Great list. Brought back a lot of good memories playing on my acorn electron. My favourites were chuckie egg, citadel and hunchback and the frogger clone. Can’t remember what it was called
Amazing memories. I learnt to code on the BBC Micro at age 7. Taught myself from a book. I could code before I could even read lol. At the time I didn’t have any games so had to make my own. Great times.
@@StrAy-t3r of? games? Loads, platform, space invaders, tried loads of times to make superhero type games where you could fly etc. Even attempted a time travel game, but never got that one down lol
I wanted either a Spectrum or C64, but my Dad said "Nope, you'll get what the schools are using", then we bought the Viglen PC Kit (made it look somewhat like a PC XT/AT, and installed 2 5.25 floppy drives). I also bought every copy of 'Input' magazine and thus the 4 binders to contain them, and lol, semi successfully programed and got working most of the 'input' programs. Games wise? MANY were played... - Thrust: HELL YEAH... excellent game. - Elite: Yeah I did ok, until a friend of mine managed to get the cheat disk that allowed FULL weapons/armour/credits and such, and then spent hundreds of hours exploring, 'Kickin ass' and such... Good times! - Chuckie egg: Hahaha you surely are bringing out the classics here! - Mission Impossible: I played this on a mates C64... I THINK there was creepy speech in it too, "You'll stay foreverrrrr" (or something like that) - Arkanoid: Oh God yeah, MANY hours on that one too! What about Galaga? I chewed through MANY levels on that brilliant game! 😏🤣🤣 🦇😎🦇 🇬🇧
I was unwell for about a year so couldn't play outside in my school. I remember Chuckie Egg and Repton as a teacher was kind enough to set them up for me as something to do.
Hey there, I loved every penny of my £399.99 BBC micro model B. Elite, holy guacamole batman, what a great game on a 32k computer, my all time favourite game, and Repton, played that to the death, along with spitfire and f1. Have to say you're right about collision detection, it was always perfect. All you're game picks are great, I can remember playing them all. Still have my beeb in the loft. 😀 👍 👍 👍
Hey, Mike! Get it out the loft and get playing it haha. I bought my first ever BBC last year, and I'm playing it a lot, love it! I only ever played my mate's one back in the day so I'm discovering some great new games (it has an SD card mod with every game built-in).
I remember the hardest game I ever played on the Beeb back on the day was called "Frak!" - it was a platformer where you played as a caveman with random missiles appearing from the sides of the screen. I'm pretty sure it was my first rage-quit!
Who could forget, “Citatettal, Citatettal, Citatettal” lol. One of my favourites was a text adventure game called “Sphinx” which I played on my Electron. Thank you for the trip down memory lane!
I’m still amazed by how much fun can be had with 32k when you know no better. It also shows how wasteful programmers are today with seemingly endless memory.
Elite TNK, a faithful (so I read) reversed engineered version of BBC Elite has a combined file size of almost 4MB, I didn't even bother looking up memory usage. BBC disk version is 52 KB so about 80 time larger. The sound effects (which are copies of the BBC sound) alone take up ~1.5 MB.
Yup. Elite & Revs on 32k Plus they were the first in thier genre. God knows what modern day programmers are doing with all that extra memory and tried & tested formulas. Lazy !
Same here, I built up my old computer collection, BBC , C64 , Spectrum...and now Amiga A500. Enjoying reliving my teens again..🤩 . Never played your number 1 choice...but I will.😊
I absolutely loved this, haven't seen these games since I was a kid in the 80s. Almost wept when I saw Citadel, Chuckie Egg and Repton, the screens are so familiar, even tho it's 30 years at least since I saw them. Thanks you.
I agree that if you had played Elite more it may have been higher on your list as I feel it should be .Maybe it’s Because you played at school and at a friends house , Elite required hours and hours to appreciate . Something like Arkanoid is very pick up and play which suits a quick blast at school for example . I would also put Chuckie Egg higher . Some great games on the list though 👍 Shame Castle Quest and Frak didn’t make the cut . I also feel Dare Devil Denis is on ski's not in a “skidoo”. Love the Beeb , my 1st home computer. Our primary school could only afford one BBC micro , I remember we had Link 480Zs which I presume were cheaper.
Yeah, I think if I had owned my own BBC back then and had Elite, the list would be different. Did I say "skidoo"? That's odd. Def on skis (I still play it often, the last time being about six weeks ago).
I'm happy to see Imogen take top spot, looking back it is definitely for me one of the most well-rounded and unique games on the system, and still a lot of fun to play today with its many simple puzzles and charming puns. Citadel would have taken next spot for me at #2 (though if I ranked them at the time it would likely have taken first place!), that was an amazing adventure; it's a shame the late-game solution was so obtuse, requiring travelling through fake walls with no hints of their existence. A bizarre design choice there among an otherwise excellently put together challenge. Number #3 for me would probably have been Castle Quest. Similar to Citadel, but smaller in scope and with more interesting interactions with enemies. But again, a ridiculously difficult, nay impossible, final puzzle to solve as you had to shoot a random brick with a wand to get the treasure. Another bizarre design choice, it's like these developers never wanted people to finish their games!
As a kid we had a Beeb at home. What made it even better was that my stepdad was a computer science lecturer at Coventry & Lancaster polytechnic. He was able to get the 6502 and Z80 second processors as a part of his equipment for his lectures! Elite is amazing when played with the second processor. Citadel is one of the few games on the Beeb that I actually finished. Palace of Magic is actually the sequel to Citadel, hence the similarity between the two games.
My dad bought a bbc micro model b 32k when I was 3. I loved it, so many happy memories. Football manager by Kevin Toms was my favourite game... even all these years later it sits behind Red Dead Redemption and The Last of us in my top 3 favourite games of all time. Code name Droid. Barbarian 1 and 2. The last ninja, the Bbc gave us some incredible games. Many of which have influenced todays titles. I had many in the list. I got rid of the computer when i was 18. In 1999. 15 long years later.... i had a nes, Mega Drive and PS1 growing up... the beeb took them all on and beat 2 of them! I should really get an emulator, i miss the computer sometimes even now.
Starship Command (Acornsoft). Just about the right amount of predictability before the aliens attack, and that genius 'escape capsule' feature to add to the suspense.
Way back in the day I spent many an hour programming until 0400 in the morning on games we put out there at the time. Sad to say mine were text adventures, no graphical, when that happened I started to get left behind, and decided to follow another route. I still have a BBC32 and Master in the loft somewhere with the 5.5 floppy drive (dual, I was posh lol) along with some of the productions, Horror Castle, Shrinking Professor, were two, sold them through a company in Manchester at the time, might have been A&F software, not to sure. Great days long gone.
Sorry for the late reply, must have missed this comment. Yeah, I never owned my own until a few years ago, but it was the system I first really fell in love with as a kid.
@Al Masih Ad Dajjal We've collected them all over the years. You also can't beat the Saturn for some of the obscure Japanese shooters! Dreamcast is no slouch either!
Thrust and Chuckie Egg for me - I'm still playing them on my BBC Micro at age 49. My kids who are all iPad and PS4 fans cant even get near my scores, even after a lot of practice !!! :)
The BBC is 40 years old this year. I have a NEW really good BBC competition pro style Joysticks on eBay that are only £50! (not like £100 like old BBC competition pros go for) - celebrate in style. Works great - I just completed Airwolf with it after 40 years! Really responsive. My BBC Master is even more cherished now I can really get good with games!!:)))
Great list. Loved Imogen and was pleased to see it was in top spot, I spent ages on my BBC as a kid. Personal favourites for me were Ravenskull which was so frustrating and the Repton games. Thanks for bringing back some good old memories. As cool as my PS4 is, it'll never be as cool as my old BBC. Thanks
Thanks, I'm so pleased to hear that it brought back some fond memories. It's great to hear from someone else who enjoyed Imogen, it was such a fantastic game for the time but one that sadly many seem to have missed. Thanks for watching and the comments!
