SPECTRUM PORTUGUESE REVOLUTION

Pedro Pimenta talks about the ZX revolution in Portugal.

With the arrival of the first Sinclair computers in Portugal, the country saw a true revolution as with the easy access to affordable hardware; there was an explosion in demand for these products. Companies and shops quickly realised

the sudden interest in computing rushed to meet the demand, importing computers, selling games, or even producing specific hardware or consumables.

With this true ‘fever’, countless books from all over Europe were published with their contents translated into Portuguese. Magazines, imported from England, Spain, and France, appeared in newsstands aside from national titles. Various newspapers decide to ‘ride the wave’ and began publishing weekly computing sections. On an informal level, groups of friends gathered to create fanzines that were advertised in this same medium.

There was no real law regulating this market regarding software distribution, meaning that soon pirated games were selling by the dozen and the few companies or stores that decided to import original titles quickly realised they couldn’t compete with pirates because of the massive price differences. Pirated games were sold almost everywhere,

from stationery stores to appliance stores, video rental shops, electronics stores, photographers, bookshops and soon even supermarkets.

As one might imagine, while this abundance of resources allowed virtually anyone to access hundreds of games and software, it also created a very tough environment for those looking to publish and commercialise original Portuguese-made titles. The first amateur titles showed up with the ZX81, but very few remained to these days, and we have, so far, no knowledge of any commercial title. Later with the 48K Spectrum, as there were no legalised publishers, some programmers chose to reach out to British companies, contacting them by letter and sending their tapes in hopes of reaching an international audience.

The most important case we should mention here is of Paulo Carrasco and Rui Tito, two childhood friends from Algarve that in 1984 reached a small British publisher — Wizard

Software. This company ultimately launched their three first games over the course of one year— Megatron, Moon Defenders and Mr Gulp. Disappointed with the lack of success of their first titles, they decided to embark on a more ambitious project that could finally reach the more prominent names in the field. Finally, in 1987 they released Alien Evolution through Gremlin Graphics for the 128K Spectrum, achieving some success in England and even getting a re-release in Spain.

While Carrasco left the team afterwards to dedicate himself to his studies, Tito continued his work and searched for a new team to develop new projects. This search resulted in two titles where he was the producer in collaboration with the programmer Carlos Leote, counting also with Pedro Fortes (artist/composer) and Mário Valente (composer) respectively in Kraal and Klimax. As we reached the end of the Spectrum era, Hewson Consultants decided to release these two titles in 1990 as part of a four-game compilation titled 4th Dimension.

The authors later revealed that there was no pay or very little, which discouraged them from investing again into producing games for this computer.

Aside from these, other titles were also released

abroad, like the poker game Good Luck! (1985 – Top Ten Software) and the puzzleshooter Breakneck (1990 — Sinclair User), to name a few.

Amidst this chaotic scene, some small stores decided to invest in national authors, releasing their games very amateurish. After buying the game’s license, they would make individual copies by request

and release them with a generic cover bearing the store’s logo. This was the case of Maratona sold by Banon & Jesus, Mad’in Ca$cais sold by Cascaismicro, Play for Peace sold by Chai Informática, among many others.

One of these stores took the challenge of building a serious publisher even in the absence of a law that protected them, creating the closest thing Portugal had to a legitimate publisher in this decade. Astor Software was born from the mind of Álvaro Neves, the owner of a computer and pirated games store called Neval situated in Lisbon.

Dozens of videogames and specialised software were released with handmade covers. They even supported the creation of various software development contests, associating with the

Microse7e supplement (weekly bundled with Se7e newspaper) in the Softmania-Microse7e contest. The contestants would get the chance of winning prize money and have their projects published by Astor. As the quality of some of the lowerranking titles pleased them, many of them ended up being released later in the same way as the contest winners. This small company must’ve been the one that most incentivised the small Portuguese scene originating hundreds of titles, many of them still to be discovered.

Some prime examples would be Brum Brum, an F1 race manager; Doce

Lar, an addicting arcade game that reminds some of the early 80s classics; o Segredo dos Templários, a complex text adventure based in Portuguese myths and history or Guerra em Krypto, a futuristic

Sci-Fi game where an interplanetary spaceship battle could be held in a way similar to a board game like chess or checkers.

One of the most important games of this

decade is Talismã (1987, released in 1990), the biggest production that we know so far for the Spectrum — a highquality graphic adventure written by a journalist that travels through various monuments, references old myths and legends deeply rooted in Portuguese history. Widely covered and praised in the specialised press, it could’ve been a sales success if not for the rampant piracy of the time.

Recently the author revealed that also in 1987, he had created another graphic adventure that he named Scissor’s Riddle. This tape was sent to Incentive Software that answered, saying their current year’s catalogue had been filled and as so they were unable to release

it. Still, reportedly

the tape was sent to the offices of CRASH magazine for a potential review and publishing, having become lost after that…

A special mention should be made about Mad’in Ca$cais, a bizarre game created by employees working at CascaisMicro, a software and hardware store which sold this game exclusively. Still, it found itself being pirated and sold at various stores, as was often the case back then. The story tells us that

Clive Sinclair had bought a copy of the game

Elite in England, but he couldn’t see through the decoding lens used for copy protection in his copy because he wears glasses. To solve this problem, he travelled to Cascais to try and obtain a pirated copy of this program. The gameplay deals with travelling around Cascais, interacting with people, and solving inventory-based puzzles. The final goal is to find where the CascaisMicro store is and purchase the game there.

It was a success, showing up in various newspaper supplements, and letters were sent regularly by players, either showing their steps or asking for advice. Concerning Portuguese videogames, this was probably the most referenced in the media of the time, not only because of its origin but also because of the actual locations and exciting puzzles.

In conclusion, this article sought to resume the first period of videogame creation in Portugal, focusing on the more relevant releases. We hope this small introduction has helped shed some light on a subject that’s not much discussed even in its own country, much less abroad.