In March 1993 Blitz User, the magazine Acid Software sent to owners of Blitz Basic 2, mentioned in passing that “a new car racing game SkidMarks” had been “written by office junior Andrew Blackbourne”. A year later it was fifth in The One’s chart, and CU Amiga was calling it “a landmark in computer games”. Skidmarks was the game Acid had been hoping for: proof that a language that looked like BASIC could produce a commercial game people wanted to play, and play again with their friends.
Fast facts
- Author: Andrew Blackbourne, a student at Auckland University who worked in Acid Software’s office.
- Publisher: Acid Software, Auckland. Amiga Power listed Mindscape as the British publisher.
- Written in: Blitz Basic 2.
- Released: at the turn of 1994, at £24.99 to £25.99.
- Machine: Commodore Amiga with 1MB, with an extra car disk for the AGA machines.
- Players: up to four, by split screen, linked Amigas or modem.
- Sequel: Super Skidmarks (1995).
Racing in Blitz
Skidmarks is an off-road racing game seen from above at an angle, so the tracks show their hills and jumps. Four cars race over one of twelve tracks, six on each of two track disks, through mud, grass and forest. Holding fire accelerates and left and right steer. The cars were pre-rendered 3D models, drawn in hundreds of frames so that a car looked right from any angle as it spun, jumped and rolled. “Throughout the whole manoeuvre the car looks like a little Matchbox model,” wrote Steve McGill in Amiga Power.
Blitz User reported the progress from the office. In June 1993 it said the game was “likely to be the first software developed in Blitz2 to be released on a commercial basis” and hoped for a July release with six tracks; in a later issue Blackbourne was “spending even more time at the office than up at Auckland University where he’s supposedly a full time student”, finishing “the 12 tracks promised for final release”. The column added: “wouldn’t it be nice for the first Blitz2 commercial game to hit the top ten?”
A demo came on the cover disks of Amiga Format and Amiga Power in October 1993, “written in Blitz Basic 2 by Acid Software”, in Amiga Format’s words. In December Simon Armstrong wrote that the release had been “put off until the end of November, due to too many perfectionists and not enough ‘let’s just release it’ types”. The first full reviews appeared in magazines dated January 1994, and by February’s issues the game was on sale.
Playing against people
Reviewers all said the same thing: Skidmarks was at its best against other people. Two players could share a split screen. Two Amigas joined by a null-modem cable gave each player a full screen, and with two players on each machine all four cars could be human. It even had its own communications software, so two players could race over the telephone line, and linked players could send each other messages. Amiga Format’s Marcus Dyson called it “a party game”. Acid’s advertisements promised a national championship for owners of 2400-baud modems.
The game’s program disk was not copy-protected, though its car and track disks were, so Acid could release improved versions through the public domain for anyone who owned the full game.
What the magazines said
CU Amiga’s Tony Dillon gave it 92% and compared it to Kick Off: “Skidmarks is to car racing games what Kick Off was to football – the start of a new age.” He thought that “if future Blitz Basic games are as good as this one”, the Amiga and the CD32 would become the games machines of the coming decade. The One’s Simon Byron called it “a no-nonsense, adrenalin-pumping racer” and “a timeless two-player game”, but found the computer-controlled cars easy to beat, so that “single players may find the appeal wearing off after a while”. Acid’s advertisements quoted The One at 88% and Amiga Action at 90%.
Amiga Power was cooler, at 78%. McGill spent a whole day playing it when he should have been writing the review, but the championship “kept crashing out on me at the end of the six-track quota”, and he disliked the constant disk swapping. “I would love to be able to say ‘Go out and buy this’,” he wrote, “but the reservations I have about the disk accessing and the crashing out are far too extreme.” A year later Amiga Power still called it “the popular Skidmarks”, and “still regularly in the Top 10”.
Super Skidmarks
The sequel was in the shops by the spring of 1995. Amiga Power’s preview counted twice as many tracks, the original twelve plus twelve new ones, and eight kinds of car, including Formula One cars, Minis, pick-up trucks and cows on wheels. Cars could tow caravans, or other cars, with the handling suffering to match. Three players could share one screen, four could play on a single screen that dragged stragglers back into view, and on the A1200 up to eight cars could race, all driven by people if two machines were linked. Owners could render their own cars in a 3D package and drive them in the game. The computer-controlled cars drove more intelligently, and registered users could install it on a hard drive, ending the disk swapping.
Amiga Power reported that Super Skidmarks was developed with Blitz Basic 2, and Amiga Format described Mark Sibly as its “chief programmer”. In May 1995 Amiga Format reported that Codemasters planned to convert it to the Sega Mega Drive. A data disk with twelve more tracks and more cars followed in 1996.
Sources
- Blitz User (Acid Software, Auckland): issue 3, March 1993 (Skidmarks “written by office junior Andrew Blackbourne”); issue 4, June 1993 (first commercial Blitz2 game, mid-July hope, six tracks); issue 5, 1993 (Auckland University, twelve tracks, the top ten).
- Amiga Format issue 51, October 1993: cover-disk demo “written in Blitz Basic 2 by Acid Software”. Issue 55, January 1994, p. 58: Marcus Dyson, Skidmarks review (twelve tracks, split screen, null modem and modem play, “a party game”, the unprotected program disk). Issue 71, May 1995: Codemasters to convert Super Skidmarks 2 to the Mega Drive. Issue 75, September 1995: Sibly as “chief programmer” of Super Skidmarks.
- Amiga Power issue 30, October 1993: Skidmarks on the cover disk. Issue 34, February 1994: Steve McGill, Skidmarks review (Mindscape, £24.99, twelve tracks, the Matchbox cars, the crashes and disk access; 78%, as given in issue 46). Issue 46, February 1995: Super Skidmarks preview. Issue 48, April 1995: Blitz Basic 2 “used to develop Guardian and Skidmarks 2”.
- Amiga Down Under issue 5, December 1993: Simon Armstrong’s Blitz column (the delay to the end of November).
- The One issue 64, January 1994: Simon Byron, Skidmarks review (“is written in Blitz Basic”; the verdict quoted). Issue 66, March 1994: chart (Skidmarks at number five).
- CU Amiga, February 1994: Tony Dillon, Skidmarks review (92%, £25.99, the AGA car disk, the isometric view, the link and messages).
- Amiga Computing issue 72, April 1994: Acid Software advertisement (the modem championship, the review quotations and scores). Issue 100, June 1996: the Super Skidmarks data disk.