Happy memories of a lot of these, and almost feel sad for my younger self for missing out on the ones here that I never got to play. Loved Repton and Commando. Frak was also good fun. Thx for the vid 🙂
+Daniel “Slope's Game Room” Ibbertson Thanks Dan! Imogen was such a novel idea for the time, I think it may surprise a few people how high it placed on the list. It's the first game that I know of to use that sort of mechanic. I'll definitely be doing more in the future, I was pleased with how this turned out.
Most played: Elite (by a country parsec), then Cylon Attack, Repton, Mr Ee, Castle Quest, Hunchback (that scream when he falls!), Chuckie Egg, Spyhunter, Starship Command and Jet Pac. Probably forgotten a bunch. Dunjunz was good for multi players. EDIT: Oh, Sinistar!
Great list - the game I played the most was Arkanoid, Dare Devil Dennis and Repton. Only ones not on your list I remember playing a lot are Sim City and Firetrack.
Oh wow, Sim City I never played on BBC, but loved it on Amiga. Was playing Dare Devil Dennis recently; it's still great fun, and I find newcomers really enjoy it too.
I persuaded my mum to mail order a copy of Exile from a gaming magazine when I was maybe 7, after seeing my cousin playing it. I remember it came with an accompanying novella. I couldn't figure out how to equip a weapon and didn't get very far but it still blew my tiny mind.
Fantastic video Pete I had a model B when I was a kid Loved the Superior Soft and Acornsoft games BTW Strykers Run was programmed by Chris Roberts who later made the Wing Commander games Lots of great memories there mate
+Bangkokian1967 Thanks Ian! Oh, didn't know that Stryker's Run was made by the same guy as Wing Commander, that's interesting! Lots of great memories indeed, doing this video took me right back.
Wow Imogen!!!! I'd comletely forgotten about hat game until this video, used to play that game at school in my lunch breaks all the time! What memories! I've just purchased a BBC Master so this game will ne a must when I get it. Thank you so much for thi vid.
Just found this video. We were lucky enough to get a hand me down BBC micro from my Dad's friend but tonnes of games on disc and tape. My favourites were Repton, Citadel, Dare Devis Dennis and Chuckie egg amongst this list. We also played Mr EE, Revs, Hostages and many others to death. Loved our BBC and even took it to University in the 90's to play on. Sadly, I think parents threw it out a number of years ago.
Dug out my old BBC Micro and all the text adventures I had, great fun even though they took ages to load from Cassette. You would be surprised how collectable they are now
You might like an "MMC" solution, they are about £15 and pretend to be a couple of double sided floppy drives. I have written a games menu for them and GOTEKs with nearly everything from BBC micro.co.uk, download it here stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16070
What a great reverie! Loved Repton and Arkanoid, so many other cool games too like Cylon Attack, Star Striker, Jet Pac, Maze, Kix, Pengo, Eagle Empire and Block Blitz were some of my favourites.
I was fortunate enough to have one of these at home when I was a kid, with both a tape deck and a 5 1/4" disk drive. I remember most of these games as well as a good couple dozen that didn't make your list like Frak!, Way of the Exploding Fist, Vortex, Cylon Attack, etc etc. Good times.
That's awesome, always nice to hear from people who actually owned a Micro. It's such a shame that the extent of many peoples' interaction with it is through Granny's Garden played briefly at school. There were so many great games for the system, it was hard narrowing it down to a mere fifteen. Good times indeed :)
I remember a lot of these games. There was a pensioner who lived across the street from me when I was a kid. He used to invite kids around to play games on his BBC Micro. In retrospect, it sounds a bit creepy, but it was all totally innocent. We also had a computer lab full of BBC Micros at school. But most of the games at school were "educational", but at least they had Sim City 😀
Excellent and unexpected choice with Imogen. It's such a unique idea for a game. You can complete it, wait a few years to forget the gameplay and solutions, and then enjoy it all over again!
Thanks, Simon! I actually just bought my first one ever haha (as I only ever used my friend's one or the ones at school). It has an SD card mod so has all the games on, so I'll be exploring the library of games that I never got to play. Exile blew me away back in the day, so impressive.
Interesting video. I got here having seen a snake (Nokia '97 style) game on the Android store, before googling the origins of the original where this machine was mentioned. Funny where you end up. Great video. Old new things ;)
Exile was incredible - I got stuck relatively early, partly due to being about six at the time, but it remained endlessly playable even just to mess around on. The mechanics of it (*nothing* moved lineally, not even bullets) and the cliche-free puzzle-solving were amazing. Not sure who programmed it but if you gave them a modern-day computer they could probably create time travel before lunch. Other shouts - Qwak was excellent. Manic, totally unforgiving, and levels/enemies that changed around you simply because you'd moved into a specific but seemingly empty space. And Repton Infinity was remarkable - it built on Repton 3 (also excellent, though incredibly difficult) but included a simplified programming system so you could effectively create your own games. Pipeline was good too, although too big and complicated for me at the time!
Haha yeah, whoever programmed Exile was a bloody genius! I remember the first time I saw it; I couldn't believe it. Not played Repton Infinity, but Ill' check it out (my BBC has an SD card mod and it's on there). Thanks, Daniel!
05:43 - I had 2 different versions of Killer Gorilla. One version was that you couldn't go up ladders with the mallet in your hand and the other version is that you could. The version where you could go up the ladder with the mallet in your hand also gave you an extra life after the completion of each level.
Which came first, the dragon or the egg? ...My number one BBC Micro game, Dragon World. It was an educational game, basically a string of mini puzzle games. It would start by printing on screen the words DRAGON EGG DRAGON EGG... many dozens of times, followed by the question I started my comment with. Your answer would determine your start point, then you went on some quest collecting... erm, teeth, I think. It's been some 30 years, my memory's a bit sketchy on it. There were games such as hang-man, a stepping stones game, a memory test game... all word and spelling based. It was actually pretty hard for an 8/9 year old, we never got any further than a certain point where you were stood outside a castle. It was a great game, the fantasy aspect was really electric. I suspect if you played it now, it would be laughably easy and not very entertaining. But we damned well loved that game at our old school. Despite owning a complete BBC Micro romset and emulator, the game has remained elusive. The file for Dragon World, no matter where you download it from, is always frozen at the first screen. It was developed by a company called 4mation, who also produced another apparently legendary schools game called Granny's Garden. I'd love to find a working copy of Dragon World, I so need to relive it and get closure by finally beating it.
Oh! I'd forgotten about Palace of Magic. Oh, the nostalgia... my Mom and I are both gamers- she'd have been about my age now back when she played through Palace of Magic and various Repton games and I was allowed to stay up late to watch her play! My favourite game was Cuthbert had a Cold, I think, or the other very similar one I forget the name of. I used to adventure for hours!
Palace of Magic is one game that I always think of when I think of the Micro. Great game. Glad I could remind you of it. That's great that you used to watch your mum play, sounds like you have some fond memories there. Don't think I ever played Cuthbert had a Cold. Thanks for watching/commenting!
I loved playing thrust, elite on the bbc. I really lived playing Strykers Run, also bit of trivia for it, one of the creators is Chris Roberts who is creator of the Wing Commander games.
