Does anyone remember any old video game companies that are no longer with us, especially seeing as they made some classic games and is a shame it was quite literally game over for them.

Who remembers Gremlin Interactive who used to be in Sheffield, they made Actua Golf and Zool.

Midway Games who did Mortal Kombat, Pac-Man and NBA Jam.

Rare Ltd who did Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong and GoldenEye.

Sensible Software who did Cannon Fodder and Sensible Soccer.

um rare are still making games microsoft own them
namco makes pacman
and midway/sensible ip are still around

Does anyone remember any old video game companies that are no longer with us, especially seeing as they made some classic games and is a shame it was quite literally game over for them.

Who remembers Gremlin Interactive who used to be in Sheffield, they made Actua Golf and Zool.

Midway Games who did Mortal Kombat, Pac-Man and NBA Jam.

Rare Ltd who did Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong and GoldenEye.

Sensible Software who did Cannon Fodder and Sensible Soccer.

Remember Gremlin well (worked for them briefly around 1992).

How about Alligata? Sheffield based (on Orange street, just off West street). Struggling to remember any other old Sheffield game dev companies..

I remember 'Ultimate' that did games like Jetpac, Knight Lore, Sabre Wulf & Alien8 etc. I remember old games like Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy & the Horace games but cant remember who made them. All on the little old Spectrum, with its massive 48k memory - those were the days! (I now feel old :( )

Wasn't it Gremlin that made Monty Mole? The one with Arthur Scargill :)

These were the days when one man or woman could dream up and produce a whole game by themselves and make a fortune. It didn't last for long though.

These were also the days when a kid could get a new game for a tenner maximum, and in most cases less. I remember working for Comet when "Streetfighter 2" came out for the SNES at £64.99. We got about 150 copies in for it's launch, and I couldn't believe it when they sold out within a day. I mean, 65 quid.

Try zxspectrum.net, most of the spectrum games are there, playable for free if you want to remind yourselves.

Best house by the way? Beyond Software for doing the Lords of Midnight, the best game ever made.

Anyone remember Cinemaware, who made all those excellent movie inspired games in the 80s like:

Defender Of The Crown
Rocket Ranger
Lords Of The Rising Sun (best game ever)
It Came From The Desert

as well as sports games like:

TV Sports Football, Baseball, Basketball... these weren't quite as good but the humour of the TV sports programmes before and after the games made up for it.

Remember Gremlin well (worked for them briefly around 1992).

How about Alligata? Sheffield based (on Orange street, just off West street). Struggling to remember any other old Sheffield game dev companies..

Hi Tec software, based somewhere in Town, they did a few licensed games based on cartoon characters 20 odd years ago, I rang them up back when I was looking for a work experience placement from School, they wouldn't have me :(

End up going to Krisalis Software Ltd, based at Teque House in Rotherham, 2 weeks of playing games, in the name of "games testing", and one day spending 6 hours programming some crap Pac Man clone from a magazine, 6 hours later the chuffing thing didn't work! :rant:

... one day spending 6 hours programming some crap Pac Man clone from a magazine, 6 hours later the chuffing thing didn't work! :rant:

Was it MacMan from Sinclair User by any chance? That was the only machine code game I ever typed in. Me, mum, dad, sister and cousin took it in one hour shifts to do it! The game wasn't bad in the end. Easily as good as those £1.99 Mastertronic efforts that used to come in the blister-paks.

I remember old games like Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy

Software Projects was the publisher.. always remember they used an "impossible triangle" for their logo, and the colour code "security" needed to start it up... :hihi:

Ocean
Ultimate Play the Game
US Gold

Horace series were done by Psion
Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy by Bug Byte

Zoo Digital are Sheffield based, their office is just round the corner from the old Pop Museum as I recall.

Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy by Bug Byte

AFAIK that's not quite true...
Manic Miner was written by a guy from Bug-Byte, while he was working with them who subsequently left and took the rights to manic miner with him when he went to work for Software Projects. JSW was released totally under the auspices of Software Projects.

Imagine were a great company. Arkanoid for the c64:D

A friend got a job as a games tester fro Electronic Zoo down in Stroud. Shame they never made anything decent as I used to get all their stuff free!

Psygnosis were great, I still have some Psygnosis coasters with the Owl on somewhere!

Micro Prose used to make all the flight Sims and other stuff for the Specturm, C64 and Amiga. They were also based down that way. We always had a copies of F15 strike Eagle and F19 Stealth Fighter on the shelf in the shop I used to work in.

Anyone know Sumo Digital? Based down Attercliffe opposite Meadowhall Retail Park.. I looked on their website last week to see if they had any jobs going, they do but they're all for stuff that's too technical for even my skills :(

Acclaim Entertainment who did console ports of many Midway arcade games.

