Your Top Five Software Houses.8-Bit Era

[Puresox]

Off the top of my head I would say...
In no particular order



Hewson
Vortex
Ocean/Imagine
Gremlin Graphics
Elite



I am sure others may spring to mind but these seem to be at the forefront of my mind. With pretty consistent good games.

[MacDeath]

No french companies ? 
No spanish as well ? 

[tastefulmrship]

Hewson
Vortex
Ocean/Imagine
Gremlin Graphics
Elite

A nice list of quality CPC software houses, but you'd be better off making it a TOP 10... and possibly add (in no particular order)

Dinamic Software (Army Moves, Freddy Hardest, Game Over)
ERE Informatique (Exxos games, Eden Blues, Get Dexter)
Palace Software (Barbarian, Cauldron, Antiriad)
Melbourne House (Gyroscope, Starion, Exploding Fist)
Mastertronic (Feud, Magic Knight series, Hyberbowl)

Among others...

[AMSDOS]

No french companies ? 
No spanish as well ? 

I enjoy playing the UBI Soft games Twin World & Asphalt. The later is perhaps more simplistic given it's an earlier game & slows down when more things flow onto the screen, though it's a good memory game in that you can work out when everything comes out and what weapon to use, though it's a game one has to work at to get through it, I dare say I haven't played it for a while, so my memory is probably lost track of the sequence of baddies. I guess some map would help.
Twin World I really like cause it's a wonderful example of a cute game done in Mode 1, though the game itself seems massive and the game play is interesting.

Their probably not the best 2 games UBI Soft came out with, though that's all I've played - probably the style of game has encouraged me to play them.

Sadly I haven't really familiar with the Spanish Software Companies. 

[Puresox]

The problem I found with a lot of spanish games were that they seemed a little ambitious, had great graphics but played very sluggishly. Or they were just too hard( The Dinamic range) Navy moves etc. French software houses have a lot of good games, ERE and Ubisoft seem to spring to mind . Get Dexter was amazing.But they could also come out, with  some odd offerings that played very strangely . 

Just as an Addition here are my Budget Software choices...


Players
Mastertronic
Hi tec

[Urusergi]

Good thread!

My list, in no particular order:

- Opera Soft
- Dinamic Software
- Ultimate Play the Game
- ERE Informatique
- Ubisoft Entertainment

[Puresox]

I think Ubisoft also may have got Higher up my list, had I been a fluent in French. They have some really top quality stuff in there arsenal, but many good titles are French only .Iron Lord- looks fantastic but I am unable to enjoy it as I am not familiar enough with the language. Same with Defender of the Crown (too a lesser extent).
I think I have to rate them the highest from France due to the vast amount of good titles, Whereas ERE have a few greats and a lot of duds IMO.

[Puresox]

Good thread!

My list, in no particular order:

- Opera Soft
- Dinamic Software
- Ultimate Play the Game
- ERE Informatique
- Ubisoft Entertainment

Good thread, in the wrong place

[dcdrac]

Firebird and Rainbird missing too

[Gryzor]

Palace is usually forgotten as a name but indeed I liked them.


Hewson!


Also, are we talking dev houses or publishers? Because if it's publishers, U.S. Gold should be in there probably...

[Puresox]

Publishers I should say. Brave call US Gold? They have some good stuff but plenty of bad tack . Rainbird I did consider and probably they are up in my top Ten ,likewise Palace. Firebird just about  scrape in , but more for there full price games. Still fond memories of there games.

[Gryzor]

Oh yes, I agree, lots of shite product out there by U.S. Gold, but the sheer quantity of titles ensured they had some gems in there... Look at this:
http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/U.S._Gold

[MacDeath]

A point : some companies made a huge lot of stuffs, with lots of junks, other did only a few pearls and nothing else.
And some other only did a few scrappy things...




Silmarils ? only like 3 games at best... but damn they are impressive looking all of them.




Loriciel is somewhat better than UBI IMO.


UBI was a lot into adventure games... rarely those were in english, often in Mode1 and yeah, looked good. but not quite fun for a youngster like I was.

[dcdrac]

Targhan still looks good even now

[Devilmarkus]

Targhan still looks good even now

He knows, I'm sure

[Puresox]

A point : some companies made a huge lot of stuffs, with lots of junks, other did only a few pearls and nothing else.
And some other only did a few scrappy things...




Silmarils ? only like 3 games at best... but damn they are impressive looking all of them.




Loriciel is somewhat better than UBI IMO.


UBI was a lot into adventure games... rarely those were in english, often in Mode1 and yeah, looked good. but not quite fun for a youngster like I was.

I have to agree to a certain point with regard to Ubi soft and Loriciels. I do have fond memories of loriciels games. They did support the CPC well , and put a lot of care and attention to some of their games. Not always top draw games though but good batting average. I think some of their Tennis games were really well presented and played pretty well. the Bumpy games were pretty unique and very playable.
Oh and how could  I forget the Skweek games.
Just had a scan through some of there titles and wished I was better at French cos 'Space Trap' looks a great title. Paragliding made me smile , plays quite well for a laugh.


Psyborg. Is also a shit hot game plays really fast and has some really nice FX in it , well I reckon anyhow. Shame it crashes after each course though.

[Gryzor]

Sweek! Yeah!


I had originally played it on my ST and loved it, only got to play the CPC version some fifteen years later and I was well impressed...

[AMSDOS]

My only grudge with Skweek was it wasn't Green Screen Friendly and no effort was made to make it Compatible, which suggests Laziness, I mean it just looks bad when a game like "Roland in Time" from 1984 can work on both monitors, but then I don't know Skweek well enough. 

[Gryzor]

To be fair, it was a game about colours...

[ivarf]

At the time, I never owned a green screen. But I see the problem. A small icon printed on the covers which symbols "works ok on green screen" would have helped a lot...

[Axelay]

My only grudge with Skweek was it wasn't Green Screen Friendly and no effort was made to make it Compatible, which suggests Laziness, I mean it just looks bad when a game like "Roland in Time" from 1984 can work on both monitors, but then I don't know Skweek well enough. 

Well that's a bit harsh.  I'd have thought the real problem was buying a Colour Personal Computer with a monochrome display! 

[TFM]

Back the day there was a big difference in pricing. Further the Greeny Screeny is ideal for programming.


Best solution: Use both of them :-) I did that for years.


However, in general: Games usually lack an option to select color schemes for Green or Color screen.

[MacDeath]

My only grudge with Skweek was it wasn't Green Screen Friendly and no effort was made to make it Compatible, which suggests Laziness, I mean it just looks bad when a game like "Roland in Time" from 1984 can work on both monitors, but then I don't know Skweek well enough.

Well, any game based on colour can be somewhat a bitch with those poor guys with monocolour screens.

Klax may suck in CGA or Hercules, you know ?

try this game instead...

[AMSDOS]

Well that's a bit harsh.  I'd have thought the real problem was buying a Colour Personal Computer with a monochrome display! 

Well our family was strapped for Cash in the 80s and my Dad wanted a computer which was affordable and had it's own Monitor at an affordable price, which is what the Amstrad delivered. Shortly after we got the computer, my Dad tested run a MP-1 Modulator, though for some reason wasn't impressed with it, and as that would of turned there would of been problems with some of the games using it.

Eventually I was able to afford an Atari after convincing my parents it would work on our TVs, when we had more TVs in the house and shortly after that I brought an Amstrad with Colour Monitor when people were selling it off for a 16-bit presumably.

[Gryzor]

Same here; the 464 with a green monitor already stretched family finances, but left me wondering: "if it says, right here, Colour, where the heck is the damn colour?" (had only seen colour monitors or consoled plugged into colour TVs up to then).


Didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying it though.