The best Speccy game by Procom Software: discussion

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PeteProdge
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The best Speccy game by Procom Software: discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

And so, still on page 9 of that first edition of Crash, we come to Procom Software. No, me neither. Pretty obscure, I reckon.

They came up with three tangible ZX Spectrum games:

Bonkers
Breakaway
Grid Master

ImageImageImage

Bermuda Triangle; Bricky Micky; Final Frontier; Magic Orchard and Time Bug are all classed as MIA.

So, a week from now, there'll be a poll here on those three games, unless you've got any special additions or corrections.
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MarkRJones1970
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Re: The best Speccy game by Procom Software: discussion

Post by MarkRJones1970 »

Do you not think these are a bit too obscure hence the discussion drought? 3 games isn't alot and, while I had a Spectrum from April 1984, I've never heard of, let alone played, any of these games.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Procom Software: discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

I came to the Spectrum in late 1987. By that time, a lot of the early 1980s minnow companies operating out of back bedrooms had disappeared, whereas those that were good enough, became giants. There was a friend at school who would let me rummage round his box of over 300 tapes, collected since 1983, where I stumbled upon a lot of quirky things from defunct labels. K'Soft in particular - A-Maze and Skuldugery were favourites. Oh, and then there's K-Tel's It's Only Rock N Roll But I Like It*, a pop music management game written in BASIC that was a proto-Rock Star Ate My Hamster. I still play that to this day, despite its obvious shoddyness.

Yes, nine times out of ten, it wasn't really worth playing these tapes for more than five minutes, but we had fun with a few of them. I've started a few polls here on software companies I've known sod all about, and sometimes it's generated a lot of interesting insight from those that know the games.

The 7-day-long 'discussion' phase happens because if I went straight to creating the 7-day-long poll, there could well be mistakes in it. Eagle-eyed Speccy users tend to point out when I've mistakenly included a business utility or a compilation, and there was a lengthy dissection of the ambiguity between Argus Press, Grand Slam and QuickSilva - which I'm grateful for.

* = This was actually one of 'mine'. I may not have owned a Spectrum until 1987, but there was a bag of old cassettes in my attic, 99% were music but I did come across Transylvanian Tower and It's Only Rock 'N' Roll on cassette.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Procom Software: discussion

Post by hitm4n »

PeteProdge wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 10:39 am Bermuda Triangle; Bricky Micky; Final Frontier; Magic Orchard and Time Bug are all classed as MIA.
So, a week from now, there'll be a poll here on those three games, unless you've got any special additions or corrections.
Or someone finds the MIA games !!!! How cool would that be :)
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
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hitm4n
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Re: The best Speccy game by Procom Software: discussion

Post by hitm4n »

MarkRJones1970 wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:16 pm Do you not think these are a bit too obscure hence the discussion drought? 3 games isn't alot and, while I had a Spectrum from April 1984, I've never heard of, let alone played, any of these games.
I think its neat to highlight every company like this, we are getting (almost) a timeline of early game releases from obscure companies and games we may never have heard of. Like you, i don't know any of these, but sometimes there are some very cool looking games that get dug up and we can jump and play any of them from the archive.
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
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