Eidos Interactive who did numerous Tomb Raider games.

Psygnosis who made Lemmings and who co-produced with Bizarre Creations to make the official Formula 1 games.

Makoto Uchida who made Golden Axe and Altered Beast and many others.

Psygnosis were great, I still have some Psygnosis coasters with the Owl on somewhere!.

:love::love: Ever thinking of selling them? Even just 1? :hihi:

Anyone know Sumo Digital? Based down Attercliffe opposite Meadowhall Retail Park.. I looked on their website last week to see if they had any jobs going, they do but they're all for stuff that's too technical for even my skills :(

Doesn't that segasonic guy off here work for them?

How about The Bitmap Brothers.. producers of Speedball and Xenon :thumbsup:

A friend got a job as a games tester fro Electronic Zoo down in Stroud. Shame they never made anything decent as I used to get all their stuff free!

Psygnosis were great, I still have some Psygnosis coasters with the Owl on somewhere!

Micro Prose used to make all the flight Sims and other stuff for the Specturm, C64 and Amiga. They were also based down that way. We always had a copies of F15 strike Eagle and F19 Stealth Fighter on the shelf in the shop I used to work in.

Psygnosis did the original versions of Lemmings as I recall, which was a classic IMO.. Shame the Spectrum version sucked.

Psygnosis did the original versions of Lemmings as I recall, which was a classic IMO.. Shame the Spectrum version sucked.

use to love playing lemmings on my Amiga A500+

How about The Bitmap Brothers.. producers of Speedball and Xenon :thumbsup:

And there better games magic pockets gods and chaos engine

use to love playing lemmings on my Amiga A500+

Sony own lemmings now and supposedly are making a psn/vita version.

:confused:Sony own lemmings now and supposedly are making a psn/vita version.

Damn, I've wanted an Xbox version of Lemmings for years, and now it'll probably never happen :(

Sony own lemmings now and supposedly are making a psn/vita version.

a modern day version probs wont feel the same as the classic one.

so i will probs give it a miss.

a modern day version probs wont feel the same as the classic one.

so i will probs give it a miss.

Indeed, several years ago I played a demo of Lemmings 3D on the PC, it was crap compared to the 2D original IMO, and even 17 years ago running a 3D game at anywhere near full tilt required a Ninja PC.

a modern day version probs wont feel the same as the classic one.

so i will probs give it a miss.

Indeed, several years ago I played a demo of Lemmings 3D on the PC, it was crap compared to the 2D original IMO, and even 17 years ago running a 3D game at anywhere near full tilt required a Ninja PC.

Are you both daft? A 2D lemmings on touch screen vita would be awesome.

Are you both daft? A 2D lemmings on touch screen vita would be awesome.

Not if its modern graphics and feels nothing like the classic one. There's only one lemmings game for me.

Kuju Entertainment used to have a studio in Sheffield, latterly known as 'Chemistry'. They were working on a really promising looking WWI FPS called 'To End All Wars'. I was hoping to get a placement there a few years ago but they kinda just disappeared, I can't find any info on what happened to them. Kuju itself is still going though.

EDIT: ah, well whatta ya know... http://kotaku.com/5278300/kuju-entertainment-closes-its-dedicated-unreal-engine-branch

:confused:

Damn, I've wanted an Xbox version of Lemmings for years, and now it'll probably never happen :(

Why? It would be an awful thing to play with an xbox controller, needs either a mouse or touchscreen.

Doesn't that segasonic guy off here work for them?

Yes he does. He's my brother.

I wrote quite a few games in my early teens i.e. adventure games, jigsaw like puzzles, an Olympics game etc and was going to start a company called Amsoft, then girls came along and spoilt all that, Amstrad took the name and that was it.

I hung out with the Gremlin guys for a while in their shop. Didn't they go on to become Gremlin Graphics and now exist as Gremlin again?

Biggest regret of my life was not becoming a full blown geek and continuing in my quest, I reckon I'd be very rich now and probably living in silicone valley.

Doh! :loopy:

Gremlin Graphics was taken over by the French company Infogrames in 1999 and then closed down in 2003. The staff went on to found Sumo-Digital who are still around today (based near Meadowhall) and employ many of the same people who worked on the classic Gremlin games (Tony Crowther and Peter Harrop, for example).

---------- Post added 03-05-2013 at 07:54 ----------

Monty Mole was remade by school children as part of the 2012 Games Britannia festival and is available to download for free on the Windows 8 store. It includes a bit of background about the game's Sheffield-based heritage.