We’re all familiar with the most played Christmas song from last year.
It’s been echoing around our houses, pubs and nightclubs for over 30 years.
Do They Know It’s Christmas was written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure as a reaction
to the mid 80’s famine in Ethiopia.
Recorded by Band Aid, the single was released in December 1984 and stayed at the number
1 slot for several weeks.
It sold a million copies in it’s first week and was the biggest selling single of all
time until Elton John blew us out with his windy candle.
Whilst Western government’s were sitting on their arses deciding whether to help or
not, within a year of it’s release, Band Aid had raised £8 million for the Ethiopian
cause.
What’s less known is Soft Aid.
Soft Aid was the videogame industry’s reaction to the crisis, instigated and released by
Quicksilva’s Rod Cousens in late ’85, it’s aim was to support the Ethipoian cause
from a software point of view.
Released on tape for both the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, the tape was a compilation
of games for each computer, with the Band Aid single also recorded onto side 1.
This was probably the first time that software had been used to support a charity and the
artwork by video game cover artist David Rowe featured a rather poignant image of a stark
desert, blue sky and humblingly thin character sitting to the right.
It was also one of the first compilations made up of previously released games, other
than Telstar’s Select 1.
Various software houses donated games for the compilation, including Quicksilva themselves
with Ant Attack for the Speccy and Fred for the C64.
There were also some cross platform games including Elite’s Jet Set Willy beater Kokotoni
Wilf and US Gold’s platformer Gilligans’s Gold.
Costs were kept to a bare minimum for the package, and software houses even began queuing
up to get their games on the single tape, which led to further compilations down the
road, such as “Off the Hook”.
Soft Aid sold for a very reasonable £4.99, equating to about 50p per game, and this led
to the tape becoming a best seller almost instantly.
It stayed at the top of software charts for 4 months and continued to appear in top 10
charts well into 1986, leading to raised funds of over £350,000!
Not bad for an emerging industry!
The compilations differed for each format, with the Speccy version arguably the best,
but then there were many more games available for Sinclair’s workhorse in the UK At this
time.
Let’s take a look at the games…
For the…
Commodore 64 BeamRider – A budget shoot ’em up from 1984 China Miner – a ridiculously
hard platformer Falcon Patrol – which is a defender clone with jet fighters Flak – an
early smup with good graphics and effects Fred – basically Indiana Jones, with a more
common name and no licence Gilligan’s Gold – a collecting game which was pretty darn
hard Gumshoe – a clone of possibly my favourite 80s game, Elevator action Gyropod – was
a variation on the space shoot’em up formula Kokotoni Wilf – Jet set Willy with wings
and…
Star Trader – which was heavily based around the legendary Elite Whilst Spectrum owners
could get their hands on…
Sinclair Spectrum 3D Tank Duel – Realtime games made it’s name with this Battlezone
clone Ant Attack – was Sandy White’s famous game featuring massive, deadly ants, and one
of the first isometric games Gilligan’s Gold – was actually a C64 port and was pretty
similar Horace goes Skiing – Hungry Horace!
One of my favourite video game characters!
Jack & the Beanstalk – Trial and error, more error than trial if I’m honest Kokotoni
Wilf – Jet set Willy with wings The Pyramid – Made by Fantasy was simple, gunning fun
Sorcery – action, adventure and fast pace!
Spellbound – a Q*bert clone! and..
Starbike – Similar to Lunar jetman and a pretty good game!
The compilation idea itself went on to start a new niche in the software industry of re-packaging
old games into bargain collections, and the charity format itself would later be the idea
behind compilations such as KidsPlay and even the current HumbleBundle!
If you remember any of these games, drop a comment below and let’s reminisce about
charity and gaming, like it was 1985