Level
9
1983-89
Softography
(Spectrum only)
See World of Spectrum for
downloadable versions
Title |
Year |
Colossal Adventure |
1983 |
Adventure Quest |
1983 |
Dungeon Adventure |
1983 |
Snowball |
1983 |
Return to Eden |
1984 |
Emerald Isle |
1985 |
Saga of Erik the Viking, The * |
1985 |
Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, The * |
1985 |
Red Moon |
1985 |
Worm in Paradise, The |
1985 |
Colossal Adventure |
1985 |
Jewels of Darkness **
- Colossal Adventure
- Adventure Quest
- Dungeon Adventure
|
1986 |
Price of Magik, The |
1986 |
Silicon Dreams **
- Snowball
- Return to Eden
- Worm in Paradise, The |
1986 |
Growing Pains of Adrian Mole *** |
1987 |
Gnome Ranger |
1987 |
Archers, The * |
1987 |
Knight Orc ** |
1987 |
Ingrid's Back |
1988 |
Time and Magik ****
- Lords of Time
- Red Moon
- Price of Magik, The |
1988 |
Lancelot **** |
1988 |
Scapeghost |
1989 |
* Published by Mosaic Publishing
Ltd
** Published by Rainbird Software
*** Published by Virgin Games Ltd
**** Published by Mandarin Software
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Level 9 were amongst the most prolific, and certainly the best known, publishers of adventure games for the Spectrum. The company specialised in adventure games for the 8-bit machines throughout its six-year existence, producing some of the best such games ever seen on the Spectrum.
The brains behind Level 9 were
the Buckinghamshire-based Austin family: brothers Pete, Nicholas
and Michael doing the programming, sister Margaret doing the
marketing and father John managing the company. Although their
games were often not especially original - Tolkein and Larry
Niven were major influences - they nonetheless stood out by
virtue of being well paced, large and with many tricky and
often amusing puzzles. The games benefited especially from
Level 9's sophisticated parser, unsurpassed until Magnetic
Scrolls came on the scene in the late 1980s.
Level 9 published initially
under their own name, by mail order, but later benefited from
a distribution deal with Rainbird (one of the labels of British
Telecom's software arm, Telecomsoft) and later with Mandarin.
The company also produced a number of tie-in games with the
book publishers Mosaic. The company tried but failed to make
a successful transition to the increasingly dominant 16-bit
market at the end of the decade and subsequently broke up.
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