Spectrum Computing

In the early days of computing, you couldn't move for dodgy rip-offs of famous arcade games. Everyone offering their takes, I see you, 'Space Invasion'; 'Gobble Man', 'Command The Missile'...

Anyway, the software houses soon learnt to do things the legally and morally correct way when it came to coin-ops, and there was also another reason to do licenses, as movie and TV tie-ins helped shift units.

However, were there many unlicensed uses of a movie or a TV show? I'm including the Speccy's commercial era (1982-1993ish) and the 'modern' homebrew era.

My personal homebrew favourite is Aliens: Neoplasma, which is not specifically tied to a particular Alien film (although it's most likely Aliens I guess).



Last week, someone on this forum pointed out that Dinamic's Dustin - which most of us Brits know as a free giveaway on the Your Sinclair covertape - could be based on 1973 prison drama film Papillon, starring Dustin Hoffman. (Though I don't see much resemblance - admittedly, I've only viewed the trailer.)



TV-wise, there's Rouge Midget from The Guild, a text adventure that's based on... well, if you haven't figured out the title's unsubtle hint, the screenshot below should help!

Two spanish titles came to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W03bOkfqOTo
La Abadía del Crimen (Opera Soft) was heavily based on The Name of the Rose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc2eeL6rU9U
El Misterio del Nilo (Zigurat, re-released on UK as The Mistery of the Nile by Firebird) was inspired by The Jewel of the Nile (BTW, there is no adaptation for Romancing the Stone).

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Sun Nov 22, 2020 1:13 pmLast week, someone on this forum pointed out that Dinamic's Dustin - which most of us Brits know as a free giveaway on the Your Sinclair covertape - could be based on 1973 prison drama film Papillon, starring Dustin Hoffman. (Though I don't see much resemblance - admittedly, I've only viewed the trailer.)

I never saw Dustin as a movie adaptation. I guess it was conceived as a typical "object exchange" adventure set in a jail.

In Computer Emuzone (a spanish site about spanish games), there is an excerpt of an interview with a developer, that says:

12- ¿Es cierto que planteaste Dustin como la continuación no oficial de Phantomas? De ser así, el cambio en el apartado gráfico y la profundidad jugable fue brutal.

Sí, la idea inicial era que el protagonista había acabado en la cárcel y tenía que escaparse (no muy original, ¿verdad?)."

In (more or less) english:
"12- Is that true that you planned Dustin as an unofficial sequel to Phantomas? If so, the changes on graphics and play depth was awesome.

Yes, my first thought was the the protagonist got in jail and had to escape (not so original, true?)".

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Sun Nov 22, 2020 1:13 pm However, were there many unlicensed uses of a movie or a TV show? I'm including the Speccy's commercial era (1982-1993ish) and the 'modern' homebrew era.

As 'modern' homebrew we have a few Harry Potter titles as

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... _the_Orden

and others. The X-Files is too here:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... he_X_Files

Star Trek has an entire genre of games inspired by it, and several versions for the Speccy

The various 'Hi-low' games are loosely based on Brucey's Play Your Cards Right, the advert for this version makes clear its inspiration.

Couple spring to mind

A Nightmare on Robinson Street was a reskin of LA Drug Bust and essentially had you shooting the cast of Neighbours (given away on a Your Sinclair covertape)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-xkj-A ... e=emb_logo

Split Personalities by Domark was first released as "Splitting Images" but due to the copyright infringement, was re-released as "Split Personalities", although Domark did get the Spitting Image licence years later and made a poor one-on-one beat em up.

There's also this unofficial version of Octopussy, which looks better than A View To A Kill, but I've not actually played it yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Ca8gO ... e=emb_logo

Not sure if this would count, but Delta 4 made a spoof of the TV series Robin of Sherwood as Robin of Sherlock

Wolfcastle McBain is based on The Simpsons character Rainier Wolfcastle.

There's a czech text adventure about Indiana Jones IIRC.

Theres several games of The Prisoner.





I was always curious about the legitamcy of Death Start Interceptor. The loading screen acknowledges the Star Wars theme but then Star Wars the film is never blatently mentioned again.

Malice In Wonderland by the obscure label Lumpsoft is based on The Avengers TV series and there's also The Bimbles, by Intech, which takes its inspiration from The Wombles. There's also Beatle Quest, but I don't know if it's unofficial or not.

bluespikey wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:16 am I was always curious about the legitamcy of Death Start Interceptor. The loading screen acknowledges the Star Wars theme but then Star Wars the film is never blatently mentioned again.

The music is the only thing from the film that's licensed, and it's pretty obviously just a way of sidestepping the fact that they were never going to be able to get hold of a licence for the movie itself, because the exclusive rights had already been sold elsewhere. Even Lucasfilm games couldn't make an official Star Wars game for several years, so there was no way an obscure British start-up would get them.

It's worth noting that everything else in the game, despite being an obvious nod to the films and somewhat influenced by the Star Wars arcade game, is sufficiently generic so not to as not to infringe any of the many Star Wars trademarks.

In particular the 'Death Star' itself was an idea that Lucas borrowed from an obscure Japanese film - Attack from Space - so couldn't be trademarked.