In the spring of 1986 Ocean published a Batman game in which the Caped Crusader has put on weight. Sinclair User noticed it first: as he slides down the Batpole “you’ll notice that he’s looking rather portly — obviously too many business lunches with Commissioner Gordon — but he’s beautifully animated”. Leave him standing and he folds his arms and taps his foot. Batman was the first isometric game by Jon Ritman, the programmer of Match Day, and the artist Bernie Drummond, and the engine they built for it went on to become Head Over Heels.
Fast facts
- Authors: Jon Ritman (program) and Bernie Drummond (graphics).
- Publisher: Ocean, £7.95 on the Spectrum.
- Released: spring 1986; reviewed in the May 1986 magazines.
- Machines: ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX and the Amstrad PCW.
- Size: more than 150 rooms.
- Reception: 93% and a Smash in CRASH; a Megagame in Your Sinclair.
- Successor: Head Over Heels (1987), on a developed version of the same engine.
From Knight Lore to the Batcave
Ritman had finished Match Day for Ocean when he saw Ultimate’s Knight Lore. CRASH told the story in March 1987: “he’d seen Knight Lore and decided that this was the sort of game he wanted to write next”, and he recognised “that he had to take the basic 3D isometric formula and put in something new”. Better graphics were part of that, so he asked Bernie Drummond, a drummer in a band that a friend of his played in. Drummond had never seen a computer game. Ritman sat him in front of Knight Lore “but not for too long, as Jon didn’t want me to copy any of the ideas”, then loaded his home-made graphics utility and let him draw.
Each graphic had to fit into a square three character blocks wide and three high, 24 pixels a side. Drummond told CRASH that “many of the graphics in Batman just came about by EX-ORing (superimposing) two bits of graphics over each other, and something would suggest itself to me”. Because the game was licensed, every drawing had to be approved by the American copyright holders before it could be released.
In Ritman’s later account, the engine came first and the hero second. The two took a demo to Ocean before they knew who the main character would be. Ritman thought of Batman but worried that nobody would remember him; Drummond, who was younger, pointed out that the 1960s television series was being repeated. Ritman recalled that David Ward, Ocean’s chairman, “got very excited and ran around the room singing the theme song” and went to DC Comics for the rights. Your Sinclair reported that Robin was originally meant to star alongside Batman, and that Ritman had drawn a sprite for him. Then came the question of how a player could control two superheroes at once. “It was at this point that Robin was conveniently kidnapped”. Your Sinclair put the writing time at ten months.
Seven pieces of Batcraft
Robin was servicing the Batcraft when he was taken, and seven of its parts now lie scattered around the Batcave. (CRASH called it the Batmobile; Your Sinclair explained that a vehicle with wheels would have taken up too much memory.) Before Batman can collect them he has to find four pieces of his own kit: Jet Batboots to jump, a Batbag to pick things up, a Batthruster to steer sideways while falling, and a Low Gravity Batbelt to slow his fall. Until he has them, CRASH observed, “he can stroll round the caves, and that’s about it”.
The Batcave is a three-quarter-view maze of spiked floors, crumbling walkways, conveyor belts, lifts and sinking platforms. Some exits are too high to reach, and the answer is to pile up whatever lies around: CRASH listed “Elephant’s Feet and Art Nouveau Tea Pots amongst other things”. Batman starts with nine lives, and little Batman-shaped pills fall from the roof to give him more lives, speed, a shield or higher jumps. Collect a reincarnation stone and, when the lives run out, the game can carry on from where it was touched. Your Sinclair noted that the whole saved position took four bytes.
The reviewers all compared it with Ultimate’s games, and most of them thought it had improved on them. CRASH wrote that “the Batcave’s architects obviously worked on the castle in Knight Lore — the resemblance is striking”. Your Sinclair pointed to what had changed since Knight Lore: the reincarnation stones, a single key to pick up and jump at once, and a Batman who “keeps up a constant speed no matter how many objects there are in a room”, unlike the slowed-down Sabreman.
What the magazines said
CRASH gave Batman 93% in May 1986 and made it a Smash. No mark was lower than 91%: graphics 95%, playability 94%, addictive qualities 93%, use of computer 93%, getting started 91%, value for money 91%. One reviewer called it “a very polished and attractive game”. Your Sinclair made it a Megagame the same month, and Sinclair User’s Jerry Muir, while calling it “yet another Ultimate look-alike”, added “believe me, it’s a good one” and warned that “leaving it unsolved will drive you batty”. On the Amstrad CPC, Amstrad Action counted “over 150 locations” and called it “Ocean’s best yet”.
The game reached other machines too. The Spanish MSX Magazine reviewed the MSX version, distributed in Spain by ERBE, in January 1987, and in April 1987 8000 Plus, the magazine for Amstrad’s PCW word processors, carried both a mail-order listing for Batman and a reader’s poem of hints (“And take the pressie into the Batcraft”).
The engine that became Head Over Heels
The period press saw the connection at once. CRASH previewed Head Over Heels in March 1987 as “300 Batman-style rooms”, with Reincarnation Fish in place of Batman’s save stones. Sinclair User introduced the new game as the work of the team “previously responsible for the vastly popular Batman”, and Amstrad Action reviewed it “despite the similarities to Batman”. The problem that had written Robin out of Batman, two heroes under one player’s control, became the idea at the centre of the next game.
Ocean went back to the licence twice more, with games unrelated to this one: Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988), developed by Special FX, and Batman: The Movie (1989), based on Tim Burton’s film.
Sources
- CRASH, issue 28, May 1986, pp. 120–121: Batman review (93%; the Batcraft parts, the four Bat devices, Batpills and reincarnation stones, “more than 150” screens, the Knight Lore comparison).
- Your Sinclair, issue 5, May 1986, p. 60: Batman Megagame review by Tommy Nash (Robin written out, ten months to write, the Batcraft and memory, at least 150 rooms over nine floors, four bytes of saved data, comparison with Knight Lore).
- Sinclair User, issue 50, May 1986: Batman review by Jerry Muir.
- Amstrad Action, issue 8, May 1986, pp. 48–50: Batman review (CPC).
- MSX Magazine (Spain), issue 20, January 1987: Batman (MSX) review, distributed by ERBE.
- 8000 Plus, issue 7, April 1987: mail-order listing and “Ode to Batman”.
- CRASH, issue 38, March 1987, pp. 116–118: Lee Paddon’s profile of Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond, and the Head Over Heels preview.
- CRASH, issue 48, January 1988: “the Ocean Smashes Batman and Head Over Heels (Issues 28 and 39 respectively)”.
- Sinclair User, issue 62, May 1987, and Amstrad Action, issue 20, May 1987: Head Over Heels reviews.
- Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean, The History of Ocean Software (Revival Retro Events, 2013), pp. 53 and 209–211: Jon Ritman’s recollections of the engine demo, choosing Batman and David Ward’s reaction; Gary Bracey on the later Batman games. Recollections, told decades later.