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BEHOLD: THE SHAKIN' STEVENS GAME

23/1/2018

13 Comments

 
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Do you remember Shakin' Stevens? He had a string of solo hits in the 1980s, despite having been knocking around as the lead singer of Shakin' Stevens and The Sunsets since the 1960s. Although punk had seemingly throttled his particular blend of wobbly dancing and anachronistic rock n' roll, a late-70s lead role in a West End musical - playing Elvis Presley, no less - propelled Shaky on his bandy-legged journey to the top.

After the hits shrivelled up at the end of 80s, you'd be forgiven for thinking Shakin' Stevens hadn't done anything since, apart from a Heineken advert - but you couldn't be more wrong!

My friend Jon is the world's biggest Shakin' Stevens fan (he also really likes Status Quo, suggesting that he mostly listens to music played by men wearing double denim). Through him I have been made starkly aware of Shaky's ongoing career, and his grumpy reluctance to play the big hits live. Or at least, his stubborn insistence on playing them in a minor key, through gritted teeth,. 

It's also via Jon that I was alerted to the fact that Shaky once released his own ZX Spectrum game. It came on the cassette tape for Shaky's 1983 album, The Bop Won't Stop.

Yes... yes, let's take a look at that, shall we?
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The Bop Won't Stop failed to perform as well as its predecessors, only making it to number 21 in the UK charts.

This was in spite of it spawning a couple of top-10 hit singles, and coming with a free arcade game for the ZX Spectrum - The Shaky Game!

Shaky may have been wedded to his own particular blend of vintage Welsh rhythm "n" blues, and been desperately unable to stop the bop from occurring, but at least he was at the cutting edge of interactive entertainment!
Here's the voice of the great man himself, giving a shout out, in his unmistakable Welsh lilt, to all owners of the "Sinclair Spectrum four-eight-k computer". This must've been terribly frustrating to my friend Jon, and others of his ilk, who as far as I know only ever owned an Oric-1 (which was merely a "one-six-k" computer).
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Here's the title screen. It does the job. It tells you what it is: not just A Shaky game, but THE Shaky Game. The definite article, if you will.

Remember all those other great games made by Olympic Software? No. No you don't. Olympic Software never made any other games, as far as I can tell.

Speaking at the time, one Olympic Software team member, Robert "No, Probably Not That One" Wyatt, admitted: "We thrashed out the idea with the record company over a couple of lunches. It was a hell of a rushed job. We had to finish it in seven weeks. Getting it bug-free in that time was a real headache."

Once you have learned the concept for this game, you may find yourself wishing you had been a fly on the wall at those lunches...
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At the beginning of The Shaky Game, the player is greeted with a personal message from Shaky himself. He has a mission for you: reach the ole house of vampires, before HIS fuel runs out.

In that evocative, scene-setting, introductory paragraph alone there are many questions waiting to be answered. Are you Shaky's chauffeur? Or is Shaky the car? Is he some sort of rock n' roll Transformer? Or did he lend you his fuel? Why is he so possessive about HIS fuel? Did he refine the oil himself?

And why exactly is Shaky so desperate for you both to reach the ole house of vampires? Is it to kill them? To be bitten by them? To deliver a package? Or just have a look?

At no point does he elaborate, but this is Shaky - The Xerox King - and you don't want to disappoint him!

Note also the clever way in which Shaky - and we must assume that Shaky has written this message himself - weaves the titles of several of his biggest hits into the text; It's Late, This Ole House, Drive Me (You) Crazy, Watch Out For The Flying Bats, You Get Three Lives, and Don't Let My Fuel Run Out.
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Ah. And now we learn the motivation behind Shaky's request: he wants you to demonstrate your loyalty to him, dangling the promise of being listed in his own personal Top Ten. This, and only this, is the way to address Shaky's insatiable desires. It may not please him, but it will at least satisfy him.
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Also: you might win something if you are to give him your heart tonight. Even though it's raining!

I can't help but feel there is a subtext here that I am failing to grasp. What with the vampires and all that, are we to take Shaky's demand for your heart literally? Is he a cannibal, or the head of a vampire coven?
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And here's the game, resplendent in Shaky's trademark "denim blue". If you were expecting a digital recreation of some of Shaky's catchy hits, you're going to be disappointed alas. There's no music at all, save for some screeching electronica, and jarring beeps, more akin to avant-garde krautrock than Shakin' Stevens' Elvis-lite harmonies.

You can see that your car (or is it Shaky's car? We know, at least, that it contains his fuel) is trapped in a maze. How did it get in there? Like so much to do with The Shaky Game, this is never adequately explained. Perhaps you are a prisoner of Shaky, forced to endure some sick and twisted game at his behest.

Those blobs? Oh, they're the bats. There are two of them. Don't get bitten - or they'll drive you crazy (give you ebola)!!!!

Also: your lives are represented by "Shakys". Why is Shaky losing a life every time you do? Are you driving the car, or is Shaky driving the car, or are you linked symbiotically? Either somebody hasn't thought any of this through properly, or it's just a slapdash load of old guff. 
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Here's the message Shaky has for you if you manage to reach the ole house of vampires. "You're at the ole house" he says, with something approaching searing accuracy. 

