Going back to my gaming roots here with my top 15 BBC Micro games. Enjoy! This is my personal top 15, but I'd love to hear what your favourite games were.
Amazing memories. I learnt to code on the BBC Micro at age 7. Taught myself from a book. I could code before I could even read lol. At the time I didn’t have any games so had to make my own. Great times.
@@Stray2029 of? games? Loads, platform, space invaders, tried loads of times to make superhero type games where you could fly etc. Even attempted a time travel game, but never got that one down lol
I wanted either a Spectrum or C64, but my Dad said "Nope, you'll get what the schools are using", then we bought the Viglen PC Kit (made it look somewhat like a PC XT/AT, and installed 2 5.25 floppy drives). I also bought every copy of 'Input' magazine and thus the 4 binders to contain them, and lol, semi successfully programed and got working most of the 'input' programs. Games wise? MANY were played... - Thrust: HELL YEAH... excellent game. - Elite: Yeah I did ok, until a friend of mine managed to get the cheat disk that allowed FULL weapons/armour/credits and such, and then spent hundreds of hours exploring, 'Kickin ass' and such... Good times! - Chuckie egg: Hahaha you surely are bringing out the classics here! - Mission Impossible: I played this on a mates C64... I THINK there was creepy speech in it too, "You'll stay foreverrrrr" (or something like that) - Arkanoid: Oh God yeah, MANY hours on that one too! What about Galaga? I chewed through MANY levels on that brilliant game! 😏🤣🤣 🦇😎🦇 🇬🇧
As a kid we had a Beeb at home. What made it even better was that my stepdad was a computer science lecturer at Coventry & Lancaster polytechnic. He was able to get the 6502 and Z80 second processors as a part of his equipment for his lectures! Elite is amazing when played with the second processor. Citadel is one of the few games on the Beeb that I actually finished. Palace of Magic is actually the sequel to Citadel, hence the similarity between the two games.
Same here, I built up my old computer collection, BBC , C64 , Spectrum...and now Amiga A500. Enjoying reliving my teens again..🤩 . Never played your number 1 choice...but I will.😊
Hey there, I loved every penny of my £399.99 BBC micro model B. Elite, holy guacamole batman, what a great game on a 32k computer, my all time favourite game, and Repton, played that to the death, along with spitfire and f1. Have to say you're right about collision detection, it was always perfect. All you're game picks are great, I can remember playing them all. Still have my beeb in the loft. 😀 👍 👍 👍
Hey, Mike! Get it out the loft and get playing it haha. I bought my first ever BBC last year, and I'm playing it a lot, love it! I only ever played my mate's one back in the day so I'm discovering some great new games (it has an SD card mod with every game built-in).
I absolutely loved this, haven't seen these games since I was a kid in the 80s. Almost wept when I saw Citadel, Chuckie Egg and Repton, the screens are so familiar, even tho it's 30 years at least since I saw them. Thanks you.
I remember the hardest game I ever played on the Beeb back on the day was called "Frak!" - it was a platformer where you played as a caveman with random missiles appearing from the sides of the screen. I'm pretty sure it was my first rage-quit!
I'm happy to see Imogen take top spot, looking back it is definitely for me one of the most well-rounded and unique games on the system, and still a lot of fun to play today with its many simple puzzles and charming puns. Citadel would have taken next spot for me at #2 (though if I ranked them at the time it would likely have taken first place!), that was an amazing adventure; it's a shame the late-game solution was so obtuse, requiring travelling through fake walls with no hints of their existence. A bizarre design choice there among an otherwise excellently put together challenge. Number #3 for me would probably have been Castle Quest. Similar to Citadel, but smaller in scope and with more interesting interactions with enemies. But again, a ridiculously difficult, nay impossible, final puzzle to solve as you had to shoot a random brick with a wand to get the treasure. Another bizarre design choice, it's like these developers never wanted people to finish their games!
