Zynaps
Second best, for eight months
Dominic Robinson's Hewson shooter held #2 twice and never reached the top — a chart run that shows what it looked like to be the other good game.
A horizontally scrolling shooter for Hewson, programmed by Dominic Robinson — CRASH refers to him directly as “Zynaps’ programmer Dominic Robinson”, the same author-first habit the magazine used for Cecco.
Chart performance
CRASH Hotline Top 20, 7 appearances:
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Nov 1987 | #6 |
| Dec 1987 | #2 |
| Feb 1988 | #2 |
| Apr 1988 | #4 |
| May 1988 | #9 |
| Jul 1988 | #12 |
| Aug 1988 | #9 |
⭐ Nine months in the chart and never above #2. Look at the dates against Exolon: Zynaps is #2 in February 1988, the month Exolon is #1. Two Hewson shooters, on the same shelf, in the same chart, one of them permanently behind the other.
Being the other one
This is a shape the Vault should record, because it describes most games.
Zynaps is good. It charted for nine months, which few titles managed, and it did so against a stablemate from its own publisher that kept taking the top spot. There is no failure here — and there is also no story of the kind that gets a game remembered, because remembering runs on firsts and bests.
Hewson could sustain two competing shooters at once precisely because its identity was the programmer, not the property. Robinson and Cecco were not fighting over a licence; they were two named authors doing similar work for the same label, and the label was happy for both to sell.
That arrangement is rare. A publisher built on licences cannot have two Batmans.