The aim of Screwball Scramble is to navigate a ball bearing around a course in the quickest time possible. You would put the ball at the bottom right, wind up the clockwork timer (yes, clockwork, how 20th century!), aaaanndddd……

GO!

Using the controls at the bottom you first had to roll the ball along a three section bridge. This required quite precise timing and use of momentum to get the ball to the end of this first obstacle. This section on its own could take an amateur Screwballer a good few minutes and often end in tears of frustration.

Then there was the “Rotating Thing” thing that transported the ball from the end of the bridge. This was, essentially, a magnet on a stick. Move it too quickly and your ball could whiz off the game, flung under neighbouring furniture to its certain doom. Move it too slowly and it wouldn’t have enough momentum to propel off at the end when it should do.

This took the ball to the third obstacle, the “Widenable Beams”. Again, this required quite precise fiddling. You had to widen the beams just enough to encourage the ball to roll downwards, but also have the timing to know when to close them and not allow the ball to fall out of play.

The ball then fell out onto a “Peg Maze” with two exits. One exit lead out to a ramp and one lead out to certain death.

Assuming you had made it out to the ramp the next obstacles were the “Jump Stumps.” They were stumps that you needed to hop your ball up. To navigate these, players had to tap the button at the bottom of the game with meticulous precision so as to not overshoot the following stump. There were 4 stumps in total followed by a hoop to jump through.

Then your poor ball headed into the “Maze of Precariousness”. (Yes, in case you were wondering, I am inventing all these obstacle names.) The Maze was a solid plastic block with no windows, no trap doors and no real way of knowing where your ball was. Players just wiggled the control stick in blind panic, sometimes for way over 30 seconds, often to not see the ball pop out of the end, but re-emerge at the entrance again.

Maze over, (eventually,) you had to rotate the ball, with a device shaped a little like a boat, to be in place for the final obstacle, the “Catapult of Cataclysm.” With your ball securely loaded in the Catapult, all you had to do was hit the final button for flip the catapult over and make your ball hit the final bell.

With that final DING, you could reach over and stop your clockwork timer.

In reality, the chances are that your timer had already run out a good few minutes ago. You just wanted to be able to claim you had finished one of the best games of the 80s.

Yes, Men Without Hats have been back in the studio and are back on the road too. I caught up with lead singer Ivan Doroschuk ahead of the groups first European tour in 20 years, a tour which unfortunately includes just one UK date… but fear ye not MWH’s fans, Ivan says “It’s short and sweet, an in and out tour but we hope to be back very shortly and do more shows in the UK.”

The UK holds a dear place in Ivans heart “We shot all our videos there, the Safety Dance video there, our PR company were based there so it will be like a homecoming for me”.

The return of the group comes on the back of an extensive summer tour of North America in support of the Human League and the B-52’s. Back performing live ignited a burning passion in Ivan to return to the studio following a long break from music.

“I spent the last 10 years being a stay at home father, raising my son, so I was itching to get back out there and when I finally did it was like riding a bicycle, it was a lot of fun.”

The new album ‘Love In The Age of War’ has the same feel of the groups big breakthrough album from 30 years earlier, ‘Rhythm of Youth’, a conscious effort by Ivan “we went into the studio this time and purposely tried to make a record that sounded like it was recorded 2 weeks after Safety Dance.” A move that has gone down well with the bands loyal following. “The fans have been saying that it sounds like Men Without Hats, that’s the main comment that I’m getting, that the new stuff sounds like the old stuff”.

The group went to great lengths to create the same studio feel as they had in the 80s. They took away all modern studio comforts and re-introduced old equipment. The result is an album full of high energy dance beats which only lets up temporarily on the track ‘Close To the Sun’, 3 songs from the end. The lead single from the album is ‘Head Above Water’ a tune that pulses with energy and is characterised by Ivans strong, deep, rasping vocals. It’s a 3 minute burst of light synth pop that obviously borrows heavily on the 80s without ever sounding dated.

