Earth Shaker (video game)

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Earth Shaker
Developer(s)Michael Batty
Publisher(s)Your Sