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Crystal Computing
Crystal Computing, later renamed Design Design, was a British video game developer founded in 1982 by Chris Clarke and Ian Stamp while students at the University of Manchester. Graham Stafford, Neil Mottershead, Simon Brattel and Martin Horsley, joined the company as it expanded.''Popular Computing Weekly'', 26 January-1 February 1984 (p.26), Sunshine Publications Ltd.Rebirth of the Things: Design Design, ''CRASH'', issue 8 (p.88), Newsfield Publications, 1984 The company's first software release was a compilation of games for the Sinclair ZX81, though it was with the ZX Spectrum that Crystal found its greatest success. A deal with the machine's manufacturer Sinclair to distribute Crystal's ''Zeus Assembler'' gave the company sufficient funds for a major marketing campaign for their next product, ''Halls of the Things'', an arcade adventure game that became their most successful title. Clarke left in 1984 to join Artic Software, where he worked on the "business side", before collab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to the west. The two cities and the surrounding towns form one of the United Kingdom's most populous conurbations, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which has a population of 2.87 million. The history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman Britain, Roman fort (''castra'') of ''Mamucium'' or ''Mancunium'', established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers River Medlock, Medlock and River Irwell, Irwell. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorialism, manorial Township ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jon Ritman
Jon Ritman is a game designer and programmer notable for his work on 1980s computer games, primarily for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC home computers. His first experience with a computer was when he was 13, his first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 he bought in 1981. His first game, ''Namtir Raiders'' for the ZX81, gained its name from his surname reversed. He first drew attention with his games ''Bear Bovver'' and ''Match Day'' for the ZX Spectrum. In 1988, Ritman was voted Best Programmer Of The Year at the Golden Joystick Awards. In 2014 Ritman appeared in the documentary feature film ''From Bedrooms to Billions'', which tells the story of the British video game industry from 1979 to its release. Games *''Namtir Raiders'', Artic *''Cosmic Debris'', Artic *''3D Combat Zone'', Artic *''Dimension Destructors'', Artic *''Bear Bovver'', Artic *'' Match Day'' series, Ocean *''Batman'', Ocean *'' Head over Heels'', Ocean *'' Monster Max'', Rare/ Titus *''Super Match Soccer'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). It has been published by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro) since 1997. The game was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game ''Chainmail'' serving as the initial rule system. ''D&D'' publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry, and also deeply influenced video games, especially the role-playing video game genre. ''D&D'' departs from traditional wargaming by allowing each player to create their own character to play instead of a military formation. These characters embark upon adventures within a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Master (DM) serves as the game's referee and storyteller, while maintaining the setting in whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Invaders
is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and set the template for the shoot 'em up genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser to earn as many points as possible. Designer Nishikado drew inspiration from North American target shooting games like '' Breakout'' (1976) and '' Gun Fight'' (1975), as well as science fiction narratives such as the novel '' The War of the Worlds'' (1897), the anime '' Space Battleship Yamato'' (1974), and the movie '' Star Wars'' (1977). To complete development of the game, he had to design custom hardware and development tools. Upon release, ''Space Invaders'' was an immediate commercial success; by 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion (equivalent to over adjusted for inflation ), with a net p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteroids (video Game)
''Asteroids'' is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases. ''Asteroids'' was conceived during a meeting between Logg and Rains, who decided to use hardware developed by Howard Delman previously used for ''Lunar Lander''. Asteroids was based on an unfinished game titled ''Cosmos''; its physics model, control scheme, and gameplay elements were derived from '' Spacewar!'', '' Computer Space'', and '' Space Invaders'' and refined through trial and error. The game is rendered on a vector display in a two-dimensional view that wraps around both screen axes. ''Asteroids'' was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imagine Publishing