We had these at school in the last couple of years I was there - only allowed to use them during Computer Studies lessons and no chance of ever playing games, but just Basic programming :)
+onaretrotip yep - they were just seen as a way to learn programming, a shame indeed. I remember the game Elite, that was a big deal back in the dark and distant days of the 80s, I always fancied playing it but never did - doubt it holds up as well as I'd hope these days
Really interesting watch. My primary school had one of these in each class room. They were really strict with us playing games though annoyingly. Some of these titles look great
+8-bit Andy Cheers Andy! That's a shame they were strict, although I only played a few games on the ones in school. I was lucky that a mate had one, so I got to play a whole bunch of great games.
I remember that I had two different versions of Killer Gorilla on my BBC Master. One version is that you cannot go up ladders with the hammer in your hand but the other version (which is the on I played on almost all the time) is the version where you can go up ladders with the hammer
Oh and if you haven't seen it the BBC TV drama Micro Men which can be found here on TH-cam is worth a watch for some Acorn, Spectrum & BBC Micro background.
Ahhh mate!!! The memories!! I would do anything to avoid written work at primary to get a ride on the BBC computer in class!! Really enjoyed the vid bud..if I'm honest I hadn't realise how many great games there were on the system!! Well done boss!!!
Cheers Luke! Glad you enjoyed it mate, it brought back great memories for me making this video. I did play a few games at school, but I was lucky that my mate had one so we'd play tons of games at his house. Good times.
+SmoothEmJay Definitely! The games look primitive now but absolutely blew me away back then. These were some of the first games I ever played! Thanks for watching.
Great list. I got out of the BBC scene early so a lot of these are new to me. Personal favourites were Frak!, Caste of Riddles, Aviator, Lords of Time and the early Acornsoft arcade clones (Snapper, Planetoid!, Monsters! etc.)
+Martin Evans Thanks Martin! Glad to hear that there were some that you weren't aware of. I've not heard of Castle of Riddles, and don't think I've played Lords of Time, so I'll check those out. Some of the early clones were great!
Wow! Thanks for some great memories. My favourite was the flight simulator (not mentioned in this video). As a kid, you could use your imagination to 'paint' the scenery in.
+Nick White Good choices! This brought back so many fond memories for me too. It really is mind blowing that these were produced with just a few kilobytes, as you say, when modern games are tens of GB! For example, each cutscene of Day of the Tentacle was 64k, which could have house several of these games.
Elite and Exile were my favourites. Amazing games at the time. Imogen was incredibly charming with some very amusing elements. I remember squashing the rabbits!
Oh yes, those two were so far ahead of anything else it was crazy. The first time I played Exile I was absolutely blown away. Imogen again was pretty advanced, and holds up pretty well today.
Some of the more recent homebrew titles have blown my mind, especially the arcade conversions by Richard Broadhurst, and of course, White Light, Prince of Persia, and Stunt Car Racer (the latter two require a BBC Master though...or running an emulator in BBC Master mode)
talk about a trip down memory lane. I'd completely forgotten about DareDevil Denis and Imogen, but as soon as I saw them I instantly remembered how much fun I used to have playing those games. I guess the brain really does store everything in there somewhere. Thanks for a great vid.
Funny how seeing an image or even just hearing a game's music can bring those memories flooding back, of games we'd long since forgotten. So glad the video brought back some fond memories for you. Thank you!
Top video, thanks. :) My favs that I played were: Chuckie Egg Frak Sim Knight Lore Knightshade Jetpack Sabre Wulf Planetoid Elite Twin Kingdom Valley Winged Warlords Citadel Killer Gorilla Son of Blagger Alien 8 Rocket Raid Meteors Strikers Run Felix and the evil weevils Mr E. Boffin Commando Ravenskull Spy vs Spy Mined Out Repton 2 Exile Trust Arkanoid. ...and many others.
Imogen was definitely 1 of my favourites but would have to say Repton as you could create your own levels and characters so that was probably my favourite but bringing back nostalgia just watching these. I forgot about that stunt man game.
I watched this in 2022: I did use a BBC Micro in a training scheme and played a football management game with my friend, whereby you could put your own words(mostly rude) in. When you you got to the top division and you scored 5 a game, random senetences would be created, very purile but funny.
Awesome. I used to play on the Acorn back in school between 1996-1999. I remember a game which was a cross between a text adventure and a Zelda clone. The intro had you choose from two paths either in the West or East, in the 'Zelda style'. The input from the keyboard was cumulative too. So every time you pressed left the character would move one step left, and if you hammered it too quickly you'd be walking into the wall for ages. I'd love to know what the game was :)
Chuckie egg was ace. I also remember magic mushrooms. You could create your own levels, with each tile having different things like you could bounce, or fall through them.
Interesting the song that is playing in the introduction (Rydeen by Yellow Magic Orchestra) is from a BBC Master as the Enhanced Version of Stryker's Run didn't work on a normal 32K BBC Model B (or maybe it was just my BBC even though it had sideways RAM).
+You Tuber Thanks! It seems that a few people are surprised by the number of quality titles on the system. Not played Banjax, I'll look it up. Great username by the way hahaha!
Very interesting list, nice selection - I'd probably put quite a few of them on my on such list. In fact, If I ever do get some spare time I might have to knock my own list up. Magic Mushrooms, Castle Quest, Frak!, ....quite a few other titles that might make my Top 15. By the way, I'm guessing the screen-shots of Citadel are from a cheat version, as the character is walking through many enemies and dangerous without losing any enemies :)
+Pj Gathergood Thank you! If you do ever get time please let me know, as I'd love to see your list. There are so many great BBC Micro games that it was hard to choose just 15. Yes, well noticed on Citadel!
I've never heard of Imogen - I'll have to check it out. Repton (2) and Chuckie Egg were totally my thing. I played the latter so much that I knew exactly where the blue birds moved and could complete pretty much every level without hesitating. I was so hyped when they played it on 'Go 8 Bit' (that gaming game-show on Dave). I also enjoyed Hyperball, and being very young (given that I was born in 1991 - I was only introduced to these games because of my three elder brothers), I also played Granny's Garden a silly number of times, even though I was a bit scared of the sound the witch made when she appeared. :-D 'Would you like to help the King and Queen?' 'N' 'That's not very nice. Would you like to help the King and Queen?'
Hi Eleanor! I'd thoroughly recommend Imogen, it was way ahead of its time and it's still very enjoyable today. The puzzle solving element of the gameplay is timeless. I was very pleased to see Chuckie Egg on Go 8-Bit too! I was playing Chuckie Egg a couple of months ago and I had forgotten how quickly the difficulty spikes. Quite the challenge. I've not played Hyperball, I'll have to look that one up. I did play Granny's Garden a bit, but the text based adventure games were mostly cast aside when the fancier games became available to me (Stryker's Run being one of the first that I remember playing a lot). It's a shame that, judging by the comments, many people solely got to play Granny's Garden at school and never experienced the myriad genres available on the Micro. Thanks for the comment!
Hyperball was just another Breakout clone, so if you've played Arkanoid you're probably fine! I think I was attracted to GG only because it had a slow pace and was extremely linear so I didn't have to deal with very complex puzzles or evil monsters springing up here there and everywhere. As you say - other games are far better! I'll have to hijack my partner's computer and get an emulator!
Wow, Commando looks slightly different from the arcade version we played in the THSC! Great vid dude, have little knowledge of the BBC Mirco! Now, I have a little bit more :)
+Matropolis Glad it was informative Mat, thanks. Yeah, Commando looks very different doesn't it, haha. Plays similarly though, used to love it back in the day, and that was way before I played it in the arcade. And Arkanoid, what a game!
