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PLEASE, ARE THESE THE MOST DEPRESSING ZX SPECTRUM GAMES EVER...?

13/3/2018

23 Comments

 
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The 1980s were a curious time. Fashion and pop culture was all rainbow colours, neon, and fannying around on yachts singing about girls called Rio who dance upon the sand.

It was a starkly optimistic, probably necessary, distraction from the reality of British life for many people, which was all miners strikes, IRA bombing campaigns, unemployment and Mrs Thatch.

It was also the year that the British games industry was born, thanks in no short measure to the release of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

The bedroom-coded nature of games development during the 80s meant that singular, idiosyncratic, visions were the norm. Nobody really knew what a video game should be, so they explored personal ideas which offered suggestions for what they could be. And often, what games were was a depressing reflection of real British life wrapped up in some truly eccentric gameplay.

Here are ten such games which nailed it. For better and worse...
URBAN UPSTART
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Set in the fictional town of Scarthorpe - "the sort of town where even the dogs carry flick knives" and "people queue up to queue up for a job" -  Urban Upstart begins at 3am, when the protagonist is gripped by a sudden urge to flee his dispiriting home town.

Unfortunately, this being a place where the only road is a one-way street, and the residents don't want you to leave, achieving this dream played out as an exercise in tolerating monotony. 

With its dead trees, rubbish bins, and park built atop an old sewage works, Scarthorpe was definitely bleak... though its most melancholic element was how little really happened.

​The town was a maze of empty streets and dead ends, and its greatest success was in not being yet another adventure with a fantasy setting. Publisher Richard Shepherd Software clearly anticipated players going round in circles, and offered tips sheets to those who sent an SAE/suicide note.
SOHO SEX QUEST
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Back when Soho Sex Quest was released, London's Soho was a genuine red light district, full of strip clubs and sinister signs advertising "models". These days, much of the grime has been scrubbed away. Now it's all gourmet burger places and craft beer pubs, and you no longer feel as if you're going to get the clap just by breathing in the air.

Soho Sex Quest places you in the role of Albert Battersby, a 27 year-old sewing machine attendant from North Yorkshire. In a national competition, Albert has won a night with "Zelda... the finest prostitute in Soho", and sets out to lose his virginity to her... but standing in the path of his deflowering are pimps, police, and "perverts".

Seemingly having been written by hormonal 14 year-old boys, Soho Sex Quest was lacking in sophistication, dealt in monstrous, offensive stereotypes, and players could be killed suddenly through forced buggery. Additionally, the game would also randomly insult you, calling you "penis-head", and order you to stop "pissing about".

It was published by Malan Associates, whose other mail-order titles included less-salacious fare such as Character Generator & Drawing Program, and Music Maker. Amazingly, it proved popular enough that there was a sequel entitled Soho Sex Quest 2:  Herpes or Bust.

Quite why anybody would go out of their way to contract herpes is anybody's guess, but this simply highlights the unsophisticated and ill-informed notion of "sex" that the game's creators had. What's the betting that they're still virgins?
SUPER TROLLEY
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An isometric work simulator, Super Trolley required the play to roam a supermarket pricing goods, delivering cash to the check-out, stacking shelves and cleaning up spillages.

As if that wasn't moribund enough, Super Trolley has been rendered even more depressing with time, given that it featured the endorsement of no less a reviled figure than Jimmy Savile. The game was the result of a Jim'll Fix It request from a young viewer who dreamed of living out his baffling supermarket fantasy.

Savile even appeared on the cover, cheerily filling a trolley with the aid of a young helper. Suffice to say, given what we know now, there's a whole backstory that one could extrapolate from this scenario.

True story: when I was a child I saw a girl collapse in Sainsbury's, and her panicked mother insisted it was because she hadn't eaten enough that day. I blame her entirely for my waistline, but on the plus side... I've never passed out in a Sainsbury's. Though I may have choked on a bag of crisps.
TRASHMAN
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I'm glad we have people who take our rubbish out, because if it was left to me it'd never get done. I know this, because usually the rubbish that we accrue over Christmas is still out the side of our house months later. This year, I was proud that it only took me just over a month to take it up the dump. Last year, it was still sitting there in May.

Trashman - despite the Americanisation of its title - is a distinctly British game, showcasing the Groundhog-esque tedium of the role, as a humble bin man serves the residence of an upmarket neighbourbhood . There are distractions along the way - being invited in to help a householder to fix their TV, angry dogs, cyclists - and should the bins not be collected and emptied before the bin bus disappears off the top of the screen, the player is fired.

There was a sequel released later the same year, Travels With Trashman, where the character found himself in assorted international locales, continuing to clean up after others. Perhaps he had some sort of compulsion.
EASTENDERS
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If you think it's a chore to watch EastEnders, you should try writing an episode.

