System 3 | Code Like It's 198x

System 3 is a London games company that Mark Cale started as a teenager and still runs more than forty years later. Its first hit was a Star Wars game in all but name. It went on to make some of the Commodore 64’s best-known games: International Karate, IK+, The Last Ninja and Myth. It is still publishing today.

Fast facts

Founded: by Mark Cale, who said he set it up at 17 with two partners. Later accounts date it to 1982; its first advertisements appeared in spring 1984.
Based: London (Marshalsea Road, then Southbank House, Black Prince Road, SE1), later Pinner and Harrow in Middlesex.
First game: Death Star Interceptor (C64 1984, Spectrum 1985).
Best known for: International Karate (1985), International Karate + (1987), The Last Ninja (1987) and its sequels, and Myth (1989).
Later: Constructor (1997), a licence to Epyx’s games (2006), Putty Squad (2013). Cale is still in charge.

Death Star Interceptor

Cale told Retro Gamer in 2004 that there were three founders, and that they chose the name because “‘system’ was a trendy word” at the time. By spring 1984 System 3 was advertising from 10 Marshalsea Road in south London. Alongside a BBC Micro game and an Atari one, it sold Death Star Interceptor for the Commodore 64 at £9.99: “Earth is threatened by an Empire Deathstar, can you penetrate its defences and destroy it before it destroys you”. The advertisement promised 12 screens of 3D graphics and “You have not seen what the Commodore 64 is capable of until you have played Deathstar Interceptor!” In October 1984 it was sixth in Commodore User’s chart.

It was a Star Wars game without a Star Wars licence. You launch, fly through space to the Death Star fighting off TIE fighters, then fly down the trench and drop a torpedo into the vent. The Spectrum version followed in 1985. CRASH gave it 92% in April 1985 and called it “one of the fastest solid 3D shoot em up games yet available for the Spectrum”. One reviewer had seen it earlier on the C64 and thought the Spectrum version “far superior”. It played the Star Wars theme at the start. Computer Gamer found it “rather bad” at first, but thought “it sort of grows on you”, and in August 1985 it was number 29 in the Gallup chart. Domark later bought the real licence for its Star Wars games.

International Karate and IK+

System 3’s karate game, International Karate, arrived on the Spectrum at the end of 1985, months after Melbourne House’s Way of the Exploding Fist. Archer Maclean rewrote it for the Commodore 64, and Epyx sold his version in America as World Karate Championship from April 1986. Data East sued Epyx over its likeness to Karate Champ. A district court ordered both games recalled in 1987; the Ninth Circuit reversed the ruling in November 1988. System 3 was not a party to the case. The International Karate entry tells the whole story.

The sequel, International Karate +, put three fighters on the screen at once. ZZAP!64 reviewed it in November 1987 and liked the “three player free-for-all”, along with “wonderful little touches on the picture, like the spiders and leaping fish”. “A tenner is a high price to pay for a fighting game,” the reviewer added, “but they don’t come any better than this.”

The Last Ninja

The Last Ninja made the company’s name on the C64. Cale conceived it at the end of 1985. It was advertised for January 1987 on five machines, went through two failed development teams, and came out on the C64 in the summer of 1987, after John Twiddy built the game around Hugh Riley’s graphics. ZZAP!64 gave it 94%. The Spectrum version was abandoned half-written. Last Ninja 2 (1988) moved the ninja to New York and did reach the Spectrum, where CRASH gave it 90%. Last Ninja 3 followed in 1991, on a cartridge for the C64.

Myth and the move to 16 bits

ZZAP!64 made Myth: History in the Making a Sizzler in December 1989: a mix of platform game and arcade adventure that travels through time, in which “all the classic ages come to life”, programmed by Peter Baron with graphics by Bob Stevenson. The reviewer praised its “superlative presentation” and noted that “System 3 remain one of the few independent software houses developing original software for the C64”. Cale’s brother Adrian was then the company’s head of PR. System 3 also made Amiga versions of its games. The One reported in December 1989 that the Amiga Myth would have 90K of music for each level, with the tune on three sound channels and the effects on the fourth.

Its 16-bit record was more mixed. Looking back in 2004, Retro Gamer called the 16-bit versions of the Last Ninja games “incredibly sloppy ports”. Cale told the magazine that Archer Maclean had also made an Amiga conversion, from an Atari ST version that System 3 had developed in Hungary.

Later years

System 3 kept going through the 1990s, and by 1990 it had moved from London to Pinner in Middlesex. Its later games included Constructor (1997), a building and management game, and International Karate 2000. For some years around 2000 it worked as Studio 3; Cale said the new name suited a company that now did “developing, publishing and marketing”.

In 2006 System 3 licensed some of Epyx’s old games. Cale told Retro Gamer early in 2007 that remakes of Impossible Mission, California Games and The Last Ninja would follow for the PSP, Nintendo DS and Wii. Impossible Mission appeared; the Last Ninja remakes and a long-promised Last Ninja 4 did not. The company published the Ferrari Challenge racing game in 2008 and a new Putty Squad in 2013, and brought Constructor back as Constructor HD (2017) and Constructor Plus (2019). Cale is still chief executive, and System 3 remains an independent publisher based in London.

Sources

Big K issue 2, May 1984, and Computer & Video Games issue 34, August 1984: System 3 advertisement (Death Star Interceptor for the C64, £9.99; Colony 7 for the Atari; a BBC Micro game; 10 Marshalsea Road, London SE1).
Commodore User, November 1984: October chart (Death Star Interceptor sixth).
CRASH issue 15, April 1985, pp. 116–117: Death Star Interceptor review (Spectrum, 92%).
Computer Gamer issue 2, May 1985: Death Star Interceptor review (Spectrum, £7.95). Issue 5, August 1985: Gallup chart (number 29).
CRASH issue 20, September 1985: System 3 advertisement (Southbank House, Black Prince Road, London SE1).
Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc., 862 F.2d 204 (9th Cir. 1988), decided 30 November 1988: System III Software’s International Karate, Epyx’s licence and World Karate Championship, the recall order and the reversal. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/862/862.F2d.204.87-2294.html
ZZAP!64 issue 31, November 1987: International Karate + review.
ZZAP!64 issue 28, August 1987, pp. 104–105: The Last Ninja review (94%). CRASH issue 54, July 1988, p. 8 (the Spectrum Last Ninja abandoned); issue 59, December 1988, p. 188 (Last Ninja 2, 90%).
ZZAP!64 issue 55, November 1989: Adrian Cale, “full time brother to Mark and head of PR for System 3”. Issue 56, December 1989: Myth review (Peter Baron, Bob Stevenson).
The One issue 15, December 1989: preview of the Amiga Myth.
System 3 advertisements, Computer & Video Games issue 98, January 1990 (Pinner), and Amiga Format issue 30, January 1992 (Harrow).
“Company Lookback: System 3”, Retro Gamer issue 1, 2004, pp. 40–43: interview with Mark Cale (founding, the name, Studio 3, Archer Maclean’s conversions, the 16-bit ports).
“The Making of The Last Ninja”, Retro Gamer issue 34, 2007, pp. 18–21: the planned remakes and Last Ninja 4.
Wikipedia, “System 3 (company)” (web, secondary): the founders, the Studio 3 years, Constructor, International Karate 2000, Ferrari Challenge, Putty Squad, Constructor HD and Plus, and Cale’s current role. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_3_(company)
Wikipedia, “Epyx” (web, secondary): System 3’s 2006 licence of Epyx games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyx
Wikipedia, “Impossible Mission” (web, secondary): System 3’s remake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Mission