Quicksilva was a British games software publisher active during the early 1980s. Quicksilva was founded by Nick Lambert in 1979. The name Quicksilva was inspired by a particular guitar solo in a track on the album Happy Trails by

Quicksilver Messenger Service Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. The band achieved wide popularity in the San Francisco Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe, ...

.A first-hand account of Quicksilva and its part in the birth of the UK games industry, 1981–1982
/ref> Quicksilva mainly released games for the Commodore 64 and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

, but also did conversions and some original games for the VIC-20,

Dragon 32/64 The Dragon 32 and Dragon 64 are home computers that were built in the 1980s. The Dragons are very similar to the TRS-80 Color Computer, and were produced for the European market by Dragon Data, Ltd., initially in Swansea, Wales before m ...

Oric-1 Oric was the name used by UK-based Tangerine Computer Systems for a series of 6502-based home computers sold in the 1980s, primarily in Europe. With the success of the ZX Spectrum from Sinclair Research, Tangerine's backers suggested a ...

/ Atmos,

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

and

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/ home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a ...

home computers. One of their earliest successful titles was a '' Star Raiders''-style game entitled '' Time-Gate'' which reached the top of the ZX Spectrum charts in December 1982. Amongst the company's other successes were

Jeff Minter Jeff Minter (born 22 April 1962) is an independent English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the name Yak. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and has created dozens of games during his career, which began in 19 ...

's '' Gridrunner'' (1983), '' Bugaboo'' (1983, a.k.a. ''La Pulga'') and ''Fred'' (1983, titled " ''Roland on the Ropes''" on the Amstrad), two titles licensed from Spanish software house Indescomp S.A. Sandy White's '' Ant Attack'' (1983) for the

featured revolutionary 3-D graphics for which a patent application was made. In early 1984, they published their first licensed title, '' The Snowman'', an adaptation of the 1978 book by

Raymond Briggs Raymond Redvers Briggs (18 January 1934 – 9 August 2022) was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story ...

. Software Manager Paul Cooper ruled out an adaption of Briggs' '' When The Wind Blows'' stating "nuclear war can upset a lot of people".

Later years

In May 1984, the company was bought by

Argus Press Software Argus Press was a British publishing company. It was acquired by British Electric Traction (BET) in 1966, and became the publishing arm of that company. It was the subject of one of the most hotly contested management buyouts of the 1980s when a ...

which later became Grandslam Entertainment. Paul Cooper and Managing Director Rod Cousens left to establish

Electric Dreams Software Electric Dreams Software was a UK-based video game publisher established in 1985 in video gaming, 1985 by Activision and run by Rod Cousens and Paul Cooper formerly of Quicksilva . The company published video games for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 6 ...

in 1985 when Argus moved the company from Southampton to London. The company continued to publish licensed products, including the first official home computer conversion of Atari's '' Battlezone'', '' Eric Bristow's Pro Darts'', two different games based on ''

Strontium Dog ''Strontium Dog'' was a long-running British comics series starring Johnny Alpha, a mutant bounty hunter who lives in Earth's future. The series was created in 1978 by writer John Wagner (under the pseudonym T. B. Grover) and artist Carlos Ezquer ...

'' from the '' 2000 AD'' comic and ''Fantastic Voyage'' (an official licence from the 1966 film), In late 1984 they developed '' The Thompson Twins Adventure'' (an adaptation of the Thompson Twins single '' Doctor! Doctor!'') which was published by '' Computer and Video Games'' magazine on a flexi-disc, and published Sandy White's follow-up to ''Ant Attack'', '' Zombie Zombie''. The following years brought further tie-ins including games featuring

Rupert Bear Rupert Bear is a British children's comic strip character and franchise created by artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the ''Daily Express'' newspaper on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival ''D ...

in '' Rupert and the Toymaker's Party'',

The Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighb ...

in '' Yabba Dabba Doo!'' and Max Headroom It also produced popular original titles such as '' Glider Rider'' and two more arcade ports, Taito's '' Elevator Action'' in 1987 and the final Quicksilva game, Namco's ''

Pac-Land is a 1984 side-scrolling arcade platform game developed and released by Namco. It was distributed in North America by Bally Midway, and in Europe by Atari Games. Controlling Pac-Man (character), Pac-Man, the player must make it to the end of eac ...

'' in 1989.

References

{{reflist

External links

Sandy White's homepageSandy White
at World of Spectrum Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game companies established in 1979 Video game publishers Video game development companies 1979 establishments in the United Kingdom