+Daniel “Slope's Game Room” Ibbertson Thanks Dan! Imogen was such a novel idea for the time, I think it may surprise a few people how high it placed on the list. It's the first game that I know of to use that sort of mechanic. I'll definitely be doing more in the future, I was pleased with how this turned out.
Sorry for the late reply, must have missed this comment. Yeah, I never owned my own until a few years ago, but it was the system I first really fell in love with as a kid.
@Al Masih Ad Dajjal We've collected them all over the years. You also can't beat the Saturn for some of the obscure Japanese shooters! Dreamcast is no slouch either!
I’m still amazed by how much fun can be had with 32k when you know no better. It also shows how wasteful programmers are today with seemingly endless memory.
Elite TNK, a faithful (so I read) reversed engineered version of BBC Elite has a combined file size of almost 4MB, I didn't even bother looking up memory usage. BBC disk version is 52 KB so about 80 time larger. The sound effects (which are copies of the BBC sound) alone take up ~1.5 MB.
Happy memories of a lot of these, and almost feel sad for my younger self for missing out on the ones here that I never got to play. Loved Repton and Commando. Frak was also good fun. Thx for the vid 🙂
My memory of bbc micro games were mostly type in adventures and really was what got me into gaming. Once i got a speccy i was straight after the level 9 stuff as reminded me of the bbc games library at school
What a great reverie! Loved Repton and Arkanoid, so many other cool games too like Cylon Attack, Star Striker, Jet Pac, Maze, Kix, Pengo, Eagle Empire and Block Blitz were some of my favourites.
I was unwell for about a year so couldn't play outside in my school. I remember Chuckie Egg and Repton as a teacher was kind enough to set them up for me as something to do.
Fantastic video Pete I had a model B when I was a kid Loved the Superior Soft and Acornsoft games BTW Strykers Run was programmed by Chris Roberts who later made the Wing Commander games Lots of great memories there mate
+Bangkokian1967 Thanks Ian! Oh, didn't know that Stryker's Run was made by the same guy as Wing Commander, that's interesting! Lots of great memories indeed, doing this video took me right back.
Oh and if you haven't seen it the BBC TV drama Micro Men which can be found here on RU-vid is worth a watch for some Acorn, Spectrum & BBC Micro background.
My dad bought a bbc micro model b 32k when I was 3. I loved it, so many happy memories. Football manager by Kevin Toms was my favourite game... even all these years later it sits behind Red Dead Redemption and The Last of us in my top 3 favourite games of all time. Code name Droid. Barbarian 1 and 2. The last ninja, the Bbc gave us some incredible games. Many of which have influenced todays titles. I had many in the list. I got rid of the computer when i was 18. In 1999. 15 long years later.... i had a nes, Mega Drive and PS1 growing up... the beeb took them all on and beat 2 of them! I should really get an emulator, i miss the computer sometimes even now.
Wow Imogen!!!! I'd comletely forgotten about hat game until this video, used to play that game at school in my lunch breaks all the time! What memories! I've just purchased a BBC Master so this game will ne a must when I get it. Thank you so much for thi vid.
Way back in the day I spent many an hour programming until 0400 in the morning on games we put out there at the time. Sad to say mine were text adventures, no graphical, when that happened I started to get left behind, and decided to follow another route. I still have a BBC32 and Master in the loft somewhere with the 5.5 floppy drive (dual, I was posh lol) along with some of the productions, Horror Castle, Shrinking Professor, were two, sold them through a company in Manchester at the time, might have been A&F software, not to sure. Great days long gone.
Ahhh mate!!! The memories!! I would do anything to avoid written work at primary to get a ride on the BBC computer in class!! Really enjoyed the vid bud..if I'm honest I hadn't realise how many great games there were on the system!! Well done boss!!!
Cheers Luke! Glad you enjoyed it mate, it brought back great memories for me making this video. I did play a few games at school, but I was lucky that my mate had one so we'd play tons of games at his house. Good times.
