Artic Computing was a software development company based in
Brandesburton,
England from 1980 to 1986. The company's first games were for the
Sinclair ZX81 home computer, but they expanded and were also responsible for various
ZX Spectrum,
Commodore 64,
BBC Micro,
Acorn Electron and
Amstrad CPC computer games. The company was set up by Richard Turner and Chris Thornton.
Charles Cecil, who later founded
Revolution Software, joined the company shortly after it was founded, writing Adventures B through D. Developer
Jon Ritman produced a number of ZX81 and Spectrum games for Artic before moving to
Ocean Software.
Usually packaging and distributing games themselves, some titles were picked up by
Sinclair who repackaged them under the Sinclair brand, and
Amstrad who repackaged them under their
Amsoft brand.
Adventures A through D were written for the
ZX81 but were quickly ported to the ZX Spectrum platform on its release (as well as other systems). By comparison with later Spectrum adventure games such as The Hobbit, they are basic and short. However they are considered by many[who?][citation needed] to be the start of the adventure game genre on the Spectrum in particular and thus were an important step in the growth of adventure games.
Web War (1985): Acorn Electron, BBC Micro; similar to Tempest
Rugby Manager (1986): ZX Spectrum
The Great Wall (1986): Acorn Electron, BBC Micro; similar to Hunchback
Voodoo Rage (1986): Amstrad CPC
Woks (1986): Acorn Electron, BBC Micro
Adventure Games Development
The
parser in their adventures is of a basic 2-word design, such as "Use Axe". However the programs from adventures A-F were built using a custom built design. Adventure G (Ground Zero) and later were built using
The Quill, an Adventure Game Creator produced by
Gilsoft.