Zeppelin Games | Code Like It's 198x

In February 1988 Atari User introduced the software director of a new Newcastle label. Brian Jobling was 19. He had already written games for Tynesoft, and his company, Zeppelin Games, was about to put out his motorbike game Speed Ace at a budget price. Four years later Amiga Format counted Zeppelin among the five biggest budget publishers in Britain, releasing more than six games a month. The company never closed. It changed its name twice, moved from cassettes to PlayStation racing games, and was still run by Jobling and his brother Darren a quarter of a century later.

Fast facts

Founded: registered on 30 September 1987 in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Founders: Brian Jobling, Derek Brewster and Martin O’Donnell.
Prices: £2.99 for new 8-bit games in 1988 and £3.99 by 1992; older games re-released at £1.99.
Labels in 1992: Zeppelin Games (8-bit budget), Zeppelin Platinum (16-bit budget) and Zeppelin Premier (full price). Impulze was an earlier full-price label.
Games: Zybex, Draconus, Ball Blasta, Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager, Match of the Day, Neighbours, Titanic Blinky, Sink or Swim.
Later names: Merit Studios (Europe) from 1994; Eutechnyx from 1997.
Dissolved: 20 May 2025.

Three founders

Amiga Format’s industry A-Z of 1992 named them: “Dr Derek Brewster, Martin O’Donnell and Brian Jobling”. Jobling told Retro Gamer in 2013 how he started. At 14 he wrote a program that could copy any tape game. A publisher suggested he turn his cracking skills round, and he began writing copy protection for the big software houses “at a royalty of two pence per cassette”. He then left school to program for Tynesoft, where he met Brewster.

Brewster was already well known. He had written Codename MAT and Jasper, and for 45 issues he had run CRASH’s Adventure Trail column. CRASH announced in January 1988 that he was leaving to help set up a software house, and in May it reported that he had gone to Newcastle to start “a new budget software company, Zeppelin Games”. ACE printed a photograph that March captioned “Derek Brewster surrounded by the Zeppelin crew”. Jobling recalled that he and Brewster formed the company in November 1987; the company register gives its incorporation as 30 September 1987.

Budget games with polish

Zeppelin’s first Spectrum games, Frontline and Sabotage, came in red-striped boxes at £2.99. A blue-striped label for re-releases and bought-in games followed at £1.99, starting with Brewster’s own Codename MAT and Jasper. Next came a Spectrum version of Zybex, a scrolling shoot-’em-up that had won a ZZAP!64 Silver Medal with 92% on the Commodore 64.

The budget market was crowded, and Zeppelin’s games stood out for their finish. Reviewing the breakout game Ball Blasta at £2.99 in October 1988, ZZAP!64 gave it 87% and wrote that it “keeps up their reputation for polished additions to established genres”. In it, the player works through a grid of 61 screens and buys extra weapons with credits earned in play. The fire-breathing Draconus was the game that later Zeppelin freelancer Duncan Scott Kershaw remembered buying to size up the competition: “at the time, it totally raised the quality bar for budget games”.

A production line

By 1992 Amiga Format described Zeppelin as “one of the most prolific publishers in the UK”. It “regularly releases more than six titles a month, making it one of the top five UK budget software houses in terms of market share”, with 13 staff “as well as numerous freelance programmers, artists and musicians”. Brian Jobling was managing director, his brother Darren operations director, and Gareth Briggs head of development.

Freelancers made much of that output. Zeppelin’s advertisements asked for programmers and graphic artists, promising those whose work met “our exacting standards” “the best payment terms, conditions and back-up of any software house”. Kershaw told Retro Gamer that he signed up to write Kick Box Vigilante for £750 to pay for a holiday, sent in the finished game a month later, and was paid: “Back in the day, nobody did any QA on our titles.” The musician Drew Rodger got a phone call from Briggs giving him the name of a game and a list of tunes and sound effects, and had three or four days to deliver them.

By 1991 Zeppelin’s advertisements gave a post-office box in Houghton-le-Spring, near Durham, and it kept making 8-bit games well into the 1990s, alongside 16-bit ones. Football and television licences sold. Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager, made with Impressions in 1990, was Zeppelin’s first full-price game, though Amiga Format gave it only 31 per cent. Impulze, which CRASH called “Zeppelin’s full price software label”, published BBC licences: Retro Gamer names Match of the Day, and Neighbours became a racing game with Scott Robinson on his skateboard. Prices crept up: Sinclair User listed Zeppelin’s Graeme Souness Soccer Manager at £3.99 on tape in October 1992, and the Amiga puzzle game Sink or Swim was £25.99 in 1993.