I was a C64 kid but I played BBCs at schools and other places. I definitely agree with your no.1 spot. Imogen was a fantastic game. It’s a shame it wasn’t ported to other platforms.
It is a shame! I know it got a remake a couple of years back, so it can be played on modern PCs, but it was a waste having such a great game limited to one computer. And not many people I know have even played it on the BBC.
What a great video!! I think you should definitely do another one for sure but a lot longer! ;) Love the citadel bit with the cheat (get to see more screens that way) I used to love programming graphics routines using vdu commands, got them to play alongside all the 80s music! Them were the days! Please, keep up the good work! Subscribing! 😊😊😊♥️
Daredevil Dennis! I had totally forgotten that one, having not played it since I was about 8. I was never great at Thrust, but I did love the spiritual sequel Oids, on the Atari ST. Worth a go if you've never played it
I loved playing Contraption. A very good high res game for 1984. Icon Software also produced Drain Mania and Flip!. I only wish Drain Mania had a proper ending. In the game description it says that no one has ever made it out alive. Will you be the first? Sadly the last level just repeats in an endless cycle. It would have been nice to see a congratulatory screen.
Man I used to clock chuckie egg several times... it was so addictive. Blagger though, too hard, could never get past about the 3rd or 4th level. Also used to love those educational or rpg adventure type games... Dinosaur Discovery, Granny's Garden
YES, IMOGEN!! I didn't think that would be in the list, since it's pretty rather than smashy smashy, but so enjoyable... More about the experience than the winning. :-) Thank you for this joyous list!
Glad you're a fellow fan of Imogen, Danni. I love that game, it was so enjoyable and way ahead of its time. I've just picked up a BBC Micro with an SD card mod, so Imogen will be my first stop. Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
My father was a very naughty man and stole a BBC Micro B for my Christmas present, Xmas 1982 I think it was. I still have it and the manual by John McColl, which I diligently worked through at ages 6/7. But although Dad bought an extra memory pack bringing it up to the amazing capacity of 64k we never had a floppy disk part, we had a cassette player instead. Oh, those Saturdays trying to get the games to work, rewinding and getting "Der Der, Der Der, errrk". I never got to play "Kissin' Cousins" as it would never, ever load. Hopefully I didn't miss anything. (I still have the cassette player too, and most of the tapes!)
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Great list. Brought back a lot of good memories playing on my acorn electron. My favourites were chuckie egg, citadel and hunchback and the frogger clone. Can’t remember what it was called
Thanks! I used to play a Frogger clone on the BBC called Hopper. Was that it?
Funnily enough I was playing Chuckie Egg about an hour ago!
Amazing memories.
I learnt to code on the BBC Micro at age 7. Taught myself from a book. I could code before I could even read lol.
At the time I didn’t have any games so had to make my own. Great times.
Haha Good old days.
@@StrAy-t3r of? games? Loads, platform, space invaders, tried loads of times to make superhero type games where you could fly etc. Even attempted a time travel game, but never got that one down lol
Coding at age 7? Impressive 😊
I wanted either a Spectrum or C64, but my Dad said "Nope, you'll get what the schools are using", then we bought the Viglen PC Kit (made it look somewhat like a PC XT/AT, and installed 2 5.25 floppy drives). I also bought every copy of 'Input' magazine and thus the 4 binders to contain them, and lol, semi successfully programed and got working most of the 'input' programs.
Games wise? MANY were played...
- Thrust: HELL YEAH... excellent game.
- Elite: Yeah I did ok, until a friend of mine managed to get the cheat disk that allowed FULL weapons/armour/credits and such, and then spent hundreds of hours exploring, 'Kickin ass' and such... Good times!
- Chuckie egg: Hahaha you surely are bringing out the classics here!
- Mission Impossible: I played this on a mates C64... I THINK there was creepy speech in it too, "You'll stay foreverrrrr" (or something like that)
- Arkanoid: Oh God yeah, MANY hours on that one too!
What about Galaga? I chewed through MANY levels on that brilliant game! 😏🤣🤣
🦇😎🦇 🇬🇧
Great memories :)
I was unwell for about a year so couldn't play outside in my school. I remember Chuckie Egg and Repton as a teacher was kind enough to set them up for me as something to do.
That was nice of them.
@@onaretrotip Certainly was. Mr Foster. Very kind man.
Wow that takes me back to my childhood
Good times :)
Hey there, I loved every penny of my £399.99 BBC micro model B.
Elite, holy guacamole batman, what a great game on a 32k computer, my all time favourite game, and Repton, played that to the death, along with spitfire and f1. Have to say you're right about collision detection, it was always perfect. All you're game picks are great, I can remember playing them all. Still have my beeb in the loft. 😀 👍 👍 👍
Hey, Mike! Get it out the loft and get playing it haha. I bought my first ever BBC last year, and I'm playing it a lot, love it! I only ever played my mate's one back in the day so I'm discovering some great new games (it has an SD card mod with every game built-in).
Repton should be rebooted on modern systems
I remember the hardest game I ever played on the Beeb back on the day was called "Frak!" - it was a platformer where you played as a caveman with random missiles appearing from the sides of the screen. I'm pretty sure it was my first rage-quit!
Cool game! I never played it back in the day, but I have since.
Who could forget, “Citatettal, Citatettal, Citatettal” lol. One of my favourites was a text adventure game called “Sphinx” which I played on my Electron. Thank you for the trip down memory lane!
Glad I could stir up some fond memories :)
I’m still amazed by how much fun can be had with 32k when you know no better. It also shows how wasteful programmers are today with seemingly endless memory.
Couldn't agree more.
Elite TNK, a faithful (so I read) reversed engineered version of BBC Elite has a combined file size of almost 4MB, I didn't even bother looking up memory usage. BBC disk version is 52 KB so about 80 time larger. The sound effects (which are copies of the BBC sound) alone take up ~1.5 MB.
I agree, though when memory is in such great quantity, use it to it's best extent right????
Yup. Elite & Revs on 32k
Plus they were the first in thier genre.
God knows what modern day programmers are doing with all that extra memory and tried & tested formulas. Lazy !
I'm 45 ( nearly 46 ) and a BBC Micro owner, yet I don't think that I've ever come across your number 1 pick. Fascinating.
+liverush24 That's awesome, glad to hear that! It's such a great game, definitely worth checking out. Thanks for watching.
nearly 50 now mate , as am I lol, a fellow Beeb User from the 70's
Same here, I built up my old computer collection, BBC , C64 , Spectrum...and now Amiga A500. Enjoying reliving my teens again..🤩 . Never played your number 1 choice...but I will.😊
I absolutely loved this, haven't seen these games since I was a kid in the 80s. Almost wept when I saw Citadel, Chuckie Egg and Repton, the screens are so familiar, even tho it's 30 years at least since I saw them. Thanks you.
That's great to hear. Thank you!
I agree that if you had played Elite more it may have been higher on your list as I feel it should be .Maybe it’s Because you played at school and at a friends house , Elite required hours and hours to appreciate . Something like Arkanoid is very pick up and play which suits a quick blast at school for example . I would also put Chuckie Egg higher . Some great games on the list though 👍 Shame Castle Quest and Frak didn’t make the cut .
I also feel Dare Devil Denis is on ski's not in a “skidoo”.
Love the Beeb , my 1st home computer.
Our primary school could only afford one BBC micro , I remember we had Link 480Zs which I presume were cheaper.
Yeah, I think if I had owned my own BBC back then and had Elite, the list would be different. Did I say "skidoo"? That's odd. Def on skis (I still play it often, the last time being about six weeks ago).
