Quicksilva

Quicksilva
Company typePrivate
IndustryVideo games
Founded1979; 45 years ago (1979)
FounderNick Lambert
Defunct1990; 34 years ago (1990)
Headquarters
Products

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.[1] Quicksilva mainly released games for the ZX81, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum, but also did conversions and some original games for the VIC-20, Dragon 32/64, Oric-1/Atmos, BBC Micro and Acorn Electron home computers.

One of their earliest titles was QS Defenda (originally QS Defender), a clone of the Defender arcade game for the ZX80 and ZX81 home computers.[1] Greater success followed with later releases, including a Star Raiders-style game entitled Time-Gate which reached the top of the ZX Spectrum charts in December 1982.[2] Amongst the company's other successes were Jeff Minter's Gridrunner (1983),[3] Bugaboo (1983, a.k.a. La Pulga) and Fred (1983, titled "Roland on the Ropes" on the Amstrad CPC), two titles licensed from Spanish software house Indescomp S.A. Sandy White's Ant Attack (1983) for the ZX Spectrum featured revolutionary 3-D graphics for which a patent application was made.[4]

In early 1984, they published their first licensed title, The Snowman, an adaptation of the 1978 book by Raymond Briggs.[5][6] Software Manager Paul Cooper ruled out an adaption of Briggs' When The Wind Blows stating "nuclear war can upset a lot of people".[5]

  1. ^ a b A first-hand account of Quicksilva and its part in the birth of the UK games industry, 1981–1982
  2. ^ "Top 10". Popular Computing Weekly. Vol. 1, no. 36. Sunshine Publications. 30 December 1982. p. 31. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  3. ^ "Code Britannia: Sandy White". Eurogamer. 8 March 2013.
  4. ^ "3D Ant Attack". CRASH (1).
  5. ^ a b "Quicksilva goes soft with the Snowman". Your Computer. No. 3. IPC. March 1984. p. 49. Retrieved 23 July 2021.
  6. ^ "Now book is a game". Home Computing Weekly. No. 49. Argus. 14 February 1984. p. 6. Retrieved 23 July 2021.