Artic Computing
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| Industry | Computer and video games |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Brandesburton, England |
| Products | Computer games |
In the early 1980s, Artic Computing, was a software development company based in Brandesburton. The company's first games were for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer, but they expanded and were also responsible for various ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and Amstrad CPC computer games. The company was set up by Richard Turner and Chris Thornton. Charles Cecil, who later founded Revolution Software, joined the company shortly after it was founded, writing Adventures B through D. Developer Jon Ritman produced a number of ZX81 and Spectrum games for Artic before moving to Ocean Software.
Usually packaging and distributing games themselves, some titles were picked up by Sinclair who repackaged them under the Sinclair brand, and Amstrad who repackaged them under their Amsoft brand.
Adventures A through D were written for the ZX81 but were quickly ported to the ZX Spectrum platform on its release (as well as other systems). By comparison with later Spectrum adventure games such as The Hobbit, they are basic and short. However they are considered by many to be the start of the adventure game genre on the Spectrum in particular and thus were an important step in the growth of adventure games.
The parser in their adventures is of a basic 2-word design, such as "Use Axe". Other developers later produced multiple word parsers, as featured in games by Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls. However the programs from adventures A-F were built using a custom built design. Adventure G (Ground Zero) and later were built using The Quill, an Adventure Game Creator produced by Gilsoft.
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