Bmx racers

Developer: David and richard Darling GENRE: racing

Galactic Software, AKA the brothers richard and David Darling, proved useful allies for Mastertronic in its early days. As one of their own games for the publisher, the Darlings sold BMX Racers with

subsequent impressive royalty payments after it proved to be a surprise smash.

The concept was modest: the player rides and jumps on a BMX in an overhead view, avoiding obstacles in the road as the game scrolls downwards. Graphically sparse and lacking in any real long term staying power, BMX Racers became a smash anyway on the back of the BMX craze which was belatedly invading the UK.

This triumph of marketing over anything else struck a chord with the fledgling coders so that when they came to start their own software label in 1987, there was plenty of effervescent promotional prowess to accompany each game. The pair even acknowledged its first big hit for Galactic by releasing BMX Simulator for Codemasters, thus instigating a huge line of simulator games. A year after BMX Racers, Mastertronic released Commodore 16 and ZX Spectrum versions, ported by other coders as the Darlings focused on their future output. Yet no matter which format you furiously pedalled up the screen on, BMX Racers was a knock-out in terms of sales, and a key game in strengthening Mastertronic’s position

within the software market.

Enthused by its success, the Darlings created a semi-sequel a year later. BMX Trials was housed inside

another cover by Mark Brady and switches the action to side-scrolling as the player competes against the computer or another player in a series of stunts.