2:09: 15. Thrust
2:53: 14. Blagger / Son of Blagger
3:33: 13. Elite
4:40: 12. Exile
5:42: 11. Killer Gorilla
6:11: 10. Chuckie Egg
7:01: 9. Repton
7:31: 8. Impossible Mission
8:36: 7. Daredevil Dennis
9:41: 6. Commando
10:46: 5. Palace of Magic
11:33: 4. Stryker's Run / Codename: Droid
12:38: 3. Citadel
13:42: 2. Arkanoid
14:53: 1. Imogen
😎👍
I'm happy to see Imogen take top spot, looking back it is definitely for me one of the most well-rounded and unique games on the system, and still a lot of fun to play today with its many simple puzzles and charming puns.
Citadel would have taken next spot for me at #2 (though if I ranked them at the time it would likely have taken first place!), that was an amazing adventure; it's a shame the late-game solution was so obtuse, requiring travelling through fake walls with no hints of their existence. A bizarre design choice there among an otherwise excellently put together challenge.
Number #3 for me would probably have been Castle Quest. Similar to Citadel, but smaller in scope and with more interesting interactions with enemies. But again, a ridiculously difficult, nay impossible, final puzzle to solve as you had to shoot a random brick with a wand to get the treasure. Another bizarre design choice, it's like these developers never wanted people to finish their games!
Yes, I feel like Imogen was quite ahead of its time, and a charming little game.
As a kid we had a Beeb at home. What made it even better was that my stepdad was a computer science lecturer at Coventry & Lancaster polytechnic. He was able to get the 6502 and Z80 second processors as a part of his equipment for his lectures! Elite is amazing when played with the second processor.
Citadel is one of the few games on the Beeb that I actually finished.
Palace of Magic is actually the sequel to Citadel, hence the similarity between the two games.
Ah, that explains it!
My dad bought a bbc micro model b 32k when I was 3.
I loved it, so many happy memories. Football manager by Kevin Toms was my favourite game... even all these years later it sits behind Red Dead Redemption and The Last of us in my top 3 favourite games of all time.
Code name Droid. Barbarian 1 and 2. The last ninja, the Bbc gave us some incredible games. Many of which have influenced todays titles.
I had many in the list.
I got rid of the computer when i was 18. In 1999. 15 long years later.... i had a nes, Mega Drive and PS1 growing up... the beeb took them all on and beat 2 of them!
I should really get an emulator, i miss the computer sometimes even now.
That's awesome! So many fond memories of those days.
Starship Command (Acornsoft). Just about the right amount of predictability before the aliens attack, and that genius 'escape capsule' feature to add to the suspense.
Is that the one with the ship that looks like the Liberator from Blake's 7?
Exactly. Get yourself Beebem www.mkw.me.uk/beebem/ and a copy of Starship Command from www.stairwaytohell.com/
Fav as well
That's the one!
Superb game. Acornsoft set the bar with all their games back in the day
Absolutely love the bbc micro. Grew up with it in school and watched them on the bbc with the computer programme and micro live. Thanks for the video.
Me too, it's very dear to me indeed. Thank you!
Way back in the day I spent many an hour programming until 0400 in the morning on games we put out there at the time. Sad to say mine were text adventures, no graphical, when that happened I started to get left behind, and decided to follow another route. I still have a BBC32 and Master in the loft somewhere with the 5.5 floppy drive (dual, I was posh lol) along with some of the productions, Horror Castle, Shrinking Professor, were two, sold them through a company in Manchester at the time, might have been A&F software, not to sure. Great days long gone.
Good times :)
I've never even heard about this console before.
The games look amazing for their age and I am planning on checking them out on an emulator.
Thanks!
Great! They were popular home computers in the '80s, and every school in England had them, so we would learn basic programming on them, etc.
That was an emotional rollercoaster down memory lane there.
Great memories.
Never had a Beeb back in the day but I do now. Love the system to bits. Just iconic! Great vid.
Sorry for the late reply, must have missed this comment. Yeah, I never owned my own until a few years ago, but it was the system I first really fell in love with as a kid.
@Al Masih Ad Dajjal We've collected them all over the years. You also can't beat the Saturn for some of the obscure Japanese shooters! Dreamcast is no slouch either!
Thrust and Chuckie Egg for me - I'm still playing them on my BBC Micro at age 49. My kids who are all iPad and PS4 fans cant even get near my scores, even after a lot of practice !!! :)
Two absolutely fantastic games there. I still play and enjoy them.
The BBC is 40 years old this year. I have a NEW really good BBC competition pro style Joysticks on eBay that are only £50! (not like £100 like old BBC competition pros go for) - celebrate in style. Works great - I just completed Airwolf with it after 40 years! Really responsive. My BBC Master is even more cherished now I can really get good with games!!:)))
Where did that time go? I've just turned 40 and can't believe it.
@@onaretrotip You're as old as the BBC! ...or the BBC is as old as you?
Great list. Loved Imogen and was pleased to see it was in top spot, I spent ages on my BBC as a kid.
Personal favourites for me were Ravenskull which was so frustrating and the Repton games.
Thanks for bringing back some good old memories. As cool as my PS4 is, it'll never be as cool as my old BBC.
Thanks
Thanks, I'm so pleased to hear that it brought back some fond memories. It's great to hear from someone else who enjoyed Imogen, it was such a fantastic game for the time but one that sadly many seem to have missed.
Thanks for watching and the comments!
+onaretrotip Managed to find a PC version of Imogen a few years back. Exactly the same but with more colours obviously. Good stuff.
Andy D Oh wow. I'll look that up, thanks!
+onaretrotip Just had a look mate. m.squakenet.com/download/imogen/13686/
Andy D Thanks dude!!!
Happy memories of a lot of these, and almost feel sad for my younger self for missing out on the ones here that I never got to play. Loved Repton and Commando. Frak was also good fun. Thx for the vid 🙂
Yeah Repton and Commando were great, although in hindsight Commando is an absolutely terrible port. Still, I loved it.
Chaos and Lazer squad on spectrum pure class
👌
wicked video mate :) not heard of imogen before but looks quite interesting and unique. really enjoyed this video, keep em coming
+Daniel “Slope's Game Room” Ibbertson Thanks Dan! Imogen was such a novel idea for the time, I think it may surprise a few people how high it placed on the list. It's the first game that I know of to use that sort of mechanic. I'll definitely be doing more in the future, I was pleased with how this turned out.
I had just 2 games for my BBC Micro....Elite and Swoop. Loved them both.
If you're only going to have two games, you can't really go wrong if one of them is Elite.
Most played: Elite (by a country parsec), then Cylon Attack, Repton, Mr Ee, Castle Quest, Hunchback (that scream when he falls!), Chuckie Egg, Spyhunter, Starship Command and Jet Pac. Probably forgotten a bunch. Dunjunz was good for multi players. EDIT: Oh, Sinistar!
So many great BBC Micro games!
Ñ
Great list - the game I played the most was Arkanoid, Dare Devil Dennis and Repton. Only ones not on your list I remember playing a lot are Sim City and Firetrack.
Oh wow, Sim City I never played on BBC, but loved it on Amiga. Was playing Dare Devil Dennis recently; it's still great fun, and I find newcomers really enjoy it too.
I persuaded my mum to mail order a copy of Exile from a gaming magazine when I was maybe 7, after seeing my cousin playing it. I remember it came with an accompanying novella. I couldn't figure out how to equip a weapon and didn't get very far but it still blew my tiny mind.
Yeah, that game blew me away back then!