The BBC is 40 years old this year. I have a NEW really good BBC competition pro style Joysticks on eBay that are only £50! (not like £100 like old BBC competition pros go for) - celebrate in style. Works great - I just completed Airwolf with it after 40 years! Really responsive. My BBC Master is even more cherished now I can really get good with games!!:)))
Great list. Loved Imogen and was pleased to see it was in top spot, I spent ages on my BBC as a kid. Personal favourites for me were Ravenskull which was so frustrating and the Repton games. Thanks for bringing back some good old memories. As cool as my PS4 is, it'll never be as cool as my old BBC. Thanks
Thanks, I'm so pleased to hear that it brought back some fond memories. It's great to hear from someone else who enjoyed Imogen, it was such a fantastic game for the time but one that sadly many seem to have missed. Thanks for watching and the comments!
Great video, brought back some fond memories! We were lucky enough to have a BBC back in the early/mid 80s. Do you remember Frak and Escape from Moonbase Alpha? Played those two a lot.
Starship Command (Acornsoft). Just about the right amount of predictability before the aliens attack, and that genius 'escape capsule' feature to add to the suspense.
Thanks, Simon! I actually just bought my first one ever haha (as I only ever used my friend's one or the ones at school). It has an SD card mod so has all the games on, so I'll be exploring the library of games that I never got to play. Exile blew me away back in the day, so impressive.
Excellent and unexpected choice with Imogen. It's such a unique idea for a game. You can complete it, wait a few years to forget the gameplay and solutions, and then enjoy it all over again!
What a great video!! I think you should definitely do another one for sure but a lot longer! ;) Love the citadel bit with the cheat (get to see more screens that way) I used to love programming graphics routines using vdu commands, got them to play alongside all the 80s music! Them were the days! Please, keep up the good work! Subscribing! 😊😊😊♥️
05:43 - I had 2 different versions of Killer Gorilla. One version was that you couldn't go up ladders with the mallet in your hand and the other version is that you could. The version where you could go up the ladder with the mallet in your hand also gave you an extra life after the completion of each level.
Great list. I got out of the BBC scene early so a lot of these are new to me. Personal favourites were Frak!, Caste of Riddles, Aviator, Lords of Time and the early Acornsoft arcade clones (Snapper, Planetoid!, Monsters! etc.)
+Martin Evans Thanks Martin! Glad to hear that there were some that you weren't aware of. I've not heard of Castle of Riddles, and don't think I've played Lords of Time, so I'll check those out. Some of the early clones were great!
talk about a trip down memory lane. I'd completely forgotten about DareDevil Denis and Imogen, but as soon as I saw them I instantly remembered how much fun I used to have playing those games. I guess the brain really does store everything in there somewhere. Thanks for a great vid.
Funny how seeing an image or even just hearing a game's music can bring those memories flooding back, of games we'd long since forgotten. So glad the video brought back some fond memories for you. Thank you!
+CuriosityRocks Awesome! Judging by what others are saying, I think you were lucky to have one at home. It was great that my friend had one. Brilliant games indeed, I have such fond memories of them.
Wow, Commando looks slightly different from the arcade version we played in the THSC! Great vid dude, have little knowledge of the BBC Mirco! Now, I have a little bit more :)
+Matropolis Glad it was informative Mat, thanks. Yeah, Commando looks very different doesn't it, haha. Plays similarly though, used to love it back in the day, and that was way before I played it in the arcade. And Arkanoid, what a game!
Excellent video mate, and probably close to my top 15 too, although with over 500 games available it's hard to pick a top 15! Commentary was great too. Any chance of some 'longplays'?
+Julian Potter Thank you very much! Yes indeed, it was very hard to choose 15. I just went for the 15 that I have the fondest memories of, and played the most. I may look at doing some longplays in the future, could be fun! Thanks for watching.
