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Wizball
''Wizball'' is a shoot 'em up written by Jon Hare and Chris Yates (who together formed Sensible Software) and released in 1987 originally for the Commodore 64 and later in the year for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Versions for the Amiga and Atari ST were released in the following year. Wizball was also ported to IBM PC compatibles ( CGA) and the French Thomson MO5 8-bit computer. ''Wizballs more comical sequel, ''Wizkid'', was released in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and IBM PC. Gameplay ''Wizball'' is set in the once colourful realms of Wizworld, where the evil Zark has stolen all the colour, making it dull and gray. It is up to Wiz and his cat Nifta to restore it to its former brilliance as Wizball and Catellite. ''Wizball'' is a scrolling shooter inspired by ''Gradius'' with an additional collection dynamic. It is a horizontally scrolling game taking place over eight levels, which involves navigating around a landscape and shooting at sprites. However, the aim of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sensible Software
Sensible Software was a British software company founded by Jon Hare and Chris Yates that was active from March 1986 to June 1999. It released seven number-one hit games and won numerous industry awards. The company was well known for the exaggeratedly small sprites as the player characters in many of their games, including ''Mega Lo Mania'', ''Sensible Soccer'', ''Cannon Fodder'', and ''Sensible Golf''. History 8-bit era Sensible Software was formed in Chelmsford, Essex in 1986 by two former school friends, Jon Hare (nicknamed Jovial Jops) and Chris Yates (nicknamed Cuddly Krix). They worked for 9 months at LT Software in Basildon, and started Sensible Software in March 1986. Sensible initially released games for the ZX Spectrum and later the Commodore 64, clinching market praise with '' Parallax'', '' Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit'', and '' Wizball'' (later to be voted Game of the Decade by ''Zzap!64'' magazine). At the time, the pair's output was well known among gamers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jon Hare
Jon "Jops" Hare (born 20 January 1966, Ilford, Essex, England) is an English computer game designer, video game artist, musician and one of many founder members of the early UK games industry as co-founder and director, along with Chris Yates, of Sensible Software, one of the most successful European games development companies of the late 1980s and 1990s. In 2006 the Sensible Software game Sensible World of Soccer, for which Hare was Creative Director and Lead Designer, was entered into a Games Canon of the 10 most important video games of all time by Stanford University, it was the only game developed in Europe to make the list which also included Spacewar!, Star Raiders, Zork, Tetris, SimCity, Super Mario Bros. 3, Civilization, Doom, and the Warcraft series. Hare has the unique distinction of a #1 football game in each of 4 consecutive decades MicroProse Soccer 1988, Sensible World of Soccer 1994, Sensible Soccer (mobile) 2004 and Sociable Soccer 2019, developed by Tower ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ocean Software
Ocean Software Ltd was a British software development company that became one of the biggest European video game developers and video game publisher, publishers of the 1980s and 1990s. The company was founded by David Ward and Jon Woods and was based in Manchester. Ocean developed dozens of games for a variety of systems such as the ZX Spectrum, Oric#Oric-1, Oric 1, Commodore 64, Dragon 32/64, Dragon 32, MSX, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 16, Atari ST, Amiga, IBM PC compatible, IBM PC, BBC Micro and video game consoles, such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Master System and Sega Genesis, Sega Mega Drive. History Early titles Jon Woods and David Ward created Spectrum Games as a mail-order business in 1983 after being inspired by the success of Liverpool-based software houses Imagine Software, Bug-Byte and Software Projects. Their initial catalogue was based around clones of arcade games like ''Frogger'' and ''Missile Command'' for various ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Galway
Martin Galway (born 3 January 1966, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is one of the best known composers of chiptune video game music for the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum. His works include ''Rambo (1985 video game), Rambo: First Blood Part II'', ''Comic Bakery'' and ''Wizball''s scores, as well as the music used in the loader for the C64 version of ''Arkanoid''. Career Galway was the first musician to get published with Sampling (music), sampled sounds on the Commodore, with the theme for the ''Arkanoid'' conversion. When asked about how he did it, he answered: I figured out how samples were played by hack (technology slang), hacking into someone else's Source code, code... OK, I admit it... It was a drum synthesizer package called Digidrums, actually, so you could still say I was the first to include samples in a piece of music. ... Never would I claim to have invented that technique, I just got it published first. In fact, I couldn't really figure out where they got the sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Games Machine