Fantastic video Pete
I had a model B when I was a kid
Loved the Superior Soft and Acornsoft games
BTW Strykers Run was programmed by Chris Roberts who later made the Wing Commander games
Lots of great memories there mate
+Bangkokian1967 Thanks Ian! Oh, didn't know that Stryker's Run was made by the same guy as Wing Commander, that's interesting! Lots of great memories indeed, doing this video took me right back.
Wow Imogen!!!! I'd comletely forgotten about hat game until this video, used to play that game at school in my lunch breaks all the time! What memories! I've just purchased a BBC Master so this game will ne a must when I get it. Thank you so much for thi vid.
Awesome! Enjoy. Love Imogen.
Just found this video. We were lucky enough to get a hand me down BBC micro from my Dad's friend but tonnes of games on disc and tape. My favourites were Repton, Citadel, Dare Devis Dennis and Chuckie egg amongst this list. We also played Mr EE, Revs, Hostages and many others to death. Loved our BBC and even took it to University in the 90's to play on. Sadly, I think parents threw it out a number of years ago.
Sounds like we played a lot of the same games. Good times!
We had one at secondary school, crazy to think they were still around in the late 90s.
Yeah, mad isn't it.
Dug out my old BBC Micro and all the text adventures I had, great fun even though they took ages to load from Cassette. You would be surprised how collectable they are now
Oh, I know. Trying to get original floppies is so difficult.
You might like an "MMC" solution, they are about £15 and pretend to be a couple of double sided floppy drives. I have written a games menu for them and GOTEKs with nearly everything from BBC micro.co.uk, download it here stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16070
What a great reverie! Loved Repton and Arkanoid, so many other cool games too like Cylon Attack, Star Striker, Jet Pac, Maze, Kix, Pengo, Eagle Empire and Block Blitz were some of my favourites.
Thank you! So many great games on the BBC.
I was fortunate enough to have one of these at home when I was a kid, with both a tape deck and a 5 1/4" disk drive. I remember most of these games as well as a good couple dozen that didn't make your list like Frak!, Way of the Exploding Fist, Vortex, Cylon Attack, etc etc.
Good times.
That's awesome, always nice to hear from people who actually owned a Micro. It's such a shame that the extent of many peoples' interaction with it is through Granny's Garden played briefly at school. There were so many great games for the system, it was hard narrowing it down to a mere fifteen. Good times indeed :)
some of my favourites were Plan B, Meteors, Starship Command, Quest, Frak, & Defender
Starship Command I've discovered in recent years, it's great. Frak is decent too. Don't think I've played Plan B, will have to check that out.
I remember a lot of these games. There was a pensioner who lived across the street from me when I was a kid. He used to invite kids around to play games on his BBC Micro. In retrospect, it sounds a bit creepy, but it was all totally innocent. We also had a computer lab full of BBC Micros at school. But most of the games at school were "educational", but at least they had Sim City 😀
Hahaha.
Excellent and unexpected choice with Imogen. It's such a unique idea for a game. You can complete it, wait a few years to forget the gameplay and solutions, and then enjoy it all over again!
Thanks! It's one that seemingly few people have played, but what a gem of a game. Way ahead of its time!
Nice trip down memory lane. BBC Micro was the first computer I had. Out of the games in the video Exile was one of my favourites.
Thanks, Simon! I actually just bought my first one ever haha (as I only ever used my friend's one or the ones at school). It has an SD card mod so has all the games on, so I'll be exploring the library of games that I never got to play. Exile blew me away back in the day, so impressive.
Interesting video. I got here having seen a snake (Nokia '97 style) game on the Android store, before googling the origins of the original where this machine was mentioned. Funny where you end up. Great video. Old new things ;)
+Diamond Dust Ha, what an interesting route you took to get here! Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for watching.
Exile was incredible - I got stuck relatively early, partly due to being about six at the time, but it remained endlessly playable even just to mess around on. The mechanics of it (*nothing* moved lineally, not even bullets) and the cliche-free puzzle-solving were amazing. Not sure who programmed it but if you gave them a modern-day computer they could probably create time travel before lunch.
Other shouts - Qwak was excellent. Manic, totally unforgiving, and levels/enemies that changed around you simply because you'd moved into a specific but seemingly empty space. And Repton Infinity was remarkable - it built on Repton 3 (also excellent, though incredibly difficult) but included a simplified programming system so you could effectively create your own games. Pipeline was good too, although too big and complicated for me at the time!
Haha yeah, whoever programmed Exile was a bloody genius! I remember the first time I saw it; I couldn't believe it. Not played Repton Infinity, but Ill' check it out (my BBC has an SD card mod and it's on there). Thanks, Daniel!
you got to watch this Dan th-cam.com/video/GpWoF5uVgbA/w-d-xo.html
Oh man, Qwak was ace. Very cutesy too, but when the enemies came back after being bubbled, some of them looked downright fierce.
it was geoff crammonds of stunt car racers first title
Pipeline was a menacing game. Never completed the last level. Each one became exponentially more difficult. Level 3 was enough for me.
05:43 - I had 2 different versions of Killer Gorilla. One version was that you couldn't go up ladders with the mallet in your hand and the other version is that you could. The version where you could go up the ladder with the mallet in your hand also gave you an extra life after the completion of each level.
Hmm, interesting. Can't remember which version we used to play back in the day.
Which came first, the dragon or the egg?
...My number one BBC Micro game, Dragon World. It was an educational game, basically a string of mini puzzle games. It would start by printing on screen the words DRAGON EGG DRAGON EGG... many dozens of times, followed by the question I started my comment with. Your answer would determine your start point, then you went on some quest collecting... erm, teeth, I think. It's been some 30 years, my memory's a bit sketchy on it. There were games such as hang-man, a stepping stones game, a memory test game... all word and spelling based. It was actually pretty hard for an 8/9 year old, we never got any further than a certain point where you were stood outside a castle. It was a great game, the fantasy aspect was really electric. I suspect if you played it now, it would be laughably easy and not very entertaining. But we damned well loved that game at our old school.
Despite owning a complete BBC Micro romset and emulator, the game has remained elusive. The file for Dragon World, no matter where you download it from, is always frozen at the first screen. It was developed by a company called 4mation, who also produced another apparently legendary schools game called Granny's Garden. I'd love to find a working copy of Dragon World, I so need to relive it and get closure by finally beating it.
97channel I’ve not played that one! Ah shame, I was going to say I’ll load it up on the BBC (it has an SD Card mod).
I remember Flowers Of Crystal. Some guy called Super Jim would come and save you sometimes but he was overall pretty useless. Good game though.
Don’t forget classics like Defender, Rocket Raid and my favourite Monsters 💪
Don't think I've played the latter two, will check them out! ;)
Excellent top 15, a couple there that I didn't know about that definitely look worthwhile to try out.
+electricadventures Thanks Tony, glad to hear there were some that you haven't tried! Some real gems in this list.
Ace video Pete. I had an acorn electron back in the day so a lot of these games I've played at some time or another. Awesome stuff :-)
+SoulFunkRetro Thanks Matt! Good to hear that someone has played a lot of these. Great memories.
Oh! I'd forgotten about Palace of Magic. Oh, the nostalgia... my Mom and I are both gamers- she'd have been about my age now back when she played through Palace of Magic and various Repton games and I was allowed to stay up late to watch her play! My favourite game was Cuthbert had a Cold, I think, or the other very similar one I forget the name of. I used to adventure for hours!
Palace of Magic is one game that I always think of when I think of the Micro. Great game. Glad I could remind you of it. That's great that you used to watch your mum play, sounds like you have some fond memories there. Don't think I ever played Cuthbert had a Cold. Thanks for watching/commenting!