Imagine Publishing was a UK-based magazine publisher, which published a number of video games, computing, creative and lifestyle magazines. It was founded on 14 May 2005 with private funds by Damian Butt, Steven Boyd and Mark Kendrick, all were former directors of Paragon Publishing, and launched with a core set of six gaming and creative computing titles in the first 6 months of trading. It was taken over by Future plc on 21 October 2016. In October 2005, it had acquired the only retro games magazine Retro Gamer, after its original publisher, Live Publishing went bankrupt. Early in 2006, it further acquired the rights to publish a considerable number of titles including gamesTM, Play, PowerStation, X360, Digital Photographer and iCreate, from the old Paragon Publishing stable of magazines when owner Highbury House Communications went into liquidation, following Future Publishing's withdrawal of its offer to buy the company, due to threats of a monopoly-investigation by t ... [...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 origina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Image Works
Image Works was a British video game publisher that served as a publishing label for Mirrorsoft between 1988 and 1992, when the parent company went bankrupt. History The first two games published under the Image Works label were '' Fernandez Must Die'' and '' Foxx Fights Back''. Image Works notably became the European publisher for all the titles developed by The Bitmap Brothers, starting with their second game '' Speedball'', until The Bitmap Brothers founded their own publishing brand Renegade Software. Over the course of its existence, Image Works also acquired the publishing rights to film adaptations from the ''Back to the Future'' and ''Predator'' franchises, as well as home computer ports of arcade and console games such as ''Passing Shot'', ''Cisco Heat'' and the first two ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' games by Konami: these ports and adaptations were consistently released on all the Western 8-bit and 16-bit computer systems supported by the publisher. Until the demi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bloodwych
''Bloodwych'' is a dungeon role-playing video game, a dungeon crawler, developed for the Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum. Its box featured artwork by Chris Achilleos. The plotline identifies the player as a champion of Trazere who, after recruiting up to three fellow champions, travels through dungeons and mazes fighting creatures along the way to find and destroy the evil Zendick, and banish the Lord of Entropy. Development The development of Bloodwych has been well documented by Richard Hewison, who was the Project Manager for the game at the time at Mirrorsoft, in his article titled "The Trazere Trinity". Bloodwych began development on the Commodore 64, during Anthony Taglione's (Tag) time at university in Reading, where he had gained a keen interest in Dungeons & Dragons, and where friend (and eventual Bloodwych artist and designer) Pete James drew initial screens for a first person 'chess-like' game. After further inspiration from playin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domark
Square Enix Limited (formerly Domark Limited and Eidos Interactive Limited) is a British subsidiary of the Japanese video game company Square Enix, acting as their European publishing arm. The company formerly owned ''Tomb Raider'', which was in development under CentreGold in 1996, and had acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, among numerous other assets, until 2022. Square Enix Limited and fellow group company Square Enix Incorporated shared "Phil" Rogers as CEO and other executives from 2013 to 2022. The company was founded as Domark in 1984 by Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley. In 1995, it was acquired by Eidos plc and merged with Simis and Big Red Software to create the subsidiary Eidos Interactive the following year. Ian Livingstone, who held a stake in Domark, became deputy chairman of Eidos and stayed in various roles, until his departure from the company in 2013. In 2005, Eidos plc was in turn acquired by British games publisher SCi. The combined company, SCi Entertainmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spitting Image (video Game)
''Spitting Image'' is one-on-one fighting game released in 1989 featuring characters from the ''Spitting Image'' puppet show. Developed by Walking Circles and published by Domark, it was available for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Amiga. at Lemon Amiga Gameplay According to the game's preamble, a has determined that within the next seven years, there will be a which is instigated by a "mysterious leader"; so terrible that the |
The Living Daylights (video Game)
''The Living Daylights'' is a run and gun video game adaptation of the 1987 James Bond film ''The Living Daylights''. It was the second Bond game published by Domark following 1985's poorly received ''A View to a Kill: The Computer Game''. The game was released for all major platforms at the time and developed by De Re Software (Atari 8-bit), Exasoft (BBC Micro), Sculptured Software (Commodore 64) and Walking Circles (Amstrad CPC/PCW, MSX, ZX Spectrum) from a design by Richard Naylor of Domark. Legacy The game was re-released as a light gun shooter on various cassette tapes with the ZX Spectrum 007 Action Pack. The plot was greatly rewritten, and explained on narration audiocassettes by Desmond Llewelyn Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn (; 12 September 1914GRO Register of Births: DEC 1914 11a 490 NEWPORT M. – Desmond W. Llewelyn, mmn = Wilkinson – 19 December 1999GRO Register of Deaths: JUN 2000 A70E 247 EASTBOURNE – Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn, D ... as Q. See also * Outl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
