Cassette 50

Cassette 50
Developer(s)	Various
Publisher(s)	Cascade Games Ltd
Platform(s)	Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Dragon 32, Oric 1, Oric Atmos, Vic 20, ZX81, ZX Spectrum
Release date(s)	1983
Genre(s)	Compilation
Mode(s)	Single-player

Cassette 50 (released in Spain as Galaxy 50 - 50 Excitantes Juegos) is a compilation of games published by Cascade Games Ltd in 1983, and is an early example of shovelware - computer software marketed primarily on the basis of its sheer quantity rather than other factors such as quality or playability.

The compilation was advertised in home computer magazines, with buyers also receiving a Timex digital calculator watch with each purchase.

According to the instructions, "the games will provide many hours of entertainment for all the family at a fraction of the cost of other computer games".^[1] The games were universally considered awful.^[2]

In an interview, Matthew Lewis, the author of Galaxy Defence, said he wrote the game when he was 14 and submitted it in response to a small, anonymous ad in a local newspaper. He was paid £10 for his game, but he had to give up all rights to it. Galaxy Defence took 12 hours to code and the graphics were done by his father, Ernest Lewis.^[3]

Content

The games featured differed depending on the platform.

Acorn Electron / Commodore 64 / ZX81

Attacker Barrel Jump Black Hole Boggles Cannonball Battle Derby Dash Do Your Sums Dynamite Exchange Force Field Galactic Attack Galactic Dog Fight Ghosts Hangman High Rise Inferno Intruder

Ivasive Action Jet Flight Jet Mobile Lunar Landing Maze Eater Motorway Nim Noughts and Crosses Old Bones Orbitter Overtake Parachute Phaser Planets Plasma Bolt Pontoon Psion Attack

Radar Landing Rats Rocket Launch Sitting Target Ski Jump Smash the Windows Space Mission Space Search Space Ship Star Trek Submarines Tanker The Force Thin Ice Tunnel Escape Universe

The games Exchange and The Force, although listed on the inlay, are missing from the Acorn Electron version, meaning only 48 games actually appeared on the cassette.

ZX Spectrum

Alien Alien Attack Attacker Barrel Jump Basketball Blitz Boggles Bowls Breakout Cargo Cars Cavern Crusher

Cypher Draggold Field Fishing Mission Frogger Galaxy Defence Inferno Jet Mobile Labyrinth Laser Lunar Lander Martian Knock Out Mazer Eater

Microtrap Motorway Munch Muncher Mystical Diamonds Nim Orbit Pinball Race Track Raiders Sketch Pad Ski Jump Ski Run

Skittles Solar Ship Space Mission Space Search Star Trek Stomper Tanks Ten Pins The Race The Skull Voyager

Reception

The games, almost without exception written in BASIC, were deemed to be of poor quality. They have been described as "so bad it caused physical discomfort",^[4] "beyond awful",^[5] and "a piece of crap collection".^[6] The poor quality of the games inspired the annual Crap Games Competitions (for example the comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition^[7] and the C64 Crap Game Compo^[8]) and a now-defunct site reviewing bad games.^[9]

See also

• Don't Buy This - Another infamous collection of poor ZX Spectrum titles (though it was purposely released by the publisher as a joke).
• Action 52 - A collection of 52 games on a single NES cartridge, in a similar spirit to Cassette 50 and with similarly poor reception.
• List of video games notable for negative reception
• Caltron 6 in 1 - A compilation of six games

References

1. Cassette 50 inlay text
2. Rewind Issue 1: Cassette 50 III
3. Cassette 50: the interview | pixeltron
4. Rewind Issue 1: Cassette 50 III
5. Blitz 50
6. TIGSource: Somewhere Beyond Cassette 50
7. The CSS Crap Games Competition
8. C64 Crap Game Compo 2005
9. Collection of links to Internet Archive for now-defunct site Somewhere beyond Cassette 50

External links

• Cassette 50 at World of Spectrum
• Cassette 50 at MobyGames
• Cassette 50 ZX81 Collection entry with the original inlay scan and program listing. An emulator is available on the site to play the game online.