UK Games

The United Kingdom has a large gaming industry. Main differences from the US are genres (near-lack of FPS and RTS, but also puzzle games) and the high number of games where you can play "bad guys" (gangsters, pirates, or a dungeon keeper).

Besides, British designers tend to games where your influence is only indirect. In Dungeon Keeper, you cannot tell your minions what to do. In Sentinel, moving around is done in a rather roundabout way. And in Archipelagos…ah well. I never really figured that game out.

The Beginnings

It is often forgotten that computers are far more an English than an American invention. There was Charles Babbage in the 19th century. There was Alan Turing. There was Colossus, a mechanical computer using telephone switches, built to crack German codes in WW II. And later, before the home computer boom started, chess computers were popular in the UK.

NIMROD	Game Computer	Nim	51	Ferranti International plc
OXO	EDSAC	Tic-Tac-Toe	52	A.S. Douglas
Life	DEC PDP-7		70	M. J. T. Guy and S. R. Bourne

The Home Computer Boom

The eighties were dominated by domestic micros, the Acorn BBC, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC. The Commodore 64 was fairly popular too, while the Apple ][ was nearly irrelevant. The ports were probably made for the US market only.

Awari	BASIC	Mancala	78	Geoff Wyvill
Reversi (BBC)		Othello	81	Ian Bell
Chuckie Egg		Arcade	83	Nigel Alderton
Stonkers		RTS
Valhalla		Adventure
The Great Space Race			84
Kalah (Talent)		Mancala		Andrew Colin & Mike Masters
Acheton		Adventure		IBM 3084 1978
Elite
Animated Strip Poker		Strip Poker	85
The Fourth Protocol		Adventure
Komplex		Arcade

Decline of the Sinclair

In the second half of the 80s the Sinclair begins to lose its dominant position. Games are now often developed for the Commodore 64 and ported to the Sinclair afterwards, it used to be the other way round. The Last Ninja never made it to the Sinclair at all.

The Amstrad CPC never gains the importance in its home country that it has in France, but it has become an important secondary platform. And slowly the 16-bit platforms begin to establish themselves, they, too, still mostly as secondaries—yet.

Samantha Fox Strip Poker	Strip Poker	86
Elite		86
Acheton	Adventure	87	IBM 3084 1978
Ayo	Mancala		Daniel J. Bishop
Impact!	Breakout		John Dale & Spiny Norman
Krakout	Breakout
Nether Earth	RTS
Rana Rama	Gauntlet		Steve Turner
The Last Ninja	Action
The Sentinel
Strip Poker II Plus	Strip Poker	88	Anco
Infection	Ataxx		Galley & Crummack
TRAZ	Breakout
Xenon	Shoot-'em-up		Bitmap Brothers
Chuckie Egg	Arcade		Nigel Alderton
Elite
Rimtrix	Puzzle		Richard L. Wright

The Amiga Takes Over

1989 saw the first British games released on 16-bit platforms only: Archipelagos and Interphase. Pretty fast, the Amiga became the primary platform, Amiga-centric developers like The Assembly Line and Team17 emerged, and they achieved a mastery on this platform that was unmatched. Arguably, Pipe Mania and Lemmings are the main heritage of the Amiga to the gaming world in general, both of them were UK games.

Like the Apple ][ before it, the Macintosh has remained irrelevant for UK gaming. Few games were ported at all, sometimes the ports are rather bad (Caesar) or were done in the US (Pipe Dream). I have yet to find a UK game that was originally developed for the Macintosh.

Archipelagos

Mike Jones

John Dale & Spiny Norman

Rick Dangerous

Bitmap Brothers

Bitmap Brothers

SNES

Puzzle

Loopz

NES

Puzzle

Pipe Mania

NES

Puzzle

Rick Dangerous II

Graham Cluley

Strategy

Ian Heath

Ian Heath

Graham Cluley

strat

Team17

Team17

Paul Margetson

David Tierney

The End of 8-bit

While the Amiga had been the main platform since 1989, most games were still ported to the old 8-bit platforms. By 1992, this practice had come to an end. The Atari ST was mostly dropped, too; games were released on Amiga and PC, or on Amiga alone. At the same time, there is a distinct shift in the character of the games. They are now less unique, fit better into the well-known categories.

And from 1992 on, we see the first independent PC games, as yet by freeware and shareware developers only.