Watching Arthur have a nervous breakdown after stealing the Christmas Club money has nothing on slaving over 16 drafts of the same thing only to be told that the first draft was probably the best one and, and being called in to discuss your episode on your birthday when you'd been assured you'd finally have a day off, and having a script editor who had some weird agenda that seemed to be about furthering her own career at the expense of your own, but noooo... you can't actually say that to anybody because it makes you look mad and a troublemaker.

That was 15 years ago and I've not watched a single episode since.

Oddly, Eastenders The Arcade Game (a joke of a title if ever there was one) proved that EastEnders becomes even more depressing when you take out the drama, and centre it around a nameless resident who has taken it upon himself to help the locals with menial tasks, like some creepy little weirdo.

Tasks include preparing drinks in the Queen Vic, pruning the plants in Arthur's allotment, sorting through the wash loads in the launderette, and stocking Pete Beale's fruit and veg stall...

Truly one of the worst Spectrum games ever, but also... probably the game that EastEnders deserved.  
ANDY CAPP
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What's strange about Andy Capp is that he's a working-class layabout from Hartlepool - a uniquely British character - and yet he's inexplicably popular in North America. His likeness and name is used over there on a range of potato snacks, as well as a chain of convenience stores. And I've literally just realised that his name is a play on "handicap", which probably isn't very politically correct.

What are we saying here exactly? Andy Capp isn't lazy and sponging off The State? That he actually on disability benefits? Really though? And that's the person you want on your crisp packets is it?

The Andy Capp game was truly desolate; Andy, having blown his unemployment benefit, had to accrue money to give his demanding wife - gathering funds by betting on the horses, borrowing from a loan shark, tapping strangers for a hand-out - while repeatedly entering pubs to ensure he doesn't sober up.

Like most Northerners, Andy would also get into fights - including with his missus - which risked landing him in prison for being a wife-beater. As if all of that wasn't dubious enough, Andy could also stop passers-by in their tracks by, inexplicably, blowing kisses at them.

Let's "re-Capp":
  • Benefits sponger.
  • Abusive husband.
  • Alcoholic.
  • Sex pest.
  • From Hartlepool.
  • Crisps.
GRANGE HILL
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I've covered Grange Hill on here before. The game took the CBBC series' anti-drugs message and somehow made it even hopeless and melancholic than that episode which ended with an off-his-face Zammo staring off into space.

Playing as Gonch - who never, as far as we know, dabbled with narcotics on the show - players had to try to retrieve his confiscated Sony Walkman, while avoiding the temptations of drug abuse, being savaged by a dog, drowning in sewage, or starving to death after becoming trapped behind a wall. 

I once fell off a wall at a friend's house and cut my head. His mother's solution to this was to apply some "warm water" to the wound. 
THE ARCHERS
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What's interesting about this game based upon the long-running radio soap The Archers - the longest-running soap opera in the world, no less - is that it's the only instance of the series' being accompanied by visuals. Not very good visuals admittedly, but at least you didn't have to use your ears. 

Unusually, The Archers game doesn't place you as a character in that world, but as a scriptwriter on the show, who must plot the series and please the controller of Radio 4, and ensure ratings didn't suffer. Completely far-fetched of course; there wasn't even a script-editor trying to stitch you up!

Oddly, this task was achieved by selecting from potential multiple choice plots, which led to some truly wrong-headed storylines - many of which ended in grisly deaths for beloved characters, and the option to exile one to a mental institution.

Also, one plot sees a character visiting a vet when he becomes concerned over how much time his obese dog is spending asleep. The vet's diagnosis? The animal "sleeps to avoid the sadness of life"...

A DAY IN THE LIFE
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A tribute to the man who started it all, A Day In The Life features no less an icon than Sir Clive Sinclair as the main character.

Unfortunately, whereas the real Sir Clive appears to spend his days inventing things, visiting lap dancing clubs, and marrying young blonde ladies, his computer game equivalent has a more mundane existence... albeit in the context that Sir Clive - or, when the game begins, just Clive - has to travel to London in his C5 to receive his knighthood from Das Queen.

En route he's faced with such challanges as getting dressed, buying a newspaper, and finding some lunch. There are dangers along the way, of course, including psychotic beach balls, random fires, and sentient televisions. At no point, however, is Sir Clive lured into a lap dancing club, suggesting that A Day In The Life takes some considerable liberties with the truth.
FLUNKY
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Can there be any job more depressing than servant - one whose role is literally just to serve at the whims of others?

In Flunky, those others comprise a grotesque parody of the British Royal Family, and the player is manservant who dashes around Buckingham Palace trying to keep them happy; Fergie needs you to applying her freckles, Lady Di wants a fresh wig, Little Andrew requires a toy boat to play with in the bath... Your ultimate goal is to receive a request from Das Queen herself, as if the greatest reward for these people is to be issued orders by some old woman with a lump of metal on her head.

Inevitably, if you fail in any of the above tasks and you will be shot by a royal guardsman.
23 Comments
Picston Shottle
13/3/2018 08:53:16 am

A fella in work was talking to me about Andy Capp last week, and how much he loved him, and I wondered why he would even know about him. (Is Andy Capp a strip in the Daily Mirror?) I put it down to him being Canadian, rather than American (my reasoning being it’s some kind of tenuous Commonwealth link) but it still baffled me. Now I know.

