Best non-infocom games of the commercial era of the 1980s and early 1990s - an IFDB Poll

by Mikalye
RSS Feed

There were a bunch of commercial games released in the 1980's and early 90's.
In the UK, Magnetic Scrolls release 9 games between 1984-1990
Level 9 released 24 games and a port of Colossal Cave between 1981-1991,
Delta 4 released 9ish games between 1984-1992,
Topologika relased 11 games between 1983-1988,
Melbourne House released 6 text adventures between 1982 and 1987 (including the million-selling The Hobbit).
Artic Computing published 4 between 1980-86
In the US:
Tellarium/Trillium publsished 8 games between 1984-1994
Wyndham Classics had 6 between 1984-1987
And later Legend Entertainment released 13 games between 1989 and 1998
and Cascade Mountain published 2

Some of these are easy to get a copy of today. Some are impossible. I am looking for which of these are worth the effort.

Return to the poll - Add a comment


Comments on the poll

Previous | << 1 >> | Next

Canalboy, May 28, 2020 - Reply
The Robico Software games for the BBC and Electron from the late eighties are worth a look. They were large and well written using their own hard coded 6502 machine code. The games included standard fantasy puzzle fests like Village Of Lost Souls, Blood Of The Mutineers and the more linear spy games The Rick Hanson Trilogy.

They are available to download or play online.
Denk, May 27, 2020 - Reply
Hi Mikalye, this poll seems to be practically the same as: https://ifdb.org/poll?id=qub8ddpjh7s3nwlf
Mikalye, May 27, 2020 - Reply
Thanks Denk, I will gladly withdraw the poll,

One other question, when I wrote it I noticed that a lot of these games were not in the database. I wouldn't even know where to begin with IFID's for these antiques, particularly as many had different implementations with the Spectrum version different from the Atari ST, the Amiga, the Commodore 64, and the Atari II.
Denk, May 27, 2020 - Reply
You don't need to withdraw the poll if you find it useful - just wanted to make you aware of the other poll. Regarding IFID, I see that some old commercial games have been given an IFID, though I am pretty sure that IFID wasn't invented when the games were published. I don't know how they decided on an IFID for those games. If you want to add game listings for the missing games, please go ahead - it isn't mandatory to enter the IFID.
Previous | << 1 >> | Next