The Fourth Dimension (4D) was a major

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 ( ...

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 ...

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 ...

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

and

RiscPC The Risc PC is Acorn Computers's RISC OS/ Acorn RISC Machine computer, launched on 15 April 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes. The Acorn PC card and software allows PC compatible software to be run. Like the Archimedes, the Risc PC co ...

between 1989 and 1998. Previously, The Fourth Dimension had been known as Impact Software, which specialised mainly in BBC Micro games. Some of 4D's staff had worked for

Superior Software Superior Software Ltd (also known as Superior Interactive) is a video game publisher. It was one of the main publishers for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers in the 1980s and early 1990s. It currently releases games for Microsoft Windo ...

. Notable release included ''

Cyber Chess ''Cyber Chess'' is a chess-playing computer program developed by William Tunstall-Pedoe. It was written for the Acorn Archimedes and published commercially by The Fourth Dimension. Development Evaluation of moves was tuned by use of a genetic a ...

'', ''Stunt Racer 2000'', '' Galactic Dan'' and ''Chocks Away''.

History

In 1989, The Fourth Dimension was founded by brothers Mark and Steve Botterill in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

. Originally it was called Impact Software. It released software for Acorn's 8-bit and 32-bit computer ranges. Following the demise of Acorn and the subsequent contraction of the

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archi ...

games market, The Fourth Dimension brand and rights to the

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

back-catalogue was acquired by CJE Micro's. In 2002, the publisher backed a scheme subsidising the cost of hardware for developers. In 2004, CJE Micro's sold the rights to the software to APDL, the Archimedes Public Domain Library.

Market focus

Although the Archimedes market was relatively small, it had a fast 32-bit RISC processor with a slim accelerated pipeline that encouraged fast graphics operations. Certain of 4D's games anticipate the 3D, first-person viewpoint style of graphics that was becoming popular on the much larger PC market at the same time. For example, ''E-type'' is a car racing game; ''Chocks Away'' is an air combat game with a two-player

dogfight A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Dogfighting first occurred in Mexico in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. Until at least 1992, it was a component in every majo ...

mode; and ''Galactic Dan''Archived a
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and th
Wayback Machine
is a primitive 1992

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...

with a pre-

Wolfenstein 3D ''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game '' Castle Wolfe ...

graphics style, combining a '' 3D Maze'' look with ray-traced sprites.

List of published games

* '' Apocalypse'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1990) * ''Arcade Soccer'' (Peter Gillett, 1989) * ''Birds of War'' * ''Black Angel'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1992) * ''Boogie Buggy'' ( Coin-Age, 1991) * ''Break 147 & Superpool'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1991) * ''Carnage Inc.'' (Coding: Chris & Stuart Fludger; Graphics: Andrew Jackson; Screen & puzzle design: Chris Fludger; Vector Graphics: Stuart Fludger 1993) * ''Cataclysm'' ( David Postlethwaite) * '' Chocks Away'' (Andrew Hutchings, 1990) * ''Chocks Away Extra Missions'' (Andrew Hutchings, 1991) * ''Chopper Force'' ( Andrew Norris, 1992) * ''

'' ( William Tunstall-Pedoe, 1993) * ''Custom McCoy'' (4 games chosen by buyer from list of appliable games) * ''Demon's Lair'' (Dr. Kevin Martin) * ''Drop Ship'' ( Andrew Catling, 1990) * '' The Dungeon'' (Martin Dennett & John Parker, 1993) * '' Enter The Realm'' (Audio, Visual & Code: Graeme Richardson, Music: Peter Gillett, 1991) * '' E-Type'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1989) * '' E-Type Track Designer'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1989) * '' E-Type Compendium'' ( Gordon J. Key) * '' E-Type 2'' ( Gordon J. Key) * ''The Exotic Adventures of Sylvia Layne'' * ''Galactic Dan'' (Coding: Ian Holmes; Graphics: James Davidson, 1992) * ''Grievous Bodily 'ARM'' (Software Engineering: Simon Hallam; Graphics: Sophie Neal; Music: The Byford Brothers, 1991) * ''Haunted House'' ( Gordon J. Key) * ''Holed Out!'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1989) * ''Holed Out Designer'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1990) * ''Holed Out Extra Courses Vol. 1 & 2'' ( Gordon J. Key) * ''Holed Out Compendium'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1991) * ''

Inertia Inertia is the idea that an object will continue its current motion until some force causes its speed or direction to change. The term is properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his first law ...

