Be Excellent To Each Other

Just wondering, can anyone remember what were the first games released on budget labels for the Amiga (and by extension, the Atari ST)? Either new games released dirt-cheap (e.g. Codemasters) or older commercial games reissued at a lower price (e.g. Hit Squad).

I suspect that it might be the four games that Codemasters released for £4.99 back in December 1989/January 1990 (see image), although I'd like to be proven wrong. By the time Amiga Power launched in mid 1991, Hit Squad, Codemasters, Kixx et al were releasing plenty of budget price games every month, but I certainly remember that when my parents bought an Amiga 500 in 1989, the budget labels we were familiar with as former ZX Spectrum owners just didn't release reissued games for 16-bit computers at all.

IIRC it was Prism who tried £2.99 games for the Amiga and ST. Games like Football Manager and Beyond The Ice Palace were released. However despite about 10 to 15 titles being released it never really took off.

Ah, I remember those ones, released in little plastic blister-packs ('The 16-bit Pocket Power Collection'), but they were released after Hit Squad, Kixx, Mirror Image and the rest were already releasing 16-bit budget games. Unless you mean an even earlier set of Prism budget releases, of course.

The Prism range was about 1991/92. It wasn't the first but it was the cheapest.

I thought it was 'The Hit Squad' games that were the first - this list on IGN has the first release on there of Beach Volleyball for the Amiga as June 89 and Toki as '89'

http://uk.ign.com/companies/the-hit-squad

I have PDF's of C+VG from the time which is probably going to be the easiest place to try and date this stuff (at least if its advertised in the magazines of the day then its probably close to its release date)

Must be wrong info, Beach Volley's regular release on all formats was around June 1989, and Toki wasn't released full-price until 1991!

You're right though, this calls for research using magazine scans.

Toki wasn't '89. It was slated for release on Amstrad Cartridge for Xmas 1990 at the same time as other formats but the game was delayed and then ditched along with the Spectrum version.

I suspect the versions that were finally released didn't make it out until 1991 despite some very heavy advertising by Ocean (which included reference to Amstrad cartridge).

Your probably right



Agreed - with the caveat above that sometimes they will be advertising stuff that never actually comes out (as an Atari 8 bit owner I still remember adverts which included Atari in the list of systems and then an Atari version never actually came out - Hyper Sports being one that I can specifically remember since it was one of my favorite games)

Pizza Tycoon on the back of Amiga Power was never released either.

Why would they? More expensive for little gain -> No sales.

Went into my remaining pile of NCE's and Toki was being advertised on the back page of the 25th of May 1991 edition. Same advert is back on the 16th of March edition and I recall it being advertised way before then. I'm guessing it kept on getting delayed.

Formats were Amstrad cartridge, Commodore cartridge, Spectrum, ST, Amiga. Did the Commodore cartridge version make it out?

Been digging and have found out why the CPC and Speccy versions of Toki were abandoned.

The lead platform for the Z80 machines was the CPC cart version. The programmers had level 1 up and running but ran out of memory on the cartridge. They asked Ocean for more storage on the cart and Ocean said no.

With the CPC version abandoned, the Speccy version went with it.

All the screenshots of the Speccy version in the previews were mock ups put together by the programmers.

And there you have it!

There's quite a nice thread on rllmuk at the mo about games that were advertised or previewed in mags that never got released. Unlike my c64 era, I rarely bothered buying magazines when I had an Amiga as (like most people I know) most of my software tended to turn up on a copied floppy.

I'll have a look at that later. Thanks.

Interesting - i think your Looking at somewhere around issue 91 / 92 of C+VG for the first adverts on 'budget' Amiga games but what do you consider as a budget game ?

This is from issue 92 (July 1989 i think)



Which has 'classic' games for £9.99

Looking at the 'small ads' section for other games thats cheaper than anything else being offered on the Amiga (apart from the Football Manager 2 expansion) and there is only one game on the ST for less than a tenner (Andes Attack)

The next issue has the same EA advert and this as the back cover



Again £9.99 price point (and no other Amiga titles that I can see inside for less)

Next issue (September 89) seems to show that the EA games are now available (and can be gotten for as little as £7.25 for "The Bards Tale")



And the same issue has the first ST / Amiga 'budget' review which is for Captain Blood for £9.99

Chuckie Egg £14.99!?

Yip - and worth 10 times that :-)

(dont remember playing the Amiga one)

I can't remember paying that much at all (well, my dad). Maybe I had it on the C64 then too. And the sequel (which I recall was awesomer). Weird, what was the date of the mag that advert was in out of interest?

Oh, July 1989.

£31.52 in today's money! Wow.

Checking editions of ACE:

Feb 1989 edition mentions Microprose are launching a 16 bit budget label called Axxiom. Same issue mentions 16 bit games from Mastertronic at £14.99

The March 1989 issue makes mention that Mastertronic are about to add more 16 bit budget games to their catalogue at £9.95 including Speedzone for the PC, Bombfusion for the ST and Amiga, and The Last Trooper for the ST.

April 1989 see's ACE cover Cascade's "Disk 15". Yes it's from the people who gave you Cassette 50, but no free watch. £19.95 (how did it make the budget section) and a score of 163 (which seems generous).

May '89 sees ACE review "Chase" a budget ST and Amiga game. Costing £9.95 it scores 680.

Excellent detective work, Zaph and Chinny! So there were budget label games available for the Amiga and ST in 1989, and before the Codemasters' paltry efforts.

I remember 8-bit 'dual' disks for the C64 / Atari with basically C64 on one side and you could flip the disk over and the Atari version was on the back - some examples :

http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/imag ... 0Games.jpg

Looks like Castle Wolfenstien was a dual Atari / Apple disk

I wonder if they were the first to £4.99 though - I seem to remember the hit squad ones being around 7.99 or 8.99 so they could have been the first to that low a price point


** edit **

Maybe not - looks like Mastertronic were in the next Months edition of C+VG

Software City's advert in the same edition (96 / November 1989)

I'm going through some of the earlier ones to see if i can catch a review or mention of budget titles before that - and found their review for early GW boardgames :-)

Even further back than I imagined or realised. My dad even cited the lack of budget games as a drawback about upgrading from a Speccy to an Amiga! (Perhaps some of the magazines at the time just didn't give budget labels any coverage?)

Suspect most of those mail order listings were for the standard release of the games at a cut-price cost. My definition of budget games is games deliberately marketed and/or repackaged as low-cost games, and sold either via an imprint labels of software houses geared towards reissues (Hit Squad) or by companies that specialised in low-price games software (Codemasters) or both (Mastertronic).

Roger Frames Chinny recommends 8 bit budget games.

90% + games

Super Robin Hood - CPC - The Olivers first game for Codemasters and before they realised it was quicker to use the CPC's 4 colour mode so it was easier to port their games to the Spectrum.

Dizzy 1 and 4 - CPC/Spectrum - Dizzy 1 is special. It's not the most polished but has the most atmosphere. 4 (Magicland Dizzy) is the first by Big Red Software and combines polish with great gameplay. After Magicland you are better off with the Amiga versions.

180 - CPC/Spectrum - Pickford action! Even GTA 5 doesn't get darts right. 180 does and it's great. Like all Pickford games, avoid the Commodore version.

Zub - CPC/Spectrum + an ok C64 port - More Pickford action. The "I Sent My Monkey To The Moon" prototype in Magnetic Billiards has part of the Zub jumping up mechanic. ISMMTTM is brilliant. Zub is brilliant. The least disappointing of all the games they had ported to the C64 as well

CJ's Elephant Antics - C64 - A platformer that is equal to anything on the NES at 8 times the price. It's really good. CJ in the USA is excellent as well. There is a Spectrum version but some of the graphics are horrifically unclear and the scrolling is terrible. That said still great, but the C64 version is king without shadow of a doubt.