But wait: YOU'RE at the ole house? Not WE'RE?! Is he in the car or not!? What's going on!?!!!?
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Unfortunately, Shaky values punctuality over almost everything else. If you don't make it to the ole house of vampires within Shaky's arbitrarily chosen deadline, you will be told you have "run out of time-shake on!", whatever that might mean.

Shaky: are you drunk, dear?
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Running out of time isn't the only way to fail at Shaky's quest to reach the ole house of vampires. Colliding with a blob - sorry, bat - will once again prompt a curiously type-set message from Shaky. I must say, he doesn't seem very upset! He almost seems to be revelling in your failure. 

"OH DEAR!!"
he exclaims, no doubt with a sarcastic raise of his eyebrows and a waggle of his hips. "a bat bit            you"
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Success may bring its own reward, but reaching the ole house of vampires with plenty of time to spare brings great joy to Shakin' Stevens, and bestows upon you a place in his "TOPTEN".

Admittedly, getting into Shaky's "TOPTEN" might not seem like much of a prize, but let's remember that when you were first addressed by Shaky he only said you MIGHT win something - not that you definitely would.

Shaky, can we please have a follow-up to your game, which addresses some of the questions raised? It's very important. Your fans (my friend Jon) demand answers.
FOR LESS THAN £1 A MONTH YOU CAN SUPPORT DIGITISER2000, AND GET ACCESS TO EXCLUSIVE BLOG POSTS!
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13 Comments
Col. Asdasd
23/1/2018 09:09:38 am

I feel like I've been at the ole house all my life.

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RichardM
23/1/2018 09:10:29 am

Early start today, Mr B.

I had no idea this existed... It was a better time, when absoutely anyone or anything could feature in a videogame that cost peanuts to produce.

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Mr Biffo
23/1/2018 09:14:02 am

Yep. There'll be more early starts, as I've changed how I write Digi now - more getting stuff done ahead of time. In fact, Friday Letters page excepted, this week's Digitiser2000 is already all written!

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Dr Peanuts
23/1/2018 09:19:04 am

You might say that the game was based on a "Shaky premise". The article had me laughing in the doctor's waiting room. That's not an S Stevens joke, it's just what was happening.

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Duckusssss
23/1/2018 09:29:02 am

What's behind Shaky's fabled Green Door?
It is - in fact - another, slightly smaller, green door.
And behind that? Bosoms.

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Wayne D
25/1/2018 06:37:37 pm

I misheard it and thought that all he wanted to do was "join the happy crab behind the green door". Seriously.

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Chris of Devon
25/1/2018 09:54:44 pm

Listen to "The Green Door" by V/Vm. That will 'explain' everything. https://www.discogs.com/VVm-The-Green-Door/release/238390

Apparently, there's a crab behind the green door who's convinced he's Craig David. I hope this helps.

DEAN
23/1/2018 11:00:44 am

It's charming - gotta give it that!
My favourite thing is "SHAKYS" for lives.

Adam and the Ants would have made a good game - I think Stand and Deliver was the first pop song I liked (up until that point I only really liked getting my rock on with Vivaldi and his 4 Seasons Joint and reflecting to the melancholic plonking of a solo piano forte).

A Highwayman game would have been awesome - still would be actually. Essentially Highwaymen are like landlubber pirates and who could forget the highwayman scene from Barry Lyndon - best bit in many ways.

Much like Somali pirates, Highwayman are still operating today. They flag down hire cars pretending to be unmarked police cars or by pointing at one of your car tyres warning you about a (bogus) flatty and then proceed to pilfer watches and wallets and designer handbags... nice jewellery and... Nintendo Switch things (probably). Then there are the more fancifully ambitious that gas lorry drivers as they sleep in their trucks and plunder their stuff.

If I made a game about them I'd set it in the future; it'd just be even cooler. Or present day with motorbikes.

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Trevor Cod
23/1/2018 12:55:04 pm

How do the blob bats bite you inside the car? Are the windows open?
This is an immersion breaker for me.

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Rhys
23/1/2018 03:49:07 pm

Blimey, it's no The Biz, is it.

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Brian
23/1/2018 05:23:24 pm

I never noticed Shaky's weird left ear before.

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Adam
23/1/2018 09:45:08 pm

Funnily enough I just saw Shaky on TV the other day - catching up on some Xmas telly i'd missed I watched him perform his Christmas hit Merry Christmas Everyone on a Sky One concert from the Albert Hall. Except the version he did was actually called 'Echoes of Merry Christmas Everyone' and was a slightly-countrified, muted version of the original, that would have infuriated me if I had paid to see it. There was a great line up at this gig (tickets were about £100!) and legends like Chrissie Hynde and Jona Lewie did great performances of their perennial favourites, just like we loved them. But not Shaky!

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JonathanCR
25/1/2018 12:03:57 pm

"A string of solo hits"? Shaky was literally the best-selling artist of the 1980s in the UK. Let that sink in for a moment.

Also it seems somehow wrong that the plural of "Shaky" is "Shakys". I feel it should be "Shakies", although that sounds like a nasty tropical disease. And why are the "Shakys" all bald and wearing red onesies? Not a stitch of denim in sight.

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