Teserae		Tetris	92
Crime City		Adventure
Caesar		strat
Addix 2.0		MaxIt		Adrian Millett
Blitz		Checkers		Adrian Millett
OverKill		Shoot 'em up		Ste Cork
Tiles		Mahjongg		Daniel G. Rigal
13 Out		Card Solitaire		Philip B. Cook
Kye		Puzzle		Colin Garbutt
Beneath a Steel Sky		Adventure	93	Now freeware
Body Blows		Fighter		Team17
Lemmings 2: The Tribes	SNES	Puzzle
Mancala (Tower)		Mancala
Drop 'em		Tetris		Alex Hornby
Swell Othello		Othello		Lyle Conn, Don Cross
4 Play		Connect Four		Andy Smith
Drop-It		Connect Four		Adrian Millett
HDS Hi-Lo		Cards		Roderick A. Begbie
Laserstrike		Puzzle		Kevin Ng
Wa-Tor		Life		Warren L. Kovach
WinRoids		Asteroids		Stephen Baxter
WormWorld		Puzzle		Kevin Ng
All New World of Lemmings		Puzzle	94	aka The Lemmings Chronicles
Interactive Girls		Adventure
Darkmere		RPG		Mark Jones
Pipetris		Tetris
Tautology		Shisen-Sho		Reservoir Gods
Chickie Egg		Remake		Steve McRae
Sidetris		Tetris		Adrian Millett
Racer 1.9		Racing		Adrian Millett
Transport Tycoon	PSX	strat
Renju		Gomoku		Adrian Millett
XFigure		Puzzle		Alan Saul

A DOS Intermezzo

1994 had seen the first professional British DOS game, Transport Tycoon. Now, for a short while, DOS becomes the main platform. Due to the late adoption of this platform, practically all the original commercial DOS games from the UK run in SVGA.

Blue Ice		Adventure	95
Caesar II		strat
Transport Tycoon Deluxe		strat
3D Lemmings	PSX	Puzzle
Dynamo		Checkers		Adrian Millett
Brigzee 2.2		Yahtzee		Mark H. Briggs
Code Breaker		Mastermind		R.D. McDermid
Defendroid		Defender		Glen Summers
Lunacy		Puzzle		Kevin Ng
Pudge		Puzzle		Damon Chaplin
Tactix		strat		Mark Summerfield
Worms		Artillery		Team17
Alien Breed 3D		FPS		Team17
Alien Breed 3D II		FPS	96	Team17
Carnage Master		Action		Andrew Robinson
Genocide		Artillery		James Payne
Invaders 1978		Space Invaders		James Eibisch
Powball		Breakout		Anthony Hamilton
Z		RTS		Bitmap Brothers
Dodger		Arcade		Ivan Mackintosh
Gems 1.4		Columns		Kurt Lundqvist
Mah Jongg – The REAL Game!		Mahjong		Berrie Bloem
Slay		strat		Sean O'Connor
Fracas		Bomberman	97	Geckosoft
Repton 3 Electron		Remake		Wayne Marland
Constructor	PSX	strat
Dungeon Keeper		strat
Poolster		Billiard		James H. Clark

Finally, Windows

Since 1998, just like everywhere else, Windows is the dominating platform in UK game development, yes, except for the occasional console title (consoles have always played a greater role here than they have on the Continent), practically the only platform. Even the hobby programmers have dropped DOS to a far greater extent than it has happened elsewhere. Every single one of the DOS games below is some sort of retro remake. The same is not true, for example, for Germany in the same period.

Digger Remastered		Digger	98	Andrew Jenner
Styx Remastered		Qix		Andrew Jenner
Stop the Bus		Cards		Martin Davidson
Counter		Othello		Tony Sewell
Edge Reversi		Othello		Steve Maughan
Sentinel Returns	PSX
Slippery Ludo		Ludo		Nigel Rigby
Tile Fall		SameGame		Adam Dawes
Wetrix	N64	Tetris
Jet Set Willy PC		Remake	99	Andy Noble
Klass of 99		Remake		Richard Jordan
Rory's Reversi		Othello		Rory Johnston
Abomination		strat
Hanafuda 1.2		Cards		Ian Bowes
Dungeon Keeper 2		strat
Street Wars		RTS
wMancala		Mancala		K. Shane Harrelson
Ant Attack PC		Remake	00	Tyrone L Cartwright
Hexagon		Puzzle		Peter Balch
Columns (DarkForge)		Columns		Richard Davey
DopeWars 2000		strat		Anthony Booth
Evolva		Action
Tiny Othello		Othello		Stephen Hassall
JetPac PC		Remake	01	cozza
Bubbles		SameGame		James Bunting
Chuckie Egg: The Next Batch!		Chuckie Egg		John Blythe
Beach Life		strat	02	Virtual Resort: Spring Break
Manhunt		Action	03
Blockage		Breakout	03	Ben Hanke
TinyTris		Tetris	04	Ben Hanke
Hazard Ball		Arcade		Chris Eastwood
Locomotion		strat		Chris Sawyer
Alien Breed Obliteration		Shoot-'em-up	05