I loved playing thrust, elite on the bbc. I really lived playing Strykers Run, also bit of trivia for it, one of the creators is Chris Roberts who is creator of the Wing Commander games.
Stryker's Run was amazing. We were lucky enough to have that at school!
We had these at school in the last couple of years I was there - only allowed to use them during Computer Studies lessons and no chance of ever playing games, but just Basic programming :)
+keith last That's a shame Keith, from the sounds of it most schools didn't allow games to be played. I was really lucky that my mate had one.
+onaretrotip yep - they were just seen as a way to learn programming, a shame indeed.
I remember the game Elite, that was a big deal back in the dark and distant days of the 80s, I always fancied playing it but never did - doubt it holds up as well as I'd hope these days
Really interesting watch. My primary school had one of these in each class room. They were really strict with us playing games though annoyingly. Some of these titles look great
+8-bit Andy Cheers Andy! That's a shame they were strict, although I only played a few games on the ones in school. I was lucky that a mate had one, so I got to play a whole bunch of great games.
I remember that I had two different versions of Killer Gorilla on my BBC Master. One version is that you cannot go up ladders with the hammer in your hand but the other version (which is the on I played on almost all the time) is the version where you can go up ladders with the hammer
Oh yeah? That's interesting. I'm not sure which one I played now you mention it.
absolutely love Daredevil Dennis, spent many a hour playing this back in the late 80s early 90s
What a game.
Great video mate. So many memories especially school ones. Used to spend school lunch hours playing many of these games.
Oh and if you haven't seen it the BBC TV drama Micro Men which can be found here on TH-cam is worth a watch for some Acorn, Spectrum & BBC Micro background.
+Let's Talk Retro Thanks, glad it brought back some fond memories. I'll check out that Micro Men, nice one!
Ahhh mate!!! The memories!! I would do anything to avoid written work at primary to get a ride on the BBC computer in class!! Really enjoyed the vid bud..if I'm honest I hadn't realise how many great games there were on the system!!
Well done boss!!!
Cheers Luke! Glad you enjoyed it mate, it brought back great memories for me making this video. I did play a few games at school, but I was lucky that my mate had one so we'd play tons of games at his house. Good times.
Massively underrated piece of kit, the BBC. We also had these at my high school but they were very much end of life at that point.
+SmoothEmJay Definitely! The games look primitive now but absolutely blew me away back then. These were some of the first games I ever played! Thanks for watching.
So great to hear your story, brings back all the fond memories
Thank you! Glad I could stir your memory.
Thanks for the video. Brought back some good memories!
Thanks mate, you're welcome. It's great to see that this video is bringing back fond memories for people, just as making it did for me.
Great list. I got out of the BBC scene early so a lot of these are new to me. Personal favourites were Frak!, Caste of Riddles, Aviator, Lords of Time and the early Acornsoft arcade clones (Snapper, Planetoid!, Monsters! etc.)
+Martin Evans Thanks Martin! Glad to hear that there were some that you weren't aware of. I've not heard of Castle of Riddles, and don't think I've played Lords of Time, so I'll check those out. Some of the early clones were great!
Lords of Time was published by Level 9 who saw themselves as a Brit Infocom. All their titles are worth checking out.
I had Frak!, and while it looked fantastic, it was no fun at all. (IMHO)
Wow! Thanks for some great memories. My favourite was the flight simulator (not mentioned in this video).
As a kid, you could use your imagination to 'paint' the scenery in.
Thanks! Don't think I ever played that.
Ah this takes me back. Incredible that these were made with just a handful of k's . I'd also have Sentinel, Castle Quest, Revs, and Cholo.
+Nick White Good choices! This brought back so many fond memories for me too. It really is mind blowing that these were produced with just a few kilobytes, as you say, when modern games are tens of GB! For example, each cutscene of Day of the Tentacle was 64k, which could have house several of these games.
Great vid mate and thanks for the memories , remember there was always a que at school to play chuckie egg, and arkanoid.
+gamergeekworld Thanks! Haha, that's awesome, glad it brought back good memories.
Elite and Exile were my favourites. Amazing games at the time. Imogen was incredibly charming with some very amusing elements. I remember squashing the rabbits!
Oh yes, those two were so far ahead of anything else it was crazy. The first time I played Exile I was absolutely blown away. Imogen again was pretty advanced, and holds up pretty well today.
On Blagger level 1, if you ran left against the pink moving platform and quickly ran right you could walk through the wall ! Lol ! loved that game
Haha brilliant!
The first ever home computer games I played were Frak and Daredevil Denis on the BBC Micro and have been hooked ever since haha.
Good times!
Some of the more recent homebrew titles have blown my mind, especially the arcade conversions by Richard Broadhurst, and of course, White Light, Prince of Persia, and Stunt Car Racer (the latter two require a BBC Master though...or running an emulator in BBC Master mode)
Richard's games are incredible! I only learned of them when I met him earlier this year.
Thanks Scott :)
@@onaretrotip Thanks, I don't know how I missed your channel.
talk about a trip down memory lane. I'd completely forgotten about DareDevil Denis and Imogen, but as soon as I saw them I instantly remembered how much fun I used to have playing those games. I guess the brain really does store everything in there somewhere.
Thanks for a great vid.
Funny how seeing an image or even just hearing a game's music can bring those memories flooding back, of games we'd long since forgotten. So glad the video brought back some fond memories for you. Thank you!
Top video, thanks. :) My favs that I played were:
Chuckie Egg
Frak
Sim
Knight Lore
Knightshade
Jetpack
Sabre Wulf
Planetoid
Elite
Twin Kingdom Valley
Winged Warlords
Citadel
Killer Gorilla
Son of Blagger
Alien 8
Rocket Raid
Meteors
Strikers Run
Felix and the evil weevils
Mr E.
Boffin
Commando
Ravenskull
Spy vs Spy
Mined Out
Repton 2
Exile
Trust
Arkanoid.
...and many others.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! A few I've not played there, but you obviously have good taste.
Imogen was definitely 1 of my favourites but would have to say Repton as you could create your own levels and characters so that was probably my favourite but bringing back nostalgia just watching these. I forgot about that stunt man game.
Great games. I played Dare Devil Dennis recently - still so hard haha, but fun.
Very interesting list of games.
Cool video bro 👍
Thank you very much!
Every one a gem 💎, not a bad game in the mix.
👍👍👍👀
Thanks!
I watched this in 2022: I did use a BBC Micro in a training scheme and played a football management game with my friend, whereby you could put your own words(mostly rude) in. When you you got to the top division and you scored 5 a game, random senetences would be created, very purile but funny.
Haha good times!
Thrust had upside down levels and we used to turn the monitors at school upside down to complete them. Once we forgot to it back.
Hahahaha. That's absolutely brilliant, thanks for sharing.
Awesome. I used to play on the Acorn back in school between 1996-1999. I remember a game which was a cross between a text adventure and a Zelda clone. The intro had you choose from two paths either in the West or East, in the 'Zelda style'. The input from the keyboard was cumulative too. So every time you pressed left the character would move one step left, and if you hammered it too quickly you'd be walking into the wall for ages. I'd love to know what the game was :)
Doesn't ring a bell I'm afraid.
Chuckie egg was ace. I also remember magic mushrooms. You could create your own levels, with each tile having different things like you could bounce, or fall through them.
Still play Chuckie Egg, really fun.
Interesting the song that is playing in the introduction (Rydeen by Yellow Magic Orchestra) is from a BBC Master as the Enhanced Version of Stryker's Run didn't work on a normal 32K BBC Model B (or maybe it was just my BBC even though it had sideways RAM).
Yeah, the version of Stryker's Run that I played as a kid didn't have that. Love YMO though!
Excellent piece of nostalgia. I thought I knew most of the games on the bbc, but a few surprises here! Shame banjax wasn't on the list tho! :)
+You Tuber Thanks! It seems that a few people are surprised by the number of quality titles on the system. Not played Banjax, I'll look it up. Great username by the way hahaha!
I remember waiting for my copy of Acorn User coming out, amazing magazine I think you can download them all on pdf free. Must read if into beebs
I have a stack of those at home actually. They were my mate's brother's back in the day.
Very interesting list, nice selection - I'd probably put quite a few of them on my on such list. In fact, If I ever do get some spare time I might have to knock my own list up.
Magic Mushrooms, Castle Quest, Frak!, ....quite a few other titles that might make my Top 15.
By the way, I'm guessing the screen-shots of Citadel are from a cheat version, as the character is walking through many enemies and dangerous without losing any enemies :)
+Pj Gathergood Thank you! If you do ever get time please let me know, as I'd love to see your list. There are so many great BBC Micro games that it was hard to choose just 15. Yes, well noticed on Citadel!
I've never heard of Imogen - I'll have to check it out. Repton (2) and Chuckie Egg were totally my thing. I played the latter so much that I knew exactly where the blue birds moved and could complete pretty much every level without hesitating. I was so hyped when they played it on 'Go 8 Bit' (that gaming game-show on Dave).
I also enjoyed Hyperball, and being very young (given that I was born in 1991 - I was only introduced to these games because of my three elder brothers), I also played Granny's Garden a silly number of times, even though I was a bit scared of the sound the witch made when she appeared. :-D 'Would you like to help the King and Queen?' 'N' 'That's not very nice. Would you like to help the King and Queen?'
Hi Eleanor! I'd thoroughly recommend Imogen, it was way ahead of its time and it's still very enjoyable today. The puzzle solving element of the gameplay is timeless. I was very pleased to see Chuckie Egg on Go 8-Bit too! I was playing Chuckie Egg a couple of months ago and I had forgotten how quickly the difficulty spikes. Quite the challenge.
I've not played Hyperball, I'll have to look that one up. I did play Granny's Garden a bit, but the text based adventure games were mostly cast aside when the fancier games became available to me (Stryker's Run being one of the first that I remember playing a lot). It's a shame that, judging by the comments, many people solely got to play Granny's Garden at school and never experienced the myriad genres available on the Micro.
Thanks for the comment!
Hyperball was just another Breakout clone, so if you've played Arkanoid you're probably fine!
I think I was attracted to GG only because it had a slow pace and was extremely linear so I didn't have to deal with very complex puzzles or evil monsters springing up here there and everywhere. As you say - other games are far better! I'll have to hijack my partner's computer and get an emulator!
Eleanor Simmance Ah, okay. I do love Arkanoid. Awesome, let me know if you end up getting to play Imogen, and tell me what you think ;)
Granny’s garden theme tune is burnt in my brain. Loved chuckle egg and repton
Haha everyone remembers Granny's Garden.
I remember playing elite on the Amstrad CpC, and you can still play it today, all be it a much upgraded version called "Elite Dangerous "
Indeed!
Fantastic collection. I never came across Imogen but wish I had.
Thanks, Mike! Yeah, Imogen was a lucky random find for us back in the day. Great game!
Wow, Commando looks slightly different from the arcade version we played in the THSC! Great vid dude, have little knowledge of the BBC Mirco! Now, I have a little bit more :)
+Matropolis Ah...Arkanoid too! Fun game :)
+Matropolis Glad it was informative Mat, thanks. Yeah, Commando looks very different doesn't it, haha. Plays similarly though, used to love it back in the day, and that was way before I played it in the arcade. And Arkanoid, what a game!
Fantastic list, Imogen number 1 definitely I loved that game. I would add Cholo, Labyrinth and Ravenskull :)
Sorry for the delayed reply; must've missed this comment. Thank you! I will check those out.
I used to write games in BASIC on the BBC Micro, and on the Commodore PET before that!
That's great! I never had the patience, sadly.
I was a C64 kid but I played BBCs at schools and other places. I definitely agree with your no.1 spot. Imogen was a fantastic game. It’s a shame it wasn’t ported to other platforms.
It is a shame! I know it got a remake a couple of years back, so it can be played on modern PCs, but it was a waste having such a great game limited to one computer. And not many people I know have even played it on the BBC.
What a great video!!
I think you should definitely do another one for sure but a lot longer! ;)
Love the citadel bit with the cheat (get to see more screens that way)
I used to love programming graphics routines using vdu commands, got them to play alongside all the 80s music! Them were the days!
Please, keep up the good work!
Subscribing! 😊😊😊♥️
Thank you very much! Definitely planning to do some more videos on the BBC Micro at some point soon.
The best thing about this video is the various music you play ;)
Yeah, it's great. Check out his channel, he has loads more!
awesome! I loved Imogen. Still remember the level where you have to get the dog to salivate by ringing the bell
Such an innovative game.
Daredevil Dennis! I had totally forgotten that one, having not played it since I was about 8. I was never great at Thrust, but I did love the spiritual sequel Oids, on the Atari ST. Worth a go if you've never played it
Daredevil Dennis is great, I was playing it recently actually. Still damn hard! Don't remember playing Oids, will have a look. Thanks!
I loved playing Contraption. A very good high res game for 1984. Icon Software also produced Drain Mania and Flip!. I only wish Drain Mania had a proper ending. In the game description it says that no one has ever made it out alive. Will you be the first? Sadly the last level just repeats in an endless cycle. It would have been nice to see a congratulatory screen.
Ah, never played Contraption. I'll have to look it up!
I would add Revs, Aviator, Fortress, Boffin and Frak. I was around 10/11 years old when I got my BBC Micro, it was an upgrade from my ZX81.
Thanks for the suggestions, a couple there I don't think I've played!
Frak was brilliant! Pretty solid graphics for the time if I recall.
I had an Acorn Electron (couldn't afford a BBC Micro :-( ) and LOVED Repton and Repton 2. I can't believe it gets only the number nine slot.
I loved Repton too, just not as much as the others ;)
Man I used to clock chuckie egg several times... it was so addictive. Blagger though, too hard, could never get past about the 3rd or 4th level. Also used to love those educational or rpg adventure type games... Dinosaur Discovery, Granny's Garden
Chuckie Egg is certainly addictive! Ha, I used to love the old text adventures too.
YES, IMOGEN!!
I didn't think that would be in the list, since it's pretty rather than smashy smashy, but so enjoyable... More about the experience than the winning. :-)
Thank you for this joyous list!
Glad you're a fellow fan of Imogen, Danni. I love that game, it was so enjoyable and way ahead of its time. I've just picked up a BBC Micro with an SD card mod, so Imogen will be my first stop. Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
My father was a very naughty man and stole a BBC Micro B for my Christmas present, Xmas 1982 I think it was. I still have it and the manual by John McColl, which I diligently worked through at ages 6/7. But although Dad bought an extra memory pack bringing it up to the amazing capacity of 64k we never had a floppy disk part, we had a cassette player instead. Oh, those Saturdays trying to get the games to work, rewinding and getting "Der Der, Der Der, errrk". I never got to play "Kissin' Cousins" as it would never, ever load. Hopefully I didn't miss anything. (I still have the cassette player too, and most of the tapes!)
*He stole it from Birmingham University where he worked. Apparently they never noticed!
Haha nice!