About Cabi-Soft - The Spectrum Years

I will bypass the ZX81 games with a nervous cough!

Like most other people, my first Spectrum games were poor arcade copies written very badly in BASIC.

Coming quickly to the decision that I was crap at these, I moved over to adventures.

It seemed that it was acceptable to produce and sell adventure games in BASIC - some of the top software houses were doing this like Quicksilva with Derek Brewsters Velnors Lair.

I created a few text-only efforts before completing my 'real' fully functional text adventure. I plucked up the courage to send it to CRL - the company who's adverts boasted 'The Dream Makers'.

They replied saying they could not publish this game due to its content being based on Raiders Of The Lost Ark! Hang-on... what the hell were they talking about. To my amazement, they had sent back some else's game and letter. I sent it back straight away and politely reminded them what my game was called. 4 weeks passed and still nothing. I called again and complained about the poor service. A few days later a parcel arrived containing 4 CRL games and a letter of apology - but still no game or decision.

More time passed, another parcel of CRL games and a shed load of excuses - but still no decision. Eventually I found out the truth(!). They had sent my game back to the wrong person, who had moved house and lost it. Seems a bit far fetched to me, but that's life. I still had a copy of the game, so nothing was lost apart from my faith in the industry.

I moved on and produced a lot of text/graphic adventures, mainly for myself and my friends, but I also did a few for a local BBS (Bulletin Board System) called Phantom BBS.