'' ( David Postlethwaite, 1990) * ''Logic Mania - Gloop, Blindfold, Atomix, Tilt'' (Robin Jubber, Dave Williams, 1996) * ''

Man At Arms A man-at-arms was a soldier of the High Medieval to Renaissance periods who was typically well-versed in the use of arms and served as a fully-armoured heavy cavalryman. A man-at-arms could be a knight, or other nobleman, a member of a kni ...

'' (Coding: Matthew Atkinson; Music: Peter Gillett, 1990) * '' Nevryon'' (Coding & Graphics: Graeme Richardson; Music: Peter Gillett, 1990) * ''

The Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

'' (1990) * ''Pandora's Box'' (Coding: Chris & Stuart Fludger; Graphics: Andrew Jackson; Additional Graphics: Chris Fludger; Title Music: Simon Carless, 1992) * ''

Powerband The power band of an internal combustion engine or electric motor is the range of operating speeds under which the engine or motor is able to output the most power, that is, the maximum energy per unit of time. This usually means that maximum a ...

'' ( Gordon J. Key, 1990) * '' Pysanki'' (Coding: Matthew Atkinson; Music: David Postlethwaite, 1990) * ''Quazer'' (1990) (Published as Impact Software) * ''Real McCoy'' Compendium series: :* ''Real McCoy 1'' - ''Arcade Soccer'', ''Quazer'', ''U.I.M'' and ''White Magic'' (1990) :* ''Real McCoy 2'' - ''Apocalypse'', ''Holed Out!'', ''Inertia'' and ''The Olympics'' (1991) :* ''Real McCoy 3'' - ''Drop Ship'', ''Nevryon'', ''Powerband'' and ''The Wimp Game''. :* ''Real McCoy 4'' - ''Cataclysm'', ''Galactic Dan'', ''Grievous Bodily 'ARM'' and ''X-Fire''. :* ''Real McCoy 5'' - ''Anti-Grav'', ''Chopper Force'', ''Demon's Lair'' and ''Pandora's Box''. :* ''Real McCoy 6'' - ''Bloodlust'', ''Carnage Inc.'', ''Silverball'' and ''Technodream''. * ''Saloon Cars'' ( Andy Swain 1991) * ''Saloon Cars Deluxe'' ( Andy Swain, 1992) * ''Saloon Cars Deluxe Extra Courses Vol. 1'' ( Andy Swain) * ''Spobbleoid Fantasy'' ( Graeme Richardson, 1995) * ''Stunt Racer 2000'' ( Fednet aka. Andrew Hutchings and Tim Parry, 1993) * ''The Time Machine'' ( Gordon J. Key) * ''U.I.M: Ultra Intelligent Machine'' * '' Virtual Golf'' ( Gordon J. Key) * ''White Magic'' ( John Whigham, 1989) * ''White Magic 2'' ( John Whigham, 1989) * ''The

Wimp Wimp, WIMP, or Wimps may refer to: Science and technology * Weakly interacting massive particle, a hypothetical particle of dark matter * WIMP (computing), the "window, icon, menu, pointer" paradigm * WIMP (software bundle), the web stack of Wind ...

Game'' ( Thomas E.H. Nunns, 1990) * ''X-Fire'' (The Soft Lads aka. Mark Neves, Martin Portman and Paul Carrol, 1992)

References

External links

The APDL homepage

4D at CJE Micro's
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fourth Dimension, The Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom