Do you know anything about the history of these games?

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Alastair · #1 Post by **Alastair** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:05 pm

The following can be thought of as the same game though there are some differences between them, e.g., character names and how you obtain money.

The Cricklewood Incident - Dragon & Spectrum - Salamander Software
Pythonesque (or The Cricklewood Incident [1]) - C64 - Supersoft
Streets of London - C64 - Supersoft
The Kilburn Encounter - Oric - Tansoft

[1] This is the sub-title and not an alternative name.

I have tried to find the release history of these games so as to determine which version can be thought of as the original, then I can amend the site's database accordingly. However I have not been successful, so I throw the question out to the members of this forum. Does anyone here know anything about the history of these games?

#2 Post by **Gunness** » Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:09 am

Fascinating - this type of question is one of the reasons why I love being associated with a site like this

My impression has always been that Pythonesque was a hacked version of Streets, given the theme and lack of an official license.
The games were co-written by Grant Privett. I found a 50-something UK resident with that name on the net and have emailed him to see if he's the right guy. Hopefully he is.

Alastair · #3 Post by **Alastair** » Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:51 pm

Gunness wrote:My impression has always been that Pythonesque was a hacked version of Streets, given the theme and lack of an official license.

I think it more likely that it was called Pythonesque but had to change its name precisely because it did not have an official license (see HitchHiker-64, another Supersoft title - it looks like they were a very naughty boy). Let's hope that the Grant Privett you contacted is the right man and that he has the answers.

#4 Post by **Gunness** » Tue Aug 23, 2011 9:01 pm

He is indeed the right one, so I hope to have an answer very soon.

#5 Post by **Gunness** » Wed Aug 24, 2011 2:55 pm

Grant has given me a long, eloborate reply, which I'll hopefully be able to mirror on the site, but the gist of it is:
- Pythonesque was (as you rightly guessed) written first, originally on a PET.
- Supersoft picked it up for commercial release as Streets of London.
- Cricklewood Incident was written for the Dragon
- The Oric and Spectrum versions were more polished, with substantial game play changes. They never saw any money for the latter.
- Apparently an Amiga version was created, too, by his co-author.

The odd thing is that the Oric version has a different title than the Speccy (Kilburn Encounter vs Cricklewood). Grant openly admits that his recollections are a bit hazy here and there.

Some of the explanation might boil down to the fate of Salamander Software. What happened to them? You made a few comments about them on the Cricklewood page.

Alastair · #6 Post by **Alastair** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:51 pm

Gunness wrote:The odd thing is that the Oric version has a different title than the Speccy (Kilburn Encounter vs Cricklewood). Grant openly admits that his recollections are a bit hazy here and there.

Because Kilburn's close to Cricklewood? (They are areas within London, the distance between them is about two miles.)

Gunness wrote:Some of the explanation might boil down to the fate of Salamander Software. What happened to them? You made a few comments about them on the Cricklewood page.

Salamander stopped trading in either late 1984 or early 1985. I think Microdeal took over the distribution of some of Salamander's titles, but I would have to do some digging through some magazines I have from that time to find out any more information.

#7 Post by **Gunness** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 10:15 am

Alastair wrote:
Gunness wrote:The odd thing is that the Oric version has a different title than the Speccy (Kilburn Encounter vs Cricklewood). Grant openly admits that his recollections are a bit hazy here and there.
Because Kilburn's close to Cricklewood? (They are areas within London, the distance between them is about two miles.)

I think it's odd because - according to Grant - both versions were substantially rewritten from the earlier C64 & Dragon versions. Hence I'd expect them to share names.

Alastair · #8 Post by **Alastair** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 10:36 pm

Gunness wrote:I think it's odd because - according to Grant - both versions were substantially rewritten from the earlier C64 & Dragon versions. Hence I'd expect them to share names.

Is Grant saying that the Spectrum version of the Cricklewood Incident is substantially different from the Dragon version? I cannot check this because WoS does not have a copy.

There is also mention of a BBC version which I have been unable to locate, did Grant mention the fate of this release?

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Do you know anything about the history of these games?

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