Adventure Soft
Encyclopedia
Adventure Soft is a UK-based video game developer
established by Mike Woodroffe, first as an importer and reseller of Adventure International
games. The firm operates out of Sutton Coldfield
, and is best known for the Simon the Sorcerer
series of games.
converting the Adventure International games by Scott Adams
to run on microcomputer
s found in the United Kingdom
market which were not currently supported. Adventure Soft employed Brian Howarth
, the author of the Mysterious Adventures series.
After a time the rate of release of games by Adventure International slowed and the company began to write other games using the same system. The first and perhaps most successful of these was Gremlins - The Adventure (1984) based on the film Gremlins
. 1985 saw the release of a game based on the television series Robin of Sherwood
.
By 1986 Adventure International in the USA was bankrupt
. Adventure Soft signed deals that gave it access to the Fighting Fantasy
gamebooks by Steve Jackson
and Ian Livingstone
, as well as a new more sophisticated game system. The first fruits of this deal were Seas of Blood by Michael Woodroffe and Alan Cox
, followed by Stefan Ufnowski's Rebel Planet; Temple of Terror by Mike and Simon Woodroffe followed shortly afterwards.
Blizzard Pass
(a single player game closely related to AberMUD
) by Cox and Kayleth (by Stefan and Ann Ufnowski) followed as the company diversified the game range. Adventure Soft also began producing games for Tynesoft
including the game of Supergran
and Terraquake (featuring He-Man
).
Amiga
and a growing disinterest in text focussed games Adventure Soft began to actively exploit the graphical and multimedia angle of the games.
The first 32 bit game Personal Nightmare based on a design by Keith Wadhams featured music, animation and some mouse control coupled with a traditional text based game system. It was followed by two games based around Elvira, Mistress of the Dark: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
and Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus
, and a game named Waxworks, all of which moved away from keyboard command input to mouse driven gaming with animation and music from Jezz Woodroffe (a session musician with Robert Plant
, Black Sabbath
and other bands). Waxworks and the Elvira games used a modified AberMUD
5 game engine.
who played Rimmer in Red Dwarf
. In 1997 Adventure Soft released The Feeble Files
, with the lead character being voiced by Robert Llewellyn
who played Kryten also in Red Dwarf.
to allow them to develop non-adventure style games. The now-defunct company released Simon the Sorcerer 3D
in 2002 and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
in 2005.
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
established by Mike Woodroffe, first as an importer and reseller of Adventure International
Adventure International
Adventure International was a computer game publishing company that existed from 1978 until 1985, started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a microcomputer system...
games. The firm operates out of Sutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...
, and is best known for the Simon the Sorcerer
Simon the Sorcerer series
Simon the Sorcerer is a series of point-and-click adventure games created by Adventure Soft. The series follows the adventures of an unwilling hero of the same name and has a strong fantasy setting similar to Sierra's King's Quest and Westwood's Kyrandia series...
series of games.
Adventure Soft Publishing Ltd.
In the beginning Adventure Soft operated out of BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
converting the Adventure International games by Scott Adams
Scott Adams (game designer)
Scott Adams is the co-founder, with ex-wife Alexis, of Adventure International, an early publisher of games for home computers....
to run on microcomputer
Microcomputer
A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
s found in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
market which were not currently supported. Adventure Soft employed Brian Howarth
Brian Howarth
Brian Howarth is a computer game programmer. He wrote many interactive fiction computer games in the early 1980s in a series called Mysterious Adventures....
, the author of the Mysterious Adventures series.
After a time the rate of release of games by Adventure International slowed and the company began to write other games using the same system. The first and perhaps most successful of these was Gremlins - The Adventure (1984) based on the film Gremlins
Gremlins
Gremlins is a 1984 American horror comedy film directed by Joe Dante, released by Warner Bros. The film is about a young man who receives a strange creature—called a Mogwai—as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. It was followed by a sequel,...
. 1985 saw the release of a game based on the television series Robin of Sherwood
Robin of Sherwood
Robin of Sherwood , was a British television series, based on the legend of Robin Hood. Created by Richard Carpenter, it was produced by HTV in association with Goldcrest, and ran from 1984 to 1986 on the ITV network. In America it was retitled Robin Hood and shown on the premium cable TV channel...
.
By 1986 Adventure International in the USA was bankrupt
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
. Adventure Soft signed deals that gave it access to the Fighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy is a series of single-player fantasy roleplay gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volumes in the series were published by Puffin in 1982, with the rights to the franchise eventually being purchased by Wizard Books in 2002...
gamebooks by Steve Jackson
Steve Jackson (UK)
Steve Jackson is a game designer, writer and game reviewer.-History:In early 1975, Steve Jackson co-founded the company Games Workshop with John Peake and Ian Livingstone....
and Ian Livingstone
Ian Livingstone
Ian Livingstone OBE is an English fantasy author and entrepreneur. He is a co-writer of the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and co-founder of Games Workshop....