Colony - CPC/C64/Spectrum/Atari - Protect your Colony, shoot the baddies, grow mushrooms, sell them for cash, buy stuff you need, repeat. Sounds dull but it's addictive and frantic. As far as I know you can't win, you just play until you die as the game gets harder and harder. Great stuff.

Seymour Goes To Hollywood - Spectrum - It's Dizzy but it isn't.

Kwik Snax (Dizzy) - CPC/Spectrum - Forget the Dizzy connection. This is a bloody brilliant arcade game. C64 version is a totally different game and pants!

Werewolves Of London - CPC - Developed as a full price game and then abandoned before release (or all the bugs being ironed out) Mastertronic snapped ut ip and put it out at just £1.99. Speccy and C64 versions are OK but the CPC version stands head and shoulders above the other 2 formats. Despite suffering some horrific slowdown when there are a lot of sprites on screen it's a great game that even my C64 owning chum would defer to the CPC version for (he also had it on his 64). And the CPC and Speccy version came on the same tape to boot!

Invaiderload - C64 - Play space invaders while your game loads. Often more fun than the game you were loading so you'd just press stop on the tape and play Invaiderload instead!

Kane - CPC, Spectrum, C64 - It's Kane! Speccy version looks a tad rough but if you can get over that it plays just as well as the other 2 versions. Shoot birdies, ride to Kane, shoot baddies and then stop the train! Then do it again! Not forgetting 3, ('three, THREE' - Ed) levels of selectable ('selectable, SELECTABLE' - Ed) difficulty. And for just a penny short of £2? Laugh? I nearly burped!

Notable games

Milk Race - CPC, Spectrum, MSX - A racing bike simulator that is officially licensed from the 1987 Milk Race! Spectrum version is fast but has no funky music, MSX version is slightly slower but identical to the Speccy and has funky music. CPC version is slow but has colourful graphics and funky music. There's also C64 and Atari versions. Have played the C64 and it's naff, not played the Atari but it looks rough.

SAS Combat Simulator - CPC, C64 - It's Ikari Warrors, it's Green Beret, it's a total rip off of two popular games for just £1.99! And it does it quite well! Not seen the Speccy version. ('Hello, I'm a lawyer from the makers of Green Beret and Ikari Warriors' - Ed).

Ninja Massacre- Spectrum, CPC - A Tesco Value Gauntlet with a kicking tune. It should be shit, but I keep on playing as hundreds of badly animated baddies attack me. Written by Amstrad Actions technical Ed, Adam Waring.

Action Biker - C64 - Fun if limited action with an 80's crisp icon and his bike.

Lost Caves and the Tomb Of Doom - Spectrum, CPC - Came to most peoples attention by being put on an Amstrad Action covertape, Another Adam Waring game, this is Boulderdash meets Repton and for £1.99. For the price you couldn't complain!

Chiller - C64 - An early Mastertronic effort, badly ported to the Speccy and CPC (the Speccy version is especially hilarious). But good fun on the 64.

The thing about 16 bit budget games is they never had the penetration ('oooerrr ' - Ed) that the 8 bit tapes had. Chances were you'd have to buy 16 bit budgets from a dedicated software shop. 8 bit games would be in the newsagents.

Its strange - I've just went through the adverts and reviews from December 88 till April 89 and found the first review for a budget Amiga game where they call it out as being rubbish and saying if this is what budget games are like they can stuff them



£9.99 and April 89 so ties in with what Chinny posted earlier and its about a year before your Codemasters advert at the start

43% would seem generous:



But it's better on the Amiga, right?



You appear to chase a ship through some triangles that hurtle towards you at speed.

Frankly if you had Starglider 2 which came out late '88, you'd think it was more like a 10% game. In fact Starglider 2 on the Speccy would still make Chase look like a 10% game!

I forgot this from my list!



CPC or ST/Amiga versions for me.