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Dan Whitehead
13/3/2018 09:29:44 am

Fun fact: long-running kids comic character Buster was Andy Capp's son. They kind of airbrushed that connection out in later years, but when it launched in the 1960s it was actually the selling point of his comic.

Look: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZO0bfcvY1FM/UjPXAYGzgfI/AAAAAAAAU4Y/LPTYUP02oxk/s1600/Buster+%231.jpg

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Ste Pickford
14/3/2018 10:04:15 am

I wonder if the 'Andy Capp' / 'handicap' pun in the name is something to do with horse racing / betting? The stereotype of a benefits scrounger on disability benefit seems like an 80s invention to me, rather than something current when Andy Capp first appeared. But I don't know enough about horse racing to know if there's an actual joke there.

Dan Whitehead
13/3/2018 09:20:01 am

Nothing is more depressing than Mrs Mopp, the game in which you play as a joyless housewife who has to constantly clean the kitchen, keeping herself going with gin, until she finally has a nervous breakdown and leaves her family. Not even exaggerating. That's literally what the game is about. Horrifying.

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RichardM
13/3/2018 09:44:15 am

Thanks for this most depressing of listicles on my birthday! I’m off to cry into the cake in my party hat.

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Ian
13/3/2018 01:33:28 pm

Why do you have a cake in your party hat?

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RG
13/3/2018 02:38:01 pm

Why don't you have cake in your party hat?

RichardM
13/3/2018 03:31:40 pm

Ian’s just salty because I forgot to send him a cake-hat. Sorry Ian!

David W
13/3/2018 10:38:14 am

Old: bleak, grinding monotony as personal commentary.

New: bleak, grinding monotony as incentive to buy fake money.

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TreverF
13/3/2018 01:11:21 pm

My God.

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Chinny
13/3/2018 12:18:54 pm

I picked up a CPC copy of Andy Capp on floppy cheaply. Depressing 2 colour graphics but IIRC I did manage to complete it. Those games where you could just kind of roam around freely always sucked me in. Must revisit.

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Hamptonoid
13/3/2018 11:50:53 pm

The bleakness was nicely rounded off by a tinny rendition of the music from the Hovis advert (the one with the bike being pushed up the hill). Turn that off and you were left with footsteps, interspersed with hiccups.

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Nate 'mint' Paisley
13/3/2018 01:20:14 pm

Does anyone remember the game where you had to walk along a beach trying to apply sun flower lotion on unassuming women without their husband/boyfriend noticing? Also other levels including kicking over sand castles & throwing novelty flying discs for a dog to catch.

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Nikki
13/3/2018 02:50:29 pm

Trashman was the first game I remember playing! I loved it, bit it hasn't really stood the test of time. I convinced Ashens to play it on a live stream and the results were disappointing.

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Eminef71
9/8/2020 02:50:56 am

Trashman was a great little game and I loved Travel with Trashman, the only level I remember now is the bullfighting ring in Spain (obviously) picking up the flowers the crowd throw while dodging the bull. Oh, now I've thought of it, I think there was a level at the wailing wall, not sure if it was puddles of tears or tissues you had to pick up... Classic and very slightly educational.

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Robobob
13/3/2018 08:13:33 pm

Just what on earth is going on in that Eastenders screenshot? Is Dirty Den under attack from the brightly-coloured oblongs, all within sight of the prison wall/railway track?

Say what you like, at least it's gaudier than the TV series.

I suppose the other thing you can say is that at least there was a time when absolutely mental games got made, even when there was clearly no good reason for it. It shows a certain imagination that doesn't exist today. Granted, it's a terrible form of pointless imagination, but it is imaginative. I mean, imagine pitching The Archers: The Game or a FPS based on Clive Sinclair's life today.

Nowadays about the best we can do is those weird truck/train simulator games, I guess.

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colincidence link
14/3/2018 04:05:03 am

Bizarre games with solo developers are still rife.

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Christian dabnor link
14/3/2018 12:41:27 am

What about Ground Zero, the text based nuclear war game? You had to survive a nuclear bombs, but I was never able to and just died in a blinding white flash every time.

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John Veness
16/3/2018 08:52:35 am

I love your EastEnders anecdote. Do you think they still insist on so many drafts? With the number of episodes they have per week, I don't see how they can.

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Martin link
3/8/2018 08:06:58 pm

Ground zero is a good shout, cos even if you completed it the end was bleak. Mad nurse is another one

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Karl Crawford
7/12/2020 10:42:24 am

my games :Murders in the Rue Morgue and the Number of the Beast are the worst ever .Play them !!!

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Paul
10/6/2022 03:34:41 pm

NOT all northerners want to fight, where you from?

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LordEvyl
6/7/2022 01:50:02 am

If you think the ZX Spectrum version of Super Trolley is depressing....the C64 version is even WORSE.

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