Artic Software
Industry | Computer and video games |
---|---|
Headquarters | Brandesburton, England |
Products | Computer games |
In the early 1980s, Artic Software, also known as Artic Computing, was a software development company based in Brandesburton. The company's first games were for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer, but they expanded and were also responsible for various ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and Amstrad CPC computer games. The company was set up by Richard Turner and Chris Thornton. Charles Cecil, who later founded Revolution Software, joined the company shortly after it was founded, writing Adventures B through D. Developer Jon Ritman produced many of their games.
Initially packaging and distributing games themselves, some titles were picked up by Sinclair, who repackaged them under the Sinclair brand.
Adventures A through D were written for the ZX81 but were quickly ported to the ZX Spectrum platform on its release. By comparison with later Spectrum adventure games such as The Hobbit, they are basic and short. However they are considered by many to be the start of the adventure game genre on the Spectrum in particular and thus were an important step in the growth of adventure games.
Games
- Sword of Peace (1980)
- 1K ZX Chess (1981)
- ZX Chess (1981)
- Adventure A: Planet of Death (1981)
- Adventure B: Inca Curse (1981)
- Adventure C: Ship of Doom (1982)
- Adventure D: Espionage Island (1982)
- Adventure E: The Golden Apple (1983)
- Bear Bovver (1983)
- Adventure F: The Eye of Bain (1984)
- Adventure G: Ground Zero (1984)
- Mutant Monty (1984)
- Adventure H: Robin Hood (1985)
- Paws (1985)
- Web War (1985)
- The Great Wall (1986)
- Woks (1986)
- World Cup Football (1986)
Adventure Games Development
The parser in their adventures is of a basic 2-word design, such as "Use Axe". Other developers later produced multiple word parsers, as featured in games by Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls. However the programs from adventures A-F were built using a custom built design. Adventure G (Ground Zero) and later were built using The Quill, an Adventure Game Creator produced by Gilsoft.
Programming
References
- "Sinclair Infoseek - Artic Computing Ltd". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 2006-01-27.