Interesting video. I got here having seen a snake (Nokia '97 style) game on the Android store, before googling the origins of the original where this machine was mentioned. Funny where you end up. Great video. Old new things ;)
Really interesting watch. My primary school had one of these in each class room. They were really strict with us playing games though annoyingly. Some of these titles look great
+8-bit Andy Cheers Andy! That's a shame they were strict, although I only played a few games on the ones in school. I was lucky that a mate had one, so I got to play a whole bunch of great games.
I was fortunate enough to have one of these at home when I was a kid, with both a tape deck and a 5 1/4" disk drive. I remember most of these games as well as a good couple dozen that didn't make your list like Frak!, Way of the Exploding Fist, Vortex, Cylon Attack, etc etc. Good times.
That's awesome, always nice to hear from people who actually owned a Micro. It's such a shame that the extent of many peoples' interaction with it is through Granny's Garden played briefly at school. There were so many great games for the system, it was hard narrowing it down to a mere fifteen. Good times indeed :)
Interesting the song that is playing in the introduction (Rydeen by Yellow Magic Orchestra) is from a BBC Master as the Enhanced Version of Stryker's Run didn't work on a normal 32K BBC Model B (or maybe it was just my BBC even though it had sideways RAM).
Wow! Thanks for some great memories. My favourite was the flight simulator (not mentioned in this video). As a kid, you could use your imagination to 'paint' the scenery in.
Awesome. I used to play on the Acorn back in school between 1996-1999. I remember a game which was a cross between a text adventure and a Zelda clone. The intro had you choose from two paths either in the West or East, in the 'Zelda style'. The input from the keyboard was cumulative too. So every time you pressed left the character would move one step left, and if you hammered it too quickly you'd be walking into the wall for ages. I'd love to know what the game was :)
I remember that I had two different versions of Killer Gorilla on my BBC Master. One version is that you cannot go up ladders with the hammer in your hand but the other version (which is the on I played on almost all the time) is the version where you can go up ladders with the hammer
What a great video Pete, yes Exile is the very same game I loved so much on my Amiga, tho the graphics and scrolling were somewhat better obviously. Also Impossible Mission and I think the sequel I had on my Amstrad and loved. The only experience I had of the BBC Micro was in school I think playing an adventure game called Grannies Garden?
Thanks Steve! I haven't tried Exile on the Amiga but definitely will, I always wondered if it was the same series/game. Yeah, I know Impossible Mission got quite a few conversions, such as C64, so I'm sure Amstrad got one. Cracking game! Haha, I know Grannie's Garden, that was really popular.
Imogen was definitely 1 of my favourites but would have to say Repton as you could create your own levels and characters so that was probably my favourite but bringing back nostalgia just watching these. I forgot about that stunt man game.
I remember a lot of these games. There was a pensioner who lived across the street from me when I was a kid. He used to invite kids around to play games on his BBC Micro. In retrospect, it sounds a bit creepy, but it was all totally innocent. We also had a computer lab full of BBC Micros at school. But most of the games at school were "educational", but at least they had Sim City 😀
Elite and Exile were my favourites. Amazing games at the time. Imogen was incredibly charming with some very amusing elements. I remember squashing the rabbits!
Oh yes, those two were so far ahead of anything else it was crazy. The first time I played Exile I was absolutely blown away. Imogen again was pretty advanced, and holds up pretty well today.
Very interesting list, nice selection - I'd probably put quite a few of them on my on such list. In fact, If I ever do get some spare time I might have to knock my own list up. Magic Mushrooms, Castle Quest, Frak!, ....quite a few other titles that might make my Top 15. By the way, I'm guessing the screen-shots of Citadel are from a cheat version, as the character is walking through many enemies and dangerous without losing any enemies :)
+Pj Gathergood Thank you! If you do ever get time please let me know, as I'd love to see your list. There are so many great BBC Micro games that it was hard to choose just 15. Yes, well noticed on Citadel!
