In the 80s, Firebird were a massive publisher of 8bit computer games. They created an off-shoot company to release budget (£1.99 and later £2.99) titles, called Silverbird. Silverbird games were popular with kids like me because they were affordable with our meagre pocket money, and I remember saving the 20 pees my Nan would give me to periodically buy a game from a video rental shop in Aughton.
In the inlay for some of the Silverbird games there was an advert to join the Silverbird Club. For a one-off £1.99 payment, you’d get a newsletter every so often (every month or two, I think) with news on games, some puzzles, and of course, a catalogue for you to order other games. With your first newsletter you also got a copy of a game, so the club was essentially free.
I pestered my mum incessantly about joining, and one day she eventually gave in unexpectedly and started filling in the application form right away. “So which of these games do you want then?” she asked, and because I was unprepared, I went blank. “Come on, if you want this you need to tell me now!”. I panicked and said the only game I could remember from the list – Bombscare. I didn’t want Bombscare. I didn’t know anything about it. I actually wanted Olli and Lissa, or I, Ball or Mad Nurse, but I couldn’t remember them at the time. Bombscare it was.
It arrived a few weeks later and I gave it a go. It wasn’t great. I couldn’t deal with the controls, the way you rotate your droid rather than just go in the direction you press (which scuppered me for other isometric games with the same control scheme), and the slipperiness made it impossible. I was gutted.
And now you can be gutted too. Yay! The aim of the game is… I can’t remember. I’ve never got very far in. Defusing bombs or something, probably.
[includeme src=”http://torinak.com/qaop#l=https://lofi-gaming.org.uk/tools/speccygames/BMBSCARE.TAP” frameborder=”0″ width=”440″ height=”330″]
Controls: Choose Cursor from the menu, then use arrow keys to move and 0 (that’s Zero) to shoot.
The emulator used is Qaop/JS – a rather spiffy HTML5 Spectrum emulator.