Another song that grabs you by the ear and drags you along for the duration of the track is ‘Live and Learn’, while the title track is another standout as Ivans sings “I tell you what you’ve got, you’ve got me on my knees, the Age of War”

For me the albums highlight and the track I’ve returned to most is its opener. The powerful burst of ‘Devil Come Round.’ carries an infectious pounding beat that leaves you nodding your head like a Churchill dog. The chorus hook “when the sun goes down everybody lose control, that’s when the devil come round and said buddy I need your soul” remains swimming in your head a long while after the track subsides.

Let’s be clear, this album and its tracks will not have the same impact on society that Safety Dance had 30 years ago, but for fans with a keen ear on 80s synth, this record leaves you with the feeling that it’s still ok to dance if you want to!

Reviewed and Interviewed by Paul Stephenson

Paul is the presenter of the 80s Rewind Show on MFR2 and the 80s Rewind Again podcast which is available to download for free on itunes: http://ow.ly/heUHh

Specrum fan Dan Whitehead has written a book reviewing 50 of the most notable games for his favourite machine, and it is a superb read. Games you all know, like Manic Miner and Jetpac, games you might not know about but MUST try, like Flunky and Friday 13th, and games that probably wouldn’t be on anyones “remake” list, like Trashman and Cannibal Island.

He has also kindly donated 5 copies of his book that lucky 80sNostalgia readers could win!

So I’m giving away 3 copies via 80sNostalgia itself, one copy via the Twitter feed and one copy via the Facebook page. If you really want to win one, why not enter all three times? Its free AND you could win stuff! Bargain!

To enter via Facebook group, follow me here. (Facebook comp runs for 7 days from 21st Jan)

To enter via Twitter, follow me here. (Twitter comp runs for 7 days from 28th Jan)

(Details of the Twitter and Facebook competitions will be added to the respective feeds on the first day of the competition.)

To enter via the site, send an email to comp@80snostalgia.com with the subject “Speccy Nation”. Just tell me which is your favourite Spectrum game ever and you’ll be entered into the draw. Three winners will be drawn in total and, if you win, I’ll email you back for postal details. (Site comp runs for 3 weeks from NOW up to 10th Feb)

If you’d like to read more about Speccy Nation, click here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Whitehead has been writing about games professionally since 1991, when he first started out as a staff writer for Amiga Computing. Since then he has written for dozens of publications, including PlayStation Pro and the Official Xbox Magazine, worked as a specialist writer for Guinness World Records and sits on several gaming juries for BAFTA. In 2004 he edited the Retro Gamer Your Sinclair supplement. He currently writes for Eurogamer and Big Issue In The North, and runs Word Play, a scriptwriting consultancy for games developers.

Thirty years ago, a little computer with rubber keys, a handful of colours and a squawking soundbox changed the world. The ZX Spectrum inspired a generation of British enthusiasts not only to play games but to create them.

Free from the pressure of today’s global markets and blockbuster budgets, eager young coders gathered in bedrooms and offices above shops to see just what these new-fangled “computer games” could do.

The result was a flood of games with a unique British flavour that has never been equalled. The British games industry would go on to create such hits as Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto and the Lego series, our innovation and imagination the envy of the world, our programmers the most sought after talent in the fastest growing entertainment medium in history.

And it all started here. Welcome to the Speccy Nation.

Join veteran games journalist and author Dan Whitehead on a journey through fifty classic games that helped define the golden age of British gaming, from timeless classics to unlikely cult favourites, and even the games so bizarre and eccentric they could only have flourished on the ZX Spectrum in the 1980s.

Part nostalgic look at the past, and part critical eye on the present and future, Speccy Nation is essential reading for all retro gaming enthusiasts.