Dug out my old BBC Micro and all the text adventures I had, great fun even though they took ages to load from Cassette. You would be surprised how collectable they are now
You might like an "MMC" solution, they are about £15 and pretend to be a couple of double sided floppy drives. I have written a games menu for them and GOTEKs with nearly everything from BBC micro.co.uk, download it here stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16070
YES, IMOGEN!! I didn't think that would be in the list, since it's pretty rather than smashy smashy, but so enjoyable... More about the experience than the winning. :-) Thank you for this joyous list!
Glad you're a fellow fan of Imogen, Danni. I love that game, it was so enjoyable and way ahead of its time. I've just picked up a BBC Micro with an SD card mod, so Imogen will be my first stop. Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
+Nick White Good choices! This brought back so many fond memories for me too. It really is mind blowing that these were produced with just a few kilobytes, as you say, when modern games are tens of GB! For example, each cutscene of Day of the Tentacle was 64k, which could have house several of these games.
Just found this video. We were lucky enough to get a hand me down BBC micro from my Dad's friend but tonnes of games on disc and tape. My favourites were Repton, Citadel, Dare Devis Dennis and Chuckie egg amongst this list. We also played Mr EE, Revs, Hostages and many others to death. Loved our BBC and even took it to University in the 90's to play on. Sadly, I think parents threw it out a number of years ago.
I still have my BBC B (from 1983) in its polystyrene packaging, with cassette player, joysticks, and a huge box of games up in the loft! My mate, Lisa and I used to spend HOURS on the thing: Oblivion; Daredevil Dennis; Hunchback; Jet Power Jack were favourites - but what was the 3-D one featuring aeroplanes which you had to accurately sight before shooting down? The farther away they were, the higher your points - I remember the detail as they grew closer was really impressive.
I found the game - actually, seeing it again on YT showed that the 'impressive' graphics were clearly a figment of my youthful imagination! It was 3D Bomb Alley, if you're interested!
I persuaded my mum to mail order a copy of Exile from a gaming magazine when I was maybe 7, after seeing my cousin playing it. I remember it came with an accompanying novella. I couldn't figure out how to equip a weapon and didn't get very far but it still blew my tiny mind.
Oh! I'd forgotten about Palace of Magic. Oh, the nostalgia... my Mom and I are both gamers- she'd have been about my age now back when she played through Palace of Magic and various Repton games and I was allowed to stay up late to watch her play! My favourite game was Cuthbert had a Cold, I think, or the other very similar one I forget the name of. I used to adventure for hours!
Palace of Magic is one game that I always think of when I think of the Micro. Great game. Glad I could remind you of it. That's great that you used to watch your mum play, sounds like you have some fond memories there. Don't think I ever played Cuthbert had a Cold. Thanks for watching/commenting!
Which came first, the dragon or the egg? ...My number one BBC Micro game, Dragon World. It was an educational game, basically a string of mini puzzle games. It would start by printing on screen the words DRAGON EGG DRAGON EGG... many dozens of times, followed by the question I started my comment with. Your answer would determine your start point, then you went on some quest collecting... erm, teeth, I think. It's been some 30 years, my memory's a bit sketchy on it. There were games such as hang-man, a stepping stones game, a memory test game... all word and spelling based. It was actually pretty hard for an 8/9 year old, we never got any further than a certain point where you were stood outside a castle. It was a great game, the fantasy aspect was really electric. I suspect if you played it now, it would be laughably easy and not very entertaining. But we damned well loved that game at our old school. Despite owning a complete BBC Micro romset and emulator, the game has remained elusive. The file for Dragon World, no matter where you download it from, is always frozen at the first screen. It was developed by a company called 4mation, who also produced another apparently legendary schools game called Granny's Garden. I'd love to find a working copy of Dragon World, I so need to relive it and get closure by finally beating it.
I used to have a Model-B, with Logo and Wordsworth interchangeable chips. Also had a copy of MikeFax, the teletext program, and my two fave games were Sensible Soccer (the text footy manager) cos you could access the basic and change the names, and a very little known game called Traveller II...
