Superior Software Ltd (also known as Superior Interactive) is a

video game publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ( ...

. It was one of the main publishers for the

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

and

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/ home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a ...

computers in the 1980s and early 1990s. It currently releases games for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

; mostly updates of its original games.

History

Superior Software was established in 1982 by Richard Hanson and John Dyson, two graduates of the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

, England. They had previously programmed software published by

Micro Power Micro Power was a British company established in the early 1980s by former accountant Bob Simpson. The company was best known as a video game publisher, originally under the name Program Power. It also sold many types of computer hardware and so ...

, and they wrote Superior's first four-game releases for the

: three were written by Hanson and one by Dyson. Describing the early days, Hanson commented: Superior mostly focused on the machines of

Acorn Computers Ltd The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne i ...

and also published software for other platforms including the

Oric-1 Oric was the name used by UK-based Tangerine Computer Systems for a series of 6502-based home computers sold in the 1980s, primarily in Europe. With the success of the ZX Spectrum from Sinclair Research, Tangerine's backers suggested a hom ...

and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

. Key management personnel have included Steve Botterill, Chris Payne and Steve Hanson. Major software developers Peter Johnson, Tim Tyler, Martin Edmondson, Nicholas Chamberlain, Kevin Edwards, David Hoskins, Matthew Atkinson, Chris Roberts, Tony Oakden, Peter Scott, Gary Partis, Peter Irvin, Jeremy Smith,

David Braben David John Braben (born 2 January 1964) is a British video game developer and designer, founder and CEO of Frontier Developments, co-creator of the '' Elite'' series of space trading video games, first published in 1984. He is also a co-foun ...

Ian Bell Ian Ronald Bell (born 11 April 1982) is an English former cricketer who played international cricket in all formats for the England cricket team and county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. A right-handed higher/middle order batsm ...

Geoff Crammond Geoff Crammond is a computer game designer and programmer who specialises in motor racing games. A former defence industry systems engineer, he claims to have had little interest in motor racing before programming his first racing game (Revs) ba ...

, Jonathan Griffiths and

Nick Pelling Nick Pelling is a British-born computer programmer and investigative writer best known as the creator of the 1984 game '' Frak!''."Desert Island Disks: Nick Pelling". ''Retro Gamer'' 26, pp. 82-85. Games Developed As Aardvark Software ...

have all produced software published by Superior, sometimes released under the joint Superior Software /

Acornsoft Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and util ...

brandname.

Releases

Their best-known games are the ''

Repton Repton is a village and civil parish in the South Derbyshire district of Derbyshire, England, located on the edge of the River Trent floodplain, about north of Swadlincote. The population taken at the 2001 Census was 2,707, increasing to 2,8 ...

'' series of games, which have sold over 125,000 units in total. Other notable Superior Software games for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron include ''

Overdrive Overdrive may refer to: Organizations * OverDrive, Inc., a digital distributor of entertainment media ** OverDrive Media Console, a media player developed by OverDrive, Inc. * Overdrive PC, a subsidiary of Velocity Micro Technology * Overdrive ...

'', ''

Citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. In ...

'', ''

Thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

'', ''

Galaforce ''Galaforce'' is a fixed shooter video game for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, written by Kevin Edwards and published by Superior Software in 1986. It spawned a sequel, ''Galaforce 2'' (1988), and later, ''Galaforce Worlds'' (2003). Gameplay ...

'', ''

Stryker's Run ''Stryker's Run'' is a video game designed by Chris Roberts and Philip Meller for the BBC Micro and BBC Master which was published by Superior Software in 1986. It was also later converted to the Acorn Electron. It is a 2D side-scrolling action g ...

'', '' Ravenskull'', ''Codename: Droid'' (sequel to ''Stryker's Run''), ''

Palace of Magic ''Palace of Magic'' is a platform game released on 1 November 1987 for the Acorn Electron and BBC Micro by Superior Software. Combining platform elements with problem solving, it similar gameplay to the earlier ''Citadel''. Both are early example ...

'', ''

Bonecruncher ''Bone Cruncher'' is a puzzle video game for the Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, and Commodore 64 first published by Superior Software in 1987. It uses the "rocks and diamonds" mechanics of ''Boulder Dash''. An Amiga version was released in 1988. Gam ...

'', ''Quest'', ''

Pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

'', ''

Exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

'' and ''

Ricochet A ricochet ( ; ) is a rebound, bounce, or skip off a surface, particularly in the case of a projectile. Most ricochets are caused by accident and while the force of the deflection decelerates the projectile, it can still be energetic and almost ...

''. They also published the seminal ''

Zarch ''Zarch'' (also known under its ported name of ''Virus'') is a computer game developed by David Braben (better known as the co-author of '' Elite'') in 1987, for the release of the Acorn Archimedes computer. ''Zarch'' started off as a demo call ...

'' for the

Acorn Archimedes Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. The systems are based on Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and the proprietary operating systems Arthur and RISC OS. The fi ...

, as well as follow-up games using the same engine, '' Conqueror'' and ''Air Supremacy''. As well as their high quality original games, Superior released a number of official Acorn conversions of big games from other systems including ''

Barbarian A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either Civilization, uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by som ...

'', ''

The Last Ninja ''The Last Ninja'' is an action-adventure game originally developed and published by System 3 in 1987 for the Commodore 64. It was converted to the Apple IIGS, MS-DOS, BBC Micro, and Acorn Electron in 1988, the Apple II in 1989, the Amiga, and ...

'', ''

Predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

'', ''

Hostages A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized, such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or refr ...

'' and ''

Sim City ''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, ''SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and were followed by several sequels and many other spin-off "''Sim' ...

''. Superior also published a number of educational and utility software titles including the

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...

program ''Speech!''. 150px, ''Play It Again Sam 2'' compilation (Acorn Electron cassette) The "Play It Again Sam" series of compilations included re-releases of their old titles, with four games for the usual price of one. The original ''Play It Again Sam'' featured four Superior games which had each made No. 1 individually (''Citadel'', ''Thrust'', ''Ravenskull'', and ''Stryker's Run''), while subsequent compilations increasingly featured games licensed from other software houses such as

Alligata Alligata Software Ltd. was a computer games developer and publisher based in Sheffield in the UK in the 1980s. The company was founded by brothers Mike and Tim Mahony and their father J.R. Mahony in 1983. They produced games for a number of hom ...

. These compilations also occasionally included some new games that were thought to be not quite up to the standard of their full price games. The series eventually ran to 18 issues for the BBC Micro, although the latest ones were released on disc only, well into the demise of the 8-bit scene with lower sales as a result. Superior, under the brandname Superior Interactive, now mainly develops and publishes software for computers and devices running

and

; and they have released several updated versions of some of their popular 1980s hits for these systems. This includes the original three ''Repton'' games, additional ''Repton'' levels, ''Galaforce Worlds'', ''Ravenskull'', ''Pipeline Plus'' and ''Ricochet''.

References

External links

Superior Interactive website

Superior Interactive profile
from

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

{{BBC Computer Literacy Project Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game publishers Acorn Computers RISC OS Video game companies established in 1982 1982 establishments in England

History

Releases

See also

References

External links