Earlier I posted a little tale about the 18 months of existence of Imagine Software, and Bandersnatch, one of the impossible pieces of expensive vapourware that never came to fruition (which has since become the inspiration for one of the TV series under the Black Mirror brand).

I knew that some of the ZX Spectrum code had ended up as part of the game Gift of the Gods, which was ultimately published by a different company who hired a surviving former Imagine Software team.

But I didn't know this other part of the story on how another part of the original Banderstnatch code ended up becoming part of the Amiga, Atari ST, and 68k Macintosh game Brataccas.

It makes sense now, because the Sinclair QL featured an earlier version of the Motorola 68000, so the port from the QL to the Amiga must have been relatively straightforward.

Says Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brataccas

In October 1984, Sinclair Research paid a rumoured £100,000 for the rights to Bandersnatch and contracted Fire Iron, a new company set up by Hetherington and Lawson, to produce the game for the Sinclair QL[6] for release in early 1985.[10][11][12] Sinclair withdrew funding in 1985 when the QL version never appeared, and the directors then formed Psygnosis, with their first title Brataccas introduced at the 1985 Personal Computer World show.[13][14] It featured many of the concepts originally intended for Bandersnatch, and was released on the Atari ST, Amiga, and Macintosh[15] in January 1986.[2]

Look at those graphics! They are untranslated tetra-colour QL graphics on the Amiga, Atari ST, and the 68k Macintosh!

Download Amiga version here:
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/brataccas-6rv

Atari ST version here:
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/brataccas-6rv#Atari%20ST

#Amiga #QL #Sinclair #ZXSpectrum #speccy #Spectrum #retrocomputing #retrogaming #brattacas #bandersnatch