Nice! I've sadly never owned an Acorn computer myself, but I would like to buy a Micro at some point, especially now as the games can boot from an SD card. I didn't know that Sensible Soccer existed as a text football manager!
Most played: Elite (by a country parsec), then Cylon Attack, Repton, Mr Ee, Castle Quest, Hunchback (that scream when he falls!), Chuckie Egg, Spyhunter, Starship Command and Jet Pac. Probably forgotten a bunch. Dunjunz was good for multi players. EDIT: Oh, Sinistar!
Some of the more recent homebrew titles have blown my mind, especially the arcade conversions by Richard Broadhurst, and of course, White Light, Prince of Persia, and Stunt Car Racer (the latter two require a BBC Master though...or running an emulator in BBC Master mode)
Thrust and Chuckie Egg for me - I'm still playing them on my BBC Micro at age 49. My kids who are all iPad and PS4 fans cant even get near my scores, even after a lot of practice !!! :)
+You Tuber Thanks! It seems that a few people are surprised by the number of quality titles on the system. Not played Banjax, I'll look it up. Great username by the way hahaha!
+SmoothEmJay Definitely! The games look primitive now but absolutely blew me away back then. These were some of the first games I ever played! Thanks for watching.
I loved playing Contraption. A very good high res game for 1984. Icon Software also produced Drain Mania and Flip!. I only wish Drain Mania had a proper ending. In the game description it says that no one has ever made it out alive. Will you be the first? Sadly the last level just repeats in an endless cycle. It would have been nice to see a congratulatory screen.
A great list, and some fantastic memories right there BUT have a word!! Elite is without doubt number one and the reason I didn’t pass all my exams! Defender, missile command, frak! (And the rude version!) should also be on the list. Still have my bbc in the loft-needs repairing though. Will get it done one day!
Well this was pretty much my list of childhood favourites. Elite is obviously a fantastic achievement, but it was far from my favourite game. It's "MY top 15 BBC Micro games", not *the* top 15. Now get yourself up into that loft!
Great video. Thanks dude. I'd add Zalaga which seems to be mostly unmentioned so far. Far and away the best 8 bit port of Galaga, coed by Orlando who also did Frak. Please please please - put me out of my misery - which game is the music that you're using as your 'sting' from? I recognise it and I know I had it but I just can't place it! hahaha (Not the opening one, which is Pole Position - the one you use to introduce each game)
We had these at school in the last couple of years I was there - only allowed to use them during Computer Studies lessons and no chance of ever playing games, but just Basic programming :)
+onaretrotip yep - they were just seen as a way to learn programming, a shame indeed. I remember the game Elite, that was a big deal back in the dark and distant days of the 80s, I always fancied playing it but never did - doubt it holds up as well as I'd hope these days
BBC Micro was for schools and posh kids. ZX 48K spectrum with the rubber keys for us please. Was the first kid at school with both a computer AND a video player. Remember playing Elite on BBC micro at school during dinner though... never could dock with the first space station though 😞
Yeah, I only knew one kid with a BBC Micro (it was his older brother's who was ten years older than us), but they certainly weren't posh. Only time I ever saw one other than that was at school. Most kids at school had Speccy or C64 in the '80s where I lived. Think one kid had an Amstrad.
I watched this in 2022: I did use a BBC Micro in a training scheme and played a football management game with my friend, whereby you could put your own words(mostly rude) in. When you you got to the top division and you scored 5 a game, random senetences would be created, very purile but funny.
Daredevil Dennis! I had totally forgotten that one, having not played it since I was about 8. I was never great at Thrust, but I did love the spiritual sequel Oids, on the Atari ST. Worth a go if you've never played it
Was Imogen a transfer of a Sinclair Spectrum title to the BBC Micro? Because the almost monochrome graphics are strongly reminiscent of nearly all games for the Spectrum. And not what you would normally see on a BBC Micro.
