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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.

It developed numerous games for a wide variety of 8-bit micros, particularly those less well catered for by other publishers such as the Commodore 16, BBC Micro and Atari 8-bit.

They also had a budget label, Micro Value, that issued compilations, reissues and some original games.

They had most success with their multi-load games such as Summer Olympiad, Circus Games and Rodeo Games.

They also released licensed ports to smaller systems such as Software Projects' Jet Set Willy (Atari 8-bit, Commodore 16/Plus/4, BBC Micro and Acorn Electron), First Star Software's Boulder Dash (BBC, Electron) and Spy vs. Spy (C16/+4, BBC, Electron) and Mindscape's Indoor Sports (C16/+4, BBC, Electron).

From the late 1980s, they released games for the 16-bit computers Amiga and Atari ST as well as PC but failed to capture a large share of this new market and with the demise of the 8-bit games scene, their sales fell. The company went bankrupt in 1990 when its sister printing business incurred massive debts, before it could publish its game based on the Games Workshop boardgame Blood Bowl.

BEVERLY HILLS COP

TYNESOFT's final game ...

It was a bit of a shock when Tynesoft went bust. It was a bit unexpected, even though there had been cashflow problems. They were brought down by their sister company, a printing works. What happened was that they tried to become a big printing operation, bought loads of hi-tech equipment (stuff that cost hundreds of thousands of quid) and then couldn't pay for it. They tried to use non-labour workers and got blacklisted by the local unions. It had to be the stupidest move you've ever seen. They had a good staff of programmers and artists, low costs and a good user base. People bought the games in the thousands every month. Tynesoft had a party once because their turnover reached the £1 million mark. It was a fantastic feat at the time and it was all thrown away on a whim .... really sad. However the fun didn't end there - there was still weird stuff to happen. The staff heard the receivers were on the way, so there was a massive free-for-all. Typical - all happened on the day I wasn't in. Twats (again). However, the stories were entered into legend about the number of trips Gary Partis made in his car that day, ferrying stuff to his house, never to be seen again. Anyhow, within weeks I was approached by the receiver to finish Beverly Hills Cop, which I did with Stephen Robson who was a Spectrum programmer back then. As you can guess it was a bit of an abortion from start to finish. A side story to all this was that everything that got done on the game got seen personally by Eddie Murphy, which excited us at the time. Tynesoft was showing no signs of impending doom, so we regularly sent stuff to the States. Unfortunately, one of the programmers thought it would be funny if he drew a bone through Eddie's nose as he sat on the bonnet of the car (on the game cover). It was missed by him and almost went to duplication like that!

When Tynesoft went bust, it split acrimoniously into Flair Software and ID Ltd (no, not the Quake lot!). I worked for both up until 1997 when the majority of the staff were laid off by Flair Software who, strangely enough, only do religious or hunting games for the U.S. - work that one out.

Select titles

1984 Auf Wiedersehen Pet (Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum)

1984 Bingo (C64, Spectrum)

1984 Rig Attack (Electron, BBC, Commodore 16, Commodore Plus/4)

1984 Olympiad (C16/+4)

1984 US Drag Racing (Electron, BBC, C16/+4)

1985 Ian Botham's Test Match (Electron, BBC, C64, Spectrum, C16/+4, Amstrad CPC)

1985 Super Gran (C64, Spectrum, C16/+4, CPC)

1985 Super Gran: The Adventure (Electron, BBC, C64, Spectrum, C16/+4)

1985 Mouse Trap (Electron, BBC, C64, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Amiga)

1986 Future Shock (Electron, BBC, C16/+4)

1986 Commonwealth Games aka European Games (Electron, BBC, C64, C16/+4, MSX)

1986 Winter Olympics (Electron, BBC, C16/+4, Atari 8-bit, MSX)

1986 The Big KO (Electron, BBC, C64)

1987 Phantom (Electron, BBC, C64, C16/+4, Atari 8-bit)

1987 Mirax Force (Atari 8-bit)

1988 Summer Olympiad (Electron, BBC, C64, Spectrum, ST, Amiga)

1988 Winter Olympiad '88 (Electron, BBC, C64, Spectrum, Atari 8-bit, ST, Amiga)

1989 Circus Games (Electron, BBC, C64, Spectrum, CPC, ST, Amiga, Apple II, PC)

1989 Superman: The Man of Steel (Electron, BBC, C64, Spectrum, CPC, ST, Amiga, MSX, Apple II, PC)

1989 Buffalo Bill's Rodeo Games aka Buffalo Bill's Wild West Rodeo Show (Electron, BBC, C64, Spectrum, CPC, ST, Amiga, Apple II, PC)

1989 Mayday Squad (C64, ST, Amiga, PC)

1990 Beverly Hills Cop (BBC, C64, Spectrum, CPC, ST, Amiga, PC)