When CRASH reviewed Henry’s Hoard in April 1986, a £1.99 platform game about a greedy gnome, one reviewer couldn’t see why “this new company should choose to call themselves ‘Alternative Software’”, unless they meant “to offer alternative versions of classic games years after they’ve come and gone”. That turned out to be close to the plan. Alternative Software, run from an industrial estate in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, made its name by buying up other publishers’ old games and selling them again at pocket-money prices. It then found a second line in children’s television: Postman Pat, Count Duckula, Sooty and Sweep and Thomas the Tank Engine. Forty years on, the same company, under the same founder, is still registered and trading.
Fast facts
- Founded: 1985, by Roger Hulley; incorporated as Alternative Software Limited in June 1986.
- Base: Baileygate Industrial Estate, Pontefract; Castleford, West Yorkshire, since 2003.
- Prices: £1.99 at first, then £2.99 and £3.99 for 8-bit tapes; more for 16-bit disks.
- Labels: Summit (utilities and older players’ games), Again Again (full price, 1988), Friendly Learning (education, 1990), Admiral Software (1992).
- Known for: reissues of other publishers’ games; children’s TV licences; Charles Sharp’s comic adventures; Doctor Who: Dalek Attack (1992).
From record shops to budget tapes
Roger Hulley came to games from the record business. Retro Gamer’s history of the company tells how he joined Thorn EMI as a graduate trainee, moved to the Fox’s chain of record shops in the north of England as general manager, and noticed that video cassettes, then Atari VCS cartridges, sold through the same kind of shop. He left in 1984 and began distributing games through a company called R&R.
The label came out of that trade. Martyn Brown and Mick Robinson, who later founded Team17, had been selling Henry’s Hoard, a Spectrum game by Brown and A. Biggs, under their own name, Alternative Software. Hulley bought their remaining stock, the masters and the rights, label name included, and added Pheenix, a Spectrum shoot-’em-up first published by Megadodo. The surviving Henry’s Hoard inlays went out with £1.99 printed over the old price of £4.95. CRASH gave the game 65%: “a reasonable deal”, even if it was another Jet Set Willy in all but name.
A May 1988 profile in Amstrad Computer User fills in the business behind it. Alternative was “an offshoot of R and R, one of the country’s biggest distributors”, which with a sister company, A1 Primary Distribution, had decided in early 1986 to move into publishing. A grant through the Design Council paid for new packaging and a logo, and the relaunched range, with the cricket game Howzat!, was ready “just before the end of 1986”. In February 1987 CRASH listed Alternative among the new arrivals: a budget house selling games at £1.99, with a utilities label, Summit Software, to follow. Summit’s first release was Art Master, a £9.95 art package for the Spectrum.
Reissues, and a few originals
Most of the range was other people’s games. Hulley’s background in distribution gave him the contacts: Amstrad Computer User listed Ocean, Durell, Piranha, Martech, Incentive, Bubble Bus and Domark among the companies whose old games he reissued, and Retro Gamer adds Mikro-Gen’s Everyone’s a Wally and Sparklers’ Danger Mouse games. Alternative often bought whole catalogues from companies leaving the business, among them Piranha and Mikro-Gen. Amstrad Computer User noted that Martech’s Uchi Mata sold better at £1.99, renamed Judo Uchi Mata, than it had at full price, and reported that one game in every ten sold now carried the Alternative logo.
Some games came from abroad. In early 1990 Alternative issued two games by the Madrid studio Dinamic, the shoot-’em-up Meganova and the motorbike game Turbo Bike, at £2.99. ZZAP! gave the Commodore 64 Meganova 67% and opened its review with “it’s dodgy Spanish translation time again with the inlay for this Dinamic game”. Your Sinclair was harsher about both Spectrum versions: “It’s not a good month for Dinamic (or Alternative, for that matter).”
The company’s own games ranged widely. Charles Sharp wrote a run of comic adventures for it, many with Incentive’s Graphic Adventure Creator: Star Wreck sent Captain J.T. Kake across space in a send-up of Star Trek, and Football Frenzy followed after fans wrote in asking for another. According to Amstrad Computer User, W H Smith claimed Football Frenzy as its best-selling adventure of all time. CRASH gave Star Wreck 73%. The low point was Howzat!: in February 1987 CRASH gave it 11% overall, with 9% for graphics and 7% for addictive qualities, and called it “a very, very boring game”. Retro Gamer later counted it among the magazine’s lowest scores.
By 1988 Alternative had its own programmers in Sheffield, headed by Dave Palmer, formerly of the Sheffield publisher Alligata. Another former Alligata programmer, the 19-year-old Richard Stevenson, wrote its Amstrad and Spectrum versions; the team took the name Bizarre Developments, and Stevenson was running it by 1992. That October CRASH announced a full-price label, Again Again, led by The Munsters. Alternative’s first 16-bit game, Night Walk, came out on the Amiga the same year.
Postman Pat and friends
The licences began with a refusal. Hulley wanted Thomas the Tank Engine for a game children could explore rather than shoot their way through, and Britt Allcroft’s company turned him down, he told Retro Gamer, because it thought all computer games were violent. The BBC said yes to Postman Pat, in which a child could simply drive around visiting places from the programme. It sold well, and Allcroft then agreed to Thomas. By September 1991 CU Amiga described Alternative as specialists in character licensing, with Thomas, Count Duckula, Popeye and Sooty and Sweep already out and ’Allo ’Allo! on the way. More followed from FilmFair, The Wombles, Huxley Pig and Bangers and Mash, and the Friendly Learning label turned some of the same characters into educational programs in 1990.
Amstrad Action visited in November 1992 and found a company doing almost everything itself. It duplicated its own tapes on a machine that ran “a thousand an hour”, stored and distributed the games from Pontefract and a warehouse in Leeds, and owned two Sheffield companies, Bizarre Developments and Design Etc, which drew its inlays and adverts. It employed about 20 people. “Unlike other companies we don’t delist games,” the press officer, David Watkins, told the magazine. “All 120 titles we’ve produced are still available, and we’re still selling in 1992 the games we released in 1986.” That Christmas a new £7.99 label for 8-bit games in console-style soft packs, Admiral Software, launched with Doctor Who: Dalek Attack, written for Alternative by 221B Software of Sheffield.
Fire, and after
The 8-bit market ended for Alternative, Hulley told Retro Gamer, almost overnight, when W H Smith stopped stocking 8-bit games. The company moved to the Amiga, the Atari ST and the PC but never published for the Mega Drive, the Super Nintendo or the PlayStation; for a small firm, Hulley said, one expensive console game that flopped “could be the end”. Then, on the night of 21 September 1997, a fire started by burglars in the unit next door spread to Alternative’s offices and destroyed its stock and duplication equipment.
The programmers, told to keep busy making screensavers, gave Hulley the idea for the next business: Premier Sports, a range of CD-ROMs tied to individual Premier League football clubs. Electronic colouring and printing programs followed, licensed from Playdays in 1996 and later from films. In 2003 the company moved to Castleford and returned to games with rugby league: with the Australian developer Tru Blu, it published a Rugby League game for the Xbox and PlayStation 2, followed by sequels. By 2012 its latest release was Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and in June 2013 it advertised a Lions Tour Edition of its rugby union game. Hulley, a rugby fan, had been vice-chairman of the Castleford Tigers.
The old catalogue still has value. In October 2025 the Spectrum Next magazine Next reported that the studio MegaVision had reached a deal with Alternative Software to bring the Mikro-Gen Wally games to the Next. Companies House still lists Alternative Software Limited as active, with Roger Hulley as its director.
Sources
- CRASH issue 27, April 1986, p. 137: Henry’s Hoard review (Alternative Software, £1.99, authors M. Brown and A. Biggs; “Why this new company should choose to call themselves ‘Alternative Software’”; 65%); and the Alternative advertisement for Henry’s Hoard and Pheenix at Baileygate Industrial Estate, Pontefract.
- CRASH issue 37, February 1987, p. 12: news, “New arrivals” (Alternative Software, £1.99, Howzat and Henry’s Hoard, Summit Software and Art Master); pp. 126–127: Howzat review (11% overall).
- CRASH issue 44, September 1987, p. 68: Star Wreck review; CRASH issue 48, January 1988, pp. 98 and 100: review index (Star Wreck 73%, Henry’s Hoard 65%, Howzat 11%).
- Amstrad Computer User, May 1988, pp. 48–49: Norman Doyle, “The alternative budget” (R and R and A1 Primary Distribution; the 1986 launch; the Design Council logo; publishers reissued; Judo Uchi Mata; “one in every 10 games”; Charles Sharp, Star Wreck and Football Frenzy; the Sheffield team, Dave Palmer and Richard Stevenson).
- CRASH issue 57, October 1988, p. 8: news, the Again Again label and The Munsters.
- ZZAP!64 issue 58, February 1990, budget reviews: Meganova: The Weapon review (Alternative Software, £2.99, 67%).
- Your Sinclair issue 50, February 1990, pp. 46–47: Meganova and Turbo Bike reviews (Alternative, £2.99).
- CU Amiga, September 1991, news, ’Allo ’Allo and Alternative’s character licences.
- Amstrad Action issue 86, November 1992, pp. 12–13: Adam Peters, “A growing Alternative” (founding in 1985 by Roger Hulley; duplication, distribution and the Leeds warehouse; Bizarre Developments and Design Etc; about 20 staff; 120 titles kept in print; Admiral Software and Doctor Who).
- Retro Gamer issue 107, October 2012, pp. 50–55: Graeme Mason, “From the Archives: Alternative Software” (Hulley’s career; R&R; Martyn Brown and Mick Robinson; Pheenix; the £4.95 inlays; the Design Council; Summit; Bizarre Developments; Night Walk; Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine; W H Smith and the end of 8-bit; the fire of 21 September 1997; Premier Sports; the move to Castleford in 2003; Tru Blu and rugby league; Dalek Attack and 221B Software).
- Retro Gamer issue 117, August 2013, p. 2: Alternative Software advertisement for Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge’s Lions Tour Edition, June 2013.
- Next issue 10, October 2025, p. 10: MegaVision’s deal with Alternative Software for the Wally games.
- Companies House, Alternative Software Limited, company number 02025051 (public record): incorporated 4 June 1986; active; director Roger David Hulley; registered office in Castleford. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02025051