''The Games Machine'' is a video game magazine that was published from 1987 until 1990 in the United Kingdom by Newsfield, which also published ''CRASH'', ''Zzap!64'', ''Amtix!'' and other magazines. History The magazine ran head to head with Future's recently launched ''ACE'' and EMAP's long running ''C&VG'' magazines. Unhappy with the profits from the title Newsfield decided to end the title in 1990. However Newsfield would, more or less, continue with a multi format magazine with '' Raze''. This new title would concentrate on the ever rising consoles like the Mega Drive as well as the established NES and Master System. ''The Games Machine'' in Italy A magazine with the same name is still being published in Italy. While it started as an Italian translated version of the British magazine, it currently publishes original articles, and is one of the best selling PC games magazines in Italy. References External links Archived The Games Machine magazines on the Internet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore User
''Commodore User'', known to the readers as the abbreviated ''CU'', was one of the oldest British Commodore magazines. With a publishing history spanning over 15 years, it mixed content with technical and video game features. Incorporating ''Vic Computing'' in 1983 by publishers EMAP, the magazine's focus moved to the emerging Commodore 64, before introducing Amiga coverage in 1986, paving the way for Amiga's dominance and a title change to ''CU Amiga'' in 1990. Covering the 16-bit computer, the magazine continued for another eight years until the last issue was published in October 1998 when EMAP opted to close the magazine due to falling sales and a change in focus for EMAP. The magazine also reviewed arcade games. Timeline Carrying on from where ''Vic Computing'' left, ''Commodore User'' was launched in October 1983, with an initial preview issue in June. Initially the magazine contained what was referred to as the serious side of computing, with programming tutorials, mac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Retro Gamer
''Retro Gamer'' is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Launched in January 2004 as a quarterly publication, ''Retro Gamer'' soon became a monthly. In 2005, a general decline in gaming and computer magazine readership led to the closure of its publishers, Live Publishing, and the rights to the magazine were later purchased by Imagine Publishing. It was taken over by Future plc on 21 October 2016, following Future's acquisition of Imagine Publishing. History The first 18 issues of the magazine came with a coverdisk. It usually contained freeware remakes of retro video games and emulators, but also videos and free commercial PC software such as ''The Games Factory'' and '' The Elder Scrolls: Arena''. Some issues had themed CDs containing the entire back catalogue of a publisher such as Durell, Llamasoft and Gremlin Graphics. On 27 September 2005, the magazine's original p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallax Scrolling
Parallax scrolling is a technique in computer graphics where background images move past the camera more slowly than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D scene of distance. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera technique used in traditional animation since the 1930s. Parallax scrolling was popularized in 2D computer graphics with its introduction to video games in the early 1980s. Some parallax scrolling was used in the arcade video game ''Jump Bug'' (1981). It used a limited form of parallax scrolling with the main scene scrolling while the starry night sky is fixed and clouds move slowly, adding depth to the scenery. The following year, ''Moon Patrol'' (1982) implemented a full form of parallax scrolling, with three separate background layers scrolling at different speeds, simulating the distance between them. ''Moon Patrol'' is often credited with popularizing parallax scrolling. '' Jungle King'' (1982), later called ''Jungle Hunt'', also had par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screenshot Of The Commodore64 Version Of Wizball
screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display. Additionally, screenshots can be captured by an external camera, using photography to capture contents on the screen. Screenshot techniques Digital techniques The first screenshots were created with the first interactive computers around 1960. Through the 1980s, computer operating systems did not universally have built-in functionality for capturing screenshots. Sometimes text-only screens could be dumped to a text file, but the result would only capture the content of the screen, not the appearance, nor were graphics screens preservable this way. Some systems had a BSAVE command that could be used to capture the area of memory where screen data was stored, but this required access to a BASIC prompt. Systems with composite video output could be connec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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