One of my favourites was a text adventure called Terrormolinos where you had to go on holiday and it was absolutely impossible.

Argh, Terrormolinos! What a horrible, horrible game. All I remember is the sense of triumph from finally getting to the holiday destination, followed by sheer agony when I got killed three moves later because I went on the beach without any suncream. Melbourne House >>> utter bastards.

Philip Alderman (Phil A), Saturday, 18 June 2005 20:06 (twenty years ago)


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