From Zeppelin to Eutechnyx

Brewster and O’Donnell left in 1989, and Darren Jobling joined full-time. Zeppelin was then sold to the American publisher Merit Studios. Brian Jobling remembered the sale as 1993; the company register records the change of name to Merit Studios (Europe) Limited on 12 July 1994. The deal let the British studio’s games be published in America and Merit’s American games in Europe. In the same years, Retro Gamer reports, the company worked with its old rival Codemasters on console games, among them the Pete Sampras tennis games for the Mega Drive.

For the new CD-based consoles the company took a new name, which Darren Jobling found in a dictionary: “Eutechnics”, meaning a well-ordered sequence of events, respelt Eutechnyx because the domain name was taken. It became Eutechnyx Limited on 12 March 1997, parted company with Merit, and signed a three-year publishing deal with Infogrames that pushed it towards racing games, starting with Total Drivin’ on the PlayStation in 1997. In 1999 PC Zone introduced the developer of Le Mans 24 Hours as “formerly known as Merit Software (formerly known as Zeppelin Games)”, responsible for “some 300 games”.

Eutechnyx went on to make licensed racing games, including NASCAR games, and moved to Gateshead. In 2013 Brian Jobling was its executive chairman and Darren its chief operating officer, and Brian looked back to a business that had gone “full circle”, from £1.99 cassettes to £59.99 console games and back to 99-pence phone games. In 2014 Eutechnyx sold its NASCAR business, and in 2015 some of its staff moved to ZeroLight, a company making 3D virtual showrooms for car manufacturers. The company registered as Zeppelin Games in 1987 was dissolved on 20 May 2025.

Sources

Atari User, February 1988, p. 7: Speed Ace and Zeppelin’s “software director, Brian Jobling, aged 19”.
CRASH issue 48 (January 1988), p. 8, and issue 52 (May 1988), p. 8: Brewster leaving for Newcastle; Frontline and Sabotage at £2.99 in red-striped boxes; Zybex (ZZAP!64 Silver Medal, 92%); the blue-striped label at £1.99 with Codename MAT and Jasper.
ACE issue 6 (March 1988), p. 11: “Derek Brewster surrounded by the Zeppelin crew”.
ZZAP!64 issue 42 (October 1988), p. 114: Ball Blasta review (Zeppelin, £2.99 cassette, 87%).
Your Sinclair issue 65 (May 1991), p. 28: Zeppelin’s advertisement for freelance programmers and graphic artists, Gareth Briggs, Houghton-le-Spring.
Your Sinclair issue 62 (February 1991), p. 41: Impulze advertisement for a game licensed by BBC Enterprises, at the same Houghton-le-Spring post-office box.
CRASH issue 89 (June 1991), p. 50: competition naming Impulze as “Zeppelin’s full price software label”.
Sinclair User issue 121 (March 1992), p. 14: Impulze’s Neighbours, with Scott Robinson on his skateboard.
Amiga Format Special issue 4 (1992), p. 131: industry A-Z, “Zeppelin” (the founders, the three labels, Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager with Impressions and its 31 per cent, more than six titles a month, top five by market share, 13 staff, the directors).
Sinclair User issue 128 (October 1992), p. 13: Graeme Souness Soccer Manager, Zeppelin, £3.99.
Amiga Format issue 47 (June 1993), p. 69: Sink or Swim review (Zeppelin, £25.99).
Andrew Fisher, “In Pole Position”, Retro Gamer issue 119 (October 2013), pp. 62–67: Jobling’s copier, copy protection and Tynesoft; founding with Brewster; Kershaw on Draconus and Kick Box Vigilante; Rodger on writing music; Brewster and O’Donnell leaving in 1989; Houghton-le-Spring; Match of the Day; the sale to Merit Studios; the Codemasters work and Pete Sampras; the Eutechnyx name; Infogrames and Total Drivin’; the Joblings’ roles and Brian Jobling’s “full circle”.
Sega Retro, “Pete Sampras Tennis” (web, secondary): a Mega Drive game developed by Zeppelin Games. https://segaretro.org/Pete_Sampras_Tennis
Edge issue 48 (August 1997): Total Drivin’, developed by Eutechnyx for Infogrames.
PC Zone issue 83 (December 1999), p. 54: Eutechnyx “formerly known as Merit Software (formerly known as Zeppelin Games)” and “some 300 games”.
Companies House, company 02172322 (web): incorporation on 30 September 1987; previous names Zeppelin Games Limited (to 12 July 1994) and Merit Studios (Europe) Limited (to 12 March 1997); dissolved 20 May 2025. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02172322
“More jobs go at Eutechnyx as 22 head to ZeroLight”, MCV, 24 July 2015 (web, secondary): former Eutechnyx staff joining ZeroLight and its car visualisation work; the NASCAR assets sold the previous year. https://mcvuk.com/?p=68199