The C64 version has screwed up AI, According to the Pickfords when the rival wizard is off screen the game code stops tracking him as it should and he just randomly reappears. All the other versions properly track him across the map even when you can't see him which is vital to the gameplay as you may be trying to beat him to an ingredient needed for a spell.

Spidertronic was my favourite Amiga budget game.

Caves Of Doom was a 1985 effort by Mr Chip Software and released by Mastertronic that was totally sadistic. I loved the exploring and the colourful simplistic graphics. I didn't like the constant death or the terrifying stick man baddie that could walk through walls and always killed you (see 2:10 onward)



It even came with a level editor which you could alter the screens to an extent. Although the same baddies always appeared in the same places as usual I recall.

And here's the Spectrum version. The jetpack noise isn't annoying at all!



Speccy version doesn't seem to have the same level of insta-death as the CPC.

The programmers got hold of some low quality samples and by god he's going to use them!

Yuck - sounded so much better on the Amiga.

While I'm posting videos, I just want to again highlight how CJ's Elephant Antics still stands up as a quality platform game even today:



Nice graphics, great sound, big end of level baddies. Better than many full price games. If it hadn't been so cutesy and had robots and guns like Turrican I don't think it would be so overlooked.

And the Speccy version which has the horrible scrolling and some colour clash issues. Shame as some of the sprites are better drawn than the C64 version:

Bubble Dizzy had the makings of a good iPhone game:



But not the CPC version which was truly shit:



And if you watch the Amiga version to the end you get to see Dizzy giving Daisy a pearl necklace.

Zeppelin try to get down with the kids by forgoing modern fads like Ninja Turtles and skateboards, instead opting for "Norman The Navy". Yes send £7.99 and get 2 shit 8 bit games or 1 shit 16 bit game at a discount of fuck all and get an exclusive "Gold Credit Card Style Membership Card".



+ Hang on, hadn't Deathchase been out at £1.99 + pretty sure Pro Go Kart Simulator (a truly shit game) was £2.99.

Yes that £7.99 is a real bargain!

Bubble Dizzy was spin-off of a subgame in NES and Mega Drive game Fantastic Dizzy, trufax.

I remember from late 1989, Codemasters really started to milk the Dizzy 'franchise' to death. Not just the sequels, but Fast Food and all the rest of the arcadey games.. Thing is, I don't think Dizzy would be so negatively regarded if they'd left the series at Fantasy World Dizzy, which was probably about as far as the main series could go without overstaying its welcome.

First game I might've spent my own pocket money on was the Amiga version of Treasure Island Dizzy, I'm almost sure of. Wasn't many options for cheap games for my family's new 16-bit computer at that time, and my parents had pretty much exclusively bought budget games, compilations and magazines with covertapes to keep us supplied with Spectrum games, so I was used to gaming on the cheap.. (I'm pretty sure at one point they'd buy a new £2.99 Hit Squad or Codemasters budget release every week when shopping, come to think of it!)

I've put Bubble Dizzy on my GP2X Wiz to play at lunch time today. I had completely forgot about the game until Chinny mentioned it on Twitter. Good work Chinny. I'm looking forward to that.

The Bubble Dizzy pafrt of teh NES game was what made me gave up trying to collect all 250 stars, as it was hard.

The NES game was in itself born out of a section of Treasure Island Dizzy where you go underwater and have to jump on bubbles to get back to the surface.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oSxBT0WfqJc#t=709

Treasure Island Dizzy was ridiculously hard. Instadeath and you couldn't see what was coming on the next screen. I found Fantasy World a bit more forgiving.

Unless you typed EGGSONLEGS for invincibility, or ICANFLY to go up through the top screens and access random caverns and stuff.

I know this isn't exactly budget talk, but I've been looking for an adf of a PD game released by 17-bit called Go Getter for years. I used to play it with my Mum when I was small (fnar). You basically played as a sphere and you had to traverse a board guessing Higher or Lower for each move you made. I would love it if I could find it again. I've searched everywhere I can think of.

I just happen to have the 30GB Tosec collection on my desktop right now. I'll do a quick search of it.