For the authentic retro experience, Speccy Nation includes a foreword by Your Sinclair’s Phil “Snouty” South.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Availability: Speccy Nation is available now in paperback from Amazon and as an e-book for Kindle, published by The Zebra Partnership.

Price: RRP £3.99 (print) or £1 (digital).

ISBN: 9781479193929

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Whitehead has been writing about games professionally since 1991, when he first started out as a staff writer for Amiga Computing. Since then he has written for dozens of publications, including PlayStation Pro and the Official Xbox Magazine, worked as a specialist writer for Guinness World Records and sits on several gaming juries for BAFTA. In 2004 he edited the Retro Gamer Your Sinclair supplement. He currently writes for Eurogamer and Big Issue In The North, and runs Word Play, a scriptwriting consultancy for games developers.

Jayce & the Wheeled Warriors has time and again been voted the best cartoon intro ever and I find it hard for anyone to disagree. The cartoon wasnt to bad either. This has to be my joint favourite cartoon along with m.a.s.k and the infamous tom & jerry. My love for this cartoon is so great that I have the intro as my ringtone on my mobile.

The plot of the cartoon concerns Jayce, son of Audric, and his quest to rejoin his father. The backstory is that Audric was a botanist who did several experiments with biotechnology, one of which blossomed and became a young humanoid girl named Flora. Audric had also created a miracle crop that could thrive in any environment and was intended to end galactic hunger.

However, a burst of radiation generated by a sudden solar flare mutated his plant into an evil, sentient being, and changed other plants around Audric’s laboratory into similar creatures. They collectively became known as the Monster Minds, and refer to their leader (the first mutant creature) as Saw Boss.

Audric manages to create a magical root that can destroy the Monster Minds, but is forced to flee before he can complete the task, after which the Monster Minds turn Audric’s laboratory into their headquarters (which can teleport to other places by means of a mysterious power source known as “the power of the black light”). Audric keeps half of the root himself and gives the other half to his servant, Oon, whom he sends to serve Jayce. Thus, Jayce and his Lightning League friends are constantly on a quest to find Audric and combine the halves of the root.

Sadly though, like many other cartoons, there was never an ending made so the plot was never finished to a conclusion due to poor toy sales which complimented the cartoon series, although the film was commissioned along with the cartoon but it was sadly never made.

The series originally run from September 1985 to December 1985. By the end there was 65 episodes each lasting about 20 minutes.

If you were British and in your teens in the 80s, there’s a fair chance you were heavily into computer and video games. Trips to the seaside were eagerly anticipated for the chance to go and blow a couple of months’ pocket money in the arcades, and your black and white portable telly probably had a computer or video game system hooked to it at all times.

Should you have been lucky enough to have convinced your parents that owning a computer would help you with your homework, then it’s likely you stood in one of two computer-owning camps. You probably owned a Sinclair ZX Spectrum or a Commodore 64.

These giants of the computing industry were responsible for the unforgettable “Playground Wars” of the mid-to-late 80s, and arguments over which was best still rage today. In truth, both systems had an awful lot to offer, but unlike today’s two main consoles were so different from each other that you were forced to make your choice and stand your ground.

Or you might have owned an Amstrad.

It was like the UK had its own version of the Jets and the Sharks in every school playground, where kids that hadn’t joined forces to kick a squashed can around in a shoe-wrecking version of football would divide into packs based on computer ownership. Cassette tapes, usually 90 minutes in length, would be swapped between mates, all stuffed to the brim with copies of games, all of which would be systematically copied again and again until the tape inevitably got chewed up through overuse.

It was a golden gaming era, with brilliant, original, imaginative and often bizarre games being released with frightening regularity. Many of these games were programmed by talented individuals in their own bedrooms. As a result of this, the games industry quickly spawned real personalities. Our parents had posters of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd on their walls; our sisters had posters of Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe. We had computer game adverts on our walls, and games programmers were our rock stars, with each release from our favourite programmer being a major event.

Twenty-five years on, these times are looked back on perhaps more fondly than any other gaming era so far. Unfortunately, the programmers of this time are nowhere near as celebrated as they should be. In fact, if you read almost any book on the history of video games, you could be forgiven for thinking there was no games industry in the UK at all.

My aim is to put that right. I had the idea for a book about twelve years ago, but it’s only now that I’ve made actual progress in writing it. I intend to talk to as many of the programmers of the time as possible, but rather than focusing on the games industry, I want to focus on the programmers themselves and their brilliant games. It’s coming along quite well so far, and I plan to step up my efforts considerably in the coming year.

Something I like to do now and again, as a kind of promotional tool, is to produce something fun based on what I happen to be working on at the time. A few days ago, I came up with the idea of producing 2013 calendars, one for Spectrum fans and one for Commodore 64 fans. Each is themed around an aspect of the computer in question, with a screen shot from a different game for each month.

It’s just a bit of fun, and I’m not a professional graphic artist, but I hope they capture the spirit as intended. They’d be fine for printing, if you can afford that much ink, or they look great as smartphone wallpaper. And as you look at each screen shot and the memories come flooding back, think about the people that programmed those games and remember… They Were Our Gods.

To download the ZX Spectrum Calendar, click here.

To download the Commodore 64 Calendar, click here.

(You may have to right-click and choose Save As)

Paul Morrison has written in his spare time for online publication Way of the Rodent since 2002, and was lucky enough to write for the fan-produced Issue 107 of ZZAP! 64 and its follow-up Def Tribute to ZZAP! 64. He is currently writing the book They Were Our Gods, a book about the British games programmers of the 80s, and their games. If you’re interested in this project, you can follow its progress at the blog of the book:

They Were Our Gods blog

Or you can like the Facebook page by clicking here.

Shows on offer include Super Gran, the comedy about a bionic OAP (with a theme tune sung by Billy Connolly); Count Duckula, the David Jason-voiced animation about a vegetarian vampire; Press Gang, Steven Moffat’s drama in which Dexter Fletcher and Julia Sawahla bicker over the running of a school newspaper; and Knightmare, which used early computer graphics to transport game players into a fantasy world.

I don’t mind admitting I’m incredibly giddy about all this!

The full line-up is as follows…

9:50 Super Gran (second episode, 1985)

10:15 Wizadora (last episode, 1998)

10:30 T-Bag (1987)

10:50 Engie Benjy (s3, ep1, 2004)

11:05 The Raggy Dolls (1994)

11:15 Puddle Lane (1986)

11:35 Count Duckula (1991)

12noon The Sooty Show (1986)

12:25pm Art Attack (1992)

12:40 The Big Bang (1997)

1:00 Finders Keepers (1991)

1:30 Fun House (1994)

2:00 Knightmare (1993)

2:30 Fraggle Rock (1983)

3:00 The Worst Witch (1998)

3:30 Woof! [Eric] (first episode, 1989)

4:00 Dramarama: Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night (1988)

4:30 Press Gang (first episode)

5:00 The Tomorrow People (1992)

5:30 Children’s Ward (2000)

9:50 Spatz (1992)

10:10 Huxley Pig

10:30 Rainbow (1984)

10:50 Button Moon (1985)

11:05 The Riddlers

11:15 Rosie and Jim (first episode, 1990)

11:35 Dangermouse (1986)

12noon Sooty & Co (1993)

12:25pm How 2 (1995)

12:40 Fingertips (2002)

1:00 Jungle Run (2001)

1:30 Fun House (1995)

2:00 Knightmare (1993)

2:30 Fraggle Rock (1983)

3:00 My Parents are Aliens (2005)

3:30 Woof (1993)

4:00 Dramarama: Back to Front (1989)

4:30 Press Gang (last episode)

5:00 The Tomorrow People (1992)

5:30 Children’s Ward (unknown)

Thanks to Nicola for emailing the details to me! Listings from Radio Times