, as well as a new more sophisticated game system. The first fruits of this deal were Seas of Blood by Michael Woodroffe and Alan Cox
Alan Cox
Alan Cox is a British computer programmer who formerly maintained the 2.2 branch of the Linux kernel and continues to be heavily involved in the development of the Linux kernel, an association that dates back to 1991...
, followed by Stefan Ufnowski's Rebel Planet; Temple of Terror by Mike and Simon Woodroffe followed shortly afterwards.
Blizzard Pass
Blizzard Pass
Blizzard Pass is a 1983 solo adventure module for the Basic Rules of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:Blizzard Pass is a solo adventure for a thief level 1–3. The thief must cross Blizzard Pass, and then penetrate a cavern system within Blizzard Pass to free the other...
(a single player game closely related to AberMUD
AberMUD
AberMUD, pronounced , was the first popular open source MUD, named after the town in which it was written, Aberystwyth. The first version was written in B by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane based at University of Wales, Aberystwyth for an old Honeywell mainframe and opened in...
) by Cox and Kayleth (by Stefan and Ann Ufnowski) followed as the company diversified the game range. Adventure Soft also began producing games for Tynesoft
Tynesoft
Tynesoft Computer Software was a software developer and publisher in the 1980s and early 1990s.- History :The company was originally set up in 1983 to release educational software but soon moved into the video games market on which it concentrated for most of its time...
including the game of Supergran
Supergran
Super Gran is a 1980s children's television programme, about a grandmother with super powers. The show was adapted by Jenny McDade from books written by Forrest Wilson and was produced by Tyne Tees Television for Children's ITV, with the titular character played by Gudrun Ure, and Iain Cuthbertson...
and Terraquake (featuring He-Man
He-Man
He-Man is a fictional heroic character featured in the Masters of the Universe media franchise. In most variations, he is the alter ego of Prince Adam...
).
Horrorsoft
With the rise of more powerful systems like the CommodoreCommodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
and a growing disinterest in text focussed games Adventure Soft began to actively exploit the graphical and multimedia angle of the games.
The first 32 bit game Personal Nightmare based on a design by Keith Wadhams featured music, animation and some mouse control coupled with a traditional text based game system. It was followed by two games based around Elvira, Mistress of the Dark: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is a horror RPG starring the actress Cassandra Peterson . The game was created by Horrorsoft and released by Accolade in 1990.Elvira was Horrorsoft's second published game after 1989's Personal Nightmare...
and Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus
Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus
Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus is the second game in the Elvira series of horror role-playing video games. It was produced by Horrorsoft and published by Accolade in 1992.The game is a sequel to Elvira: Mistress of the Dark...
, and a game named Waxworks, all of which moved away from keyboard command input to mouse driven gaming with animation and music from Jezz Woodroffe (a session musician with Robert Plant
Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...
, Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
and other bands). Waxworks and the Elvira games used a modified AberMUD
AberMUD
AberMUD, pronounced , was the first popular open source MUD, named after the town in which it was written, Aberystwyth. The first version was written in B by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane based at University of Wales, Aberystwyth for an old Honeywell mainframe and opened in...
5 game engine.
Adventuresoft Ltd.
A remodelled Adventure Soft Publishing was born in 1992 and began to release the very Simon the Sorcerer games, continuing the trend towards more graphical gaming. Simon in the first game being voiced by Chris BarrieChris Barrie
Chris Barrie is a British actor. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, notably in the ITV sketch show Spitting Image...
who played Rimmer in Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
. In 1997 Adventure Soft released The Feeble Files
The Feeble Files
The Feeble Files is an adventure game about the adventures of a rather ‘feeble’ alien called Feeble. The game is a science fiction comedy, with a similar style of British humour to that of Adventure Soft’s previous games, the Simon the Sorcerer series....
, with the lead character being voiced by Robert Llewellyn
Robert Llewellyn
Robert Llewellyn is an English actor, presenter, and writer. He is best known as the mechanoid Kryten in the hit sitcom Red Dwarf, and for his role as presenter of Scrapheap Challenge.-Early career:...
who played Kryten also in Red Dwarf.
Headfirst Productions
In 1998 Mike and Simon Woodroffe set up Headfirst ProductionsHeadfirst Productions
Headfirst Productions was a British video game studio established by father and son Mike and Simon Woodroffe in 1998. The studio was an independent developer of games for both the console and PC market.- Games :...
to allow them to develop non-adventure style games. The now-defunct company released Simon the Sorcerer 3D
Simon the Sorcerer 3D
Simon the Sorcerer 3D , was released by Adventure Soft on 13 April 2002 for Microsoft Windows. The story follows where Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe left off but some time in the future...
in 2002 and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a Lovecraftian horror first-person action-adventure game developed by Headfirst Productions and published by Bethesda Softworks in 2005, in conjunction with 2K Games. The game was released for the PC and Xbox systems; the Xbox version is officially...
in 2005.
External links
- Adventure Soft profile on MobyGamesMobyGames-Platforms not yet included:- Further reading :* Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson, High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media; 2 edition , ISBN 0-07-223172-6...