In April 1985 CRASH wished it could have visited Bubble Bus at home: “they’re based in a converted granary in Tunbridge, Kent, which is quite an idyllic setting — ‘duck mind your head’ signs on the beams and a river meandering at the bottom of the garden.” From there a small company published one of the best-loved Spectrum games, Stephen Crow’s Starquake. Bubble Bus had started out two years earlier as the games side of a Tonbridge computer dealer, writing for the Commodore VIC-20 and 64. Before most Spectrum owners had heard of it, it expected its Commodore 64 pool game to pass 35,000 copies.
Fast facts
- Address, as advertised: 87 High Street, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1RX. Telephone 0732 355962.
- Origins: the games label of The Computer Room, a dealer in Commodore business systems at the same address; described as “newly-formed” in June 1983.
- People: directors included Mark Meakings, who left early in 1985; Sandy Marchant was managing director by December 1984.
- Programmer: Stephen Crow, author of Wizard’s Lair and Starquake (both 1985) and Programmer of the Year in C&VG’s Golden Joysticks.
- Other games: Exterminator (VIC-20), Hustler (C64), Skate Rock, The Fifth Quadrant, Classic Muncher and Classic Invaders, and the budget Mini Bus label.
- Formats: VIC-20 and Commodore 64 first, then Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and, from 1987, the BBC Micro.
A dealer’s software label
Bubble Bus began at The Computer Room, 87 High Street, Tonbridge, which, Commodore User explained, “sold mainly Commodore business systems and Apple computers”. When Commodore User previewed the Commodore show in June 1983, Bubble Bus was “the newly-formed” company at the same address, selling Exterminator for the VIC-20 and a pool game for the 64. Its advertisements in Commodore Computing International that autumn sold Hustler, the pool game, for £5.99.
Commodore User’s Bohdan Buciak “popped down to Kent” in September 1984 and found a company that had “always tried to be different”. It had started with VIC-20 utilities, and its range then amounted to “four Vic utility programs, conversions of them plus six games for the 64”, and not one of what Buciak called “mouldy outer-space zapping games” among them. “We’ve always gone for quality and not quantity,” said Mark Meakings, one of its two directors, who had come from a business background. The logo was just as homespun: someone from a graphics studio round the corner “designed the logo in his bathtub on a Sunday morning”. The company also took copying seriously: “We feel it’s necessary to fight the pirates collectively. So we’ve joined the Guild of Software Houses, and we contribute to its legal fund.”
By the end of 1984 Sandy Marchant, now managing director, told Commodore Computing International that Hustler, also sold on the HesGames label as Pool Challenge, was expected to reach 35,000 copies by the end of the year. Three men ran the company, “all ex-programmers themselves”, and “we write virtually all of our games in house”. Meakings did not stay. In February 1985 Commodore User reported that he had left Bubble Bus to set up a new company, Lionheart.
Stephen Crow
The games that made the name were written for the Spectrum by Stephen Crow, a freelance programmer of 19 when CRASH met him at the LET show in 1985. Wizard’s Lair, a fast arcade adventure openly modelled on Ultimate’s Atic Atac, was a CRASH Smash at 94 per cent in March 1985. Starquake followed in November. Its hero, BLOB (a “Bio-Logically Operated Being”), has to rebuild the core of an unstable planet across 512 flick screens, and CRASH gave it 96 per cent. Readers of C&VG voted Crow Programmer of the Year for 1985, and Bubble Bus put the title in its advertisements. The Steve Crow entry tells his story in full.
The conversions spread the games across the formats. Crow’s partner Nick Strange converted Starquake to the Commodore 64. Amtix! reviewed the Amstrad version in July 1986, naming Crow as the author and placing it after “his earlier Wizard’s Lair”, and liked it enough to give it 93 per cent for playability.
By the end of 1986 Crow had moved on. His next arcade adventure, Firelord, came out from Hewson, and Amstrad Action introduced it in January 1987 as “the latest game from Stephen Crow, whose past games include Starquake and Wizard’s Lair”.
Budget games and the BBC
Bubble Bus kept publishing after Crow left. Skate Rock, a skateboard race, reached the Commodore 64 early in 1987 at £7.95. The Fifth Quadrant (1987) was another big maze game; C&VG introduced it with “Bubble Bus has always been known for huge, sprawling games. Remember Starquake?”, counting “around 230 rooms” in a spaceship that four robots must win back from its alien invaders. Cheap games became more important. Classic Muncher was a budget Pac-Man, and Classic Invaders sold for £2.99 in 1986. In May 1987 the company launched a budget label, Mini Bus, reissuing Wizard’s Lair for the Amstrad, C64 and Spectrum at £1.99, and Your Commodore reported that all its £2.99 Mini Bus games were being cut to the same price.
In July 1987 Acorn User introduced Bubble Bus as “a software house new to the BBC micro market”, with a conversion of Starquake for the BBC Micro and Master at £9.95 on cassette and £11.95 on disc, and an Electron version to follow. The magazine’s reviewer, Robert Miller, began with relief: “At long last, some other software houses are taking an interest in the BBC micro!” He counted “over 500 different screens”, thought the theme “not particularly original” and the price “may be a little high”, but recommended it “to anyone who enjoys an exploring/zapping combination game”.
Licensing Starquake
By 1988 Bubble Bus was making more from its old games than new ones. The Games Machine called it “a clever example of licensing” in June 1988: Starquake was rereleased on budget by Mastertronic’s Ricochet label at about the same time as Mandarin Software released versions for the Atari ST and the IBM PC. The conversion work, the magazine said, had largely been done by Bubble Bus, with contributions from David Whittaker’s Musicon and Mandarin’s programmer Dave McLachlan. Alternative Software also obtained the rights to some of Bubble Bus’s games, and Beau Jolly put Starquake and Skate Rock on its 10 Computer Hits 4 compilation. No public source found records when the company stopped trading.
Starquake outlived the company. Reviewing Trained Assassin in 1989, Amiga Computing compared its “bubbly scenery” to “Starquake, the old 8 bit Bubble Bus classic”, and expected its readers to know the game.
Sources
- Commodore User issue 0, June 1983, p. 41: Commodore show preview (Bubble Bus “newly-formed”; Exterminator; 87 High Street; The Computer Room at the same address).
- Commodore Computing International, September 1983: Bubble Bus advertisements (Hustler, £5.99; “Bubble Bus, The Computer Room, 87 High Street, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1RX”).
- Commodore User, September 1984, Bohdan Buciak, “Bubbling over with software: taking a look at Bubble Bus” (The Computer Room; Mark Meakings; the range; the logo; the Guild of Software Houses).
- Commodore Computing International, December 1984, pp. 20–21: Sandy Marchant on Hustler, the company’s history and its in-house programmers.
- Commodore User, February 1985, news: Mark Meakings leaves Bubble Bus to set up Lionheart.
- CRASH issue 14, March 1985, pp. 35–36: Wizard’s Lair review, 94%.
- CRASH issue 15, April 1985, p. 28: interview with Steven Crow; Bubble Bus’s converted granary.
- CRASH issue 22, November 1985, pp. 10–11: Starquake review, 96%.
- Commodore User, June 1986, p. 19: Crow’s Golden Joystick and Nick Strange’s C64 conversion (see the Steve Crow entry).
- Amtix! issue 9, July 1986, pp. 12–13: Starquake review (Amstrad).
- Amtix! issue 10, August 1986: Classic Invaders (£2.99).
- Amstrad Action issue 16, January 1987: Firelord (“the latest game from Stephen Crow”).
- ZZAP!64 issue 23, March 1987: Skate Rock review (£7.95).
- Computer Gamer issue 26, May 1987, p. 8: the Mini Bus label and Wizard’s Lair at £1.99.
- Your Commodore, May 1987: Mini Bus games cut to £1.99.
- Acorn User issue 60, July 1987: news (“a software house new to the BBC micro market”) and Robert Miller’s Starquake review, p. 141.
- Computer & Video Games issue 70, August 1987, p. 21: The Fifth Quadrant.
- ZZAP!64 issue 33, January 1988: 10 Computer Hits 4 (see the Beau Jolly entry).
- Your Commodore, March 1988, and Commodore Disk User, March 1988: Alternative obtains rights to Bubble Bus products.
- The Games Machine issue 7, June 1988: Starquake licensed to Ricochet and Mandarin.
- ACE issue 15, December 1988: Classic Muncher as a budget Pac-Man.
- Amiga Computing vol. 2 no. 3, August 1989: Trained Assassin review (“the old 8 bit Bubble Bus classic”).