Martech started on a living-room carpet near Eastbourne. David Martin taught chemistry by day and designed board games in his spare time, and when Sinclair’s computers arrived he began writing games at home and duplicating the tapes at weekends. Within a few years his company was paying a stunt rider, a judoka, a strongman and Samantha Fox to put their names on its cassettes. “Obviously, a licence helps with marketing,” Martin told CRASH in 1986, “but we find that a licence often helps to prompt or develop a game idea.” Its highest-scoring game in CRASH came from a licence too, but not a famous person’s: Zoids, based on a range of toy robots that Martin had been building on the floor with his children.
Fast facts
- Founded by: David Martin, with his brother-in-law John Barry, a solicitor, as partner; the company traded as Martech for Software Communications Ltd.
- Based: 9 Dillingburgh Road, Eastbourne (1983); then Martech House, Bay Terrace, Pevensey Bay, East Sussex, above Barry’s legal practice.
- Formats: Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC, with conversions for the BBC Micro, Electron and MSX; the Amstrad PCW, Amiga and PC from 1988.
- Licensed names: Eddie Kidd, Brian Jacks, Geoff Capes, Zoids, Samantha Fox, Heather Couper’s The Planets, Tarzan, 2000 AD’s Nemesis the Warlock and Sláine, and Nigel Mansell.
- Without a licence: Crazy Comets, Mega Apocalypse, W.A.R., The Armageddon Man, Catch 23, Vixen, Hellfire Attack.
Board games first
Martin’s first idea was to use the computer to referee board games. Martech’s early releases were Conflict and Galaxy Conflict for the Spectrum, Commodore 64 and BBC Micro, Quest of Merravid for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20, and Gisburn’s Castle for the BBC. Computer-moderated board games did not last. “One game, for instance, had 140 counters,” Martin said, “and they all took up a disproportionate amount of shelf space in the shops.” By then the business had outgrown his home. “We got to the point where we were manufacturing all weekend, and one day, having just manufactured ten games in a morning and just received our first large order for WH Smiths, we realised we were going to have to sub-contract.” He gave up teaching for the software business full time.
Buying a name
Martech’s first licence was Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge (1984). “We were looking for an exciting personality to endorse a motorbike game,” Martin said. “Eddie is the world record holder for motorbike jumps, and we approached him, signed a licensing deal and then developed the game with his help.” Kidd appeared on the Martech stand at the PCW Show in London to promote it. CRASH found it more simulation than game and worried that players would “soon tire” of it, but the name sold. Acorn User’s BBC and Electron chart had it at number 10 in January 1985 and at number 7 in February and again in April, among Elite, Sabre Wulf and Jet Pac.
More names followed: the judoka Brian Jacks for Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge, a decathlon-style game; the strongman Geoff Capes for Geoff Capes Strongman, an icon-driven athletics game, which CRASH gave 78%; and Jacks again, as “technical consultant” on the judo game Uchi Mata (1986). The Planets (1986), 85% in CRASH, was a space game built around the astronomer Heather Couper’s Channel 4 series and book. Martin said Martech had been “looking for a space game and then found the licensing angle”.
Sam Fox Strip Poker (1986) used a different kind of fame. Martin said the poker game “had been on Martech’s shelves for a while” before the tie-in with the model, and called the Fox element “just meant as a bit of fun”. CRASH reported that one computer magazine refused to carry its advertising. Vixen (1988), a platform game with a whip-wielding heroine, was advertised with the model Corinne Russell; CRASH’s preview expected it “to reach new depths of sexism in software”, and readers wrote in to complain about the advertisements.
What the licences were worth
CRASH’s index of every game it had reviewed, published in January 1988, gives Martech’s Spectrum games these scores:
| Game | Score | Issue | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoids | 96% | 25 | toy licence |
| The Planets | 85% | 30 | television licence |
| Geoff Capes Strongman | 78% | 24 | personality |
| Tarzan | 73% | 36 | character licence |
| Sam Fox Strip Poker | 72% | 28 | personality |
| W.A.R. | 68% | 35 | original |
| The Armageddon Man | 65% | 44 | original |
| Nemesis the Warlock | 61% | 40 | comic licence |
| Catch 23 | 56% | 43 | original |
| Cosmic Shock Absorber | 36% | 41 | original |
| Uchi Mata | 36% | 39 | personality |
A famous name did not make a good game. Uchi Mata, with Brian Jacks’s endorsement, scored 36%. When Alternative Software reissued it on budget, its boss Roger Hulley renamed it Judo Uchi Mata: “The name didn’t click so we put the sport first.”
Zoids
Zoids began with a shopping trip. Martin, CRASH reported, “had come back from a shopping expedition, having bought some toys and was on the carpet with his youngsters assembling and playing with a couple of Zoids”. “They were great,” he said. “On the Monday I got in touch with Tomy who make Zoids, and eventually a deal was tied up.” Martech hired the Electronic Pencil Company to write it, and the Commodore 64 version had music by Rob Hubbard. The player steers a pilot across a planet of hostile robot Zoids, gathering the scattered parts of a giant one, Zoidzilla.
CRASH gave it a Smash at 96% in February 1986. Looking back two years later, the magazine said it “made mincemeat of the notion that a licence from something as childish as a series of toy monsters means a thinly-disguised piece of marketing schlock. Zoids is Martech’s monument for posterity.” Amtix, looking back over 1986, recalled that “Accolade numero uno went to Martech for their excellent Zoids”.
The games underneath
Martech’s unlicensed games could be good too. Crazy Comets (1985) for the Commodore 64 was a shoot-’em-up that ZZAP!64 traced to an obscure arcade game, Mad Planets, with “yet another classic Rob Hubbard creation” on the soundtrack. Mega Apocalypse also had a Hubbard theme. The company’s way of working was to keep its programmers in-house. In 1986 CRASH found two teams of about half a dozen programmers each, in Brighton and Portsmouth, meeting at the Pevensey Bay office. Ian McArdle, who wrote Eddie Kidd, was in the Brighton team.
The biggest of the later licences was Nigel Mansell’s Grand Prix (1988), programmed by Dave Looker. CRASH gave the Spectrum version 72% at £9.99. One reviewer called it “the best race simulator (as opposed to Enduro Racer-style race game) on the market today”, and another found it “a very cheap clone” of Firebird’s Revs.
The end
Martech moved onto the 16-bit machines and the Amstrad PCW in 1988. Its last new releases came in early 1989, among them Hellfire Attack, which ZZAP!64 scored 15%, and Phantom Fighter for the Amiga. Later in 1989 Martin’s games began appearing under a new label, Screen 7, among them a game of the film Jaws. By 1991 Martin was buying licences for Gremlin Graphics; Gremlin’s Ian Stewart told Amiga Power that “David Martin who used to run Martech/Screen 7 handles most of our licence acquisition”.
Sources
- Computer & Video Games issue 12, October 1982: Martech Games for the Atom and BBC. Issue 26, December 1983: advertisement at Martech House, Bay Terrace, Pevensey Bay.
- Sinclair User issue 10, January 1983: Martech Games, 9 Dillingburgh Road, Eastbourne.
- CRASH issue 28, May 1986, pp. 48–50: Graeme Kidd, “Programming in Pevensey Bay” (David Martin, John Barry and Software Communications Ltd; the board games; WH Smith; Eddie Kidd; Brian Jacks and Geoff Capes; Zoids and Tomy; the Electronic Pencil Company; in-house teams in Brighton and Portsmouth; Ian McArdle; The Planets and Heather Couper; Sam Fox Strip Poker and the refused advertising; conversions for Acorn machines and MSX).
- CRASH issue 11, December 1984, p. 45: Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge review (Kidd on the Martech stand at the PCW Show).
- Acorn User issue 30, January 1985; issue 31, February 1985; issue 33, April 1985: BBC/Electron top 20.
- CRASH issue 48, January 1988: the CRASH index (all scores in the table); the review of the year (Zoids). Issue 39, April 1987: Uchi Mata advertisement (“Technical consultant, Brian Jacks”).
- CRASH issue 49, February 1988: Roger Hulley of Alternative Software on Judo Uchi Mata.
- Computer Gamer issue 22, January 1987: Zoids (Zoidzilla) in Beau Jolly’s Five Star compilation.
- Amtix issue 15, January 1987: review of 1986 (“Accolade numero uno went to Martech for their excellent Zoids”).
- ZZAP!64 issue 8, December 1985: Crazy Comets review; issue 10, February 1986: Zoids and Hubbard’s music. Amstrad Action issue 28, January 1988: Mega Apocalypse main theme by Rob Hubbard.
- CRASH issue 50, March 1988: Nigel Mansell’s Grand Prix review (Martech, £9.99, Dave Looker, 72%).
- CRASH issue 51, April 1988: Vixen preview. Issue 55, August 1988: Forum letters on the Vixen advertisement and Corinne Russell.
- 8000 Plus issue 28, January 1989: Martech’s PCW games. ACE issue 16, January 1989, to issue 18, March 1989: Hellfire Attack, Phantom Fighter and other Martech releases. ZZAP!64 issue 46, February 1989: Hellfire Attack (15%).
- ZZAP!64 issue 51, July 1989, and Amiga Action issue 1, October 1989: Screen 7.
- Amiga Power issue 5, September 1991: interview with Ian Stewart of Gremlin.