Tag: 1984Page 2 of 3

Computer Scrabble – “Are you also using a Scrabble® board?”

In 1938 in New York, Alfred Butts invented Scrabble. Well, he invented Criss-Cross Words, a board game based on an earlier game of his called Lexiko. It was…

Daley Thompson’s Decathlon – “All ten events”

When The Activision Decathlon was released in the UK in summer 1984, it got a popularity boost from coinciding with the Los Angeles Olympics. People often want to…

The Activision Decathlon – “Let the games begin”

As we saw with Match Point, many game developers in 1984 had to go out of their way with hidden messages to get their names on record. In…

Full Throttle – “The best bike in the race”

There is a motorbike game for the Spectrum, programmed by Mervyn J. Estcourt and released by Micromega, which is beloved enough to have been the subject of remakes…

Match Point – “Strawberries and cream”

There’s an interesting challenge played out across adverts every time the football World Cup or the Olympics comes around. Those events’ official sponsors play a lot for their…

The Lords of Midnight – “Do you want dawn?”

In 1982, Veronica Megler and Philip Mitchell (with help from Alfred Milgrom and Stuart Ritchie) made adventure game The Hobbit, and it wowed players with its cast of…

Sabre Wulf – “A huge Goliath animal”

In 1983, when Smash Hits magazine was central to UK pop music media and the “showbiz zap” that Crash magazine set out to align with, the Smash Hits…

Beach-Head – “Battle Stations”

From the point in 1983 where the Spectrum got firmly established as the UK’s most popular computer (so… my second post), the games I’ve written about have had…

Jack and the Beanstalk – “Magic bag of beans”

In 1902, cinema was still in its infancy, and people were still working out what they could do with it. One big breakthrough of the year was the…

Mugsy – “Da boys in the mob”

After the massive success of The Hobbit, the wait was on for Melbourne House’s successor. Before they’d even finished it, Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler had decided on…