Cascade Games

Cascade Games sold a simple proposition: fifty games on one tape for £9.95. A January 1986 advertisement bundled Cassette 50 with a calculator watch and listed versions for twelve computers. Its order form gave the company’s address in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.¹

The company also published individual games. Its Commodore 64 flight simulator ACE earned 90% from ZZAP!64, a very different critical response from the one later given to its Atari ST compilation Disk 15.²³

Before the limited company

Cassette 50 was advertised in Computer and Video Games by May 1983. Cascade Games Limited was incorporated on 23 September 1983: the incorporation date is not the start of work on the product.⁴⁵

In a later interview, Guy Wilhelmy recalled beginning the compilation at home in Harrogate in 1982. He described combining his earlier Cascade and UTS businesses into the limited company.⁶

Moving BASIC between machines

Wilhelmy said the original games were written in BASIC, with differences in graphics and sound considered during development. He described an interface which transferred text from an Apple computer through another machine’s keyboard connection, followed by adaptations for the target.⁶

This was source-level adaptation. It did not mean that different computers could load the same tape or execute the same machine code. Wilhelmy also recalled rewrites for the Spectrum and contributions from other programmers as the range grew.⁶

The advertisement made a narrower promise than fifty identical games everywhere: titles and contents could vary between computers. Buyers selected a version on the order form.¹

Beyond Cassette 50

Wilhelmy recalled that compilation income funded about £40,000 of development and launch spending on ACE. That figure is his recollection; the contemporary ZZAP!64 chart independently confirms Cascade’s credit and the game’s 90% rating.⁶²

The quantity-first approach continued with Disk 15. ACE magazine’s April 1989 review listed the Atari ST package at £19.95 and awarded it 163 out of 1000, criticising its compiled BASIC games. A BASIC program can be compiled; the review’s complaint was about the games, not proof that BASIC always means interpreted execution.³

The Artronic name

Cascade Games Limited became Artronic Products Limited on 21 November 1988. Amiga User International described Artronic’s plans in March 1989, connecting it to Cascade and listing business software alongside games for PCs, the Amiga and C64.⁵⁷

The Cascade name still appeared on the Disk 15 review the following month. A legal rename therefore should not be read as an exact cutoff for the publishing label. The same registered company was dissolved on 30 October 2018; that date does not establish continuous games publishing until then.³⁵

See also

• Type-in listings
• Budget games
• ZX81
• ZX Spectrum
• Commodore 64

Footnotes

1. Your Sinclair 1, January 1986, Cassette 50 advertisement and order coupon: £9.95, calculator watch, twelve platform choices and a qualification that games vary by computer. ↩ ↩²

2. ZZAP!64 10, February 1986, p. 109, readers’ chart listing ACE, Cascade, £7.95 cassette and the magazine’s 90% review rating. The review score is distinct from the readers’ chart position. ↩ ↩²

3. ACE 19, April 1989, “Budgets”, Disk 15 review, Cascade, Atari ST, £19.95, rating 163. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Computer and Video Games 19, May 1983, p. 19, “Cassette 50 for your micro” advertisement. ↩

5. Companies House, Artronic Products Limited, 01755554, incorporation, previous name and dissolution records. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Graeme Mason, “Cassette 50”, interview with Guy Wilhelmy, first published in Pixel Nation 2, reproduced at Wizwords. Retrospective account of development and finance. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

7. Amiga User International, March 1989, p. 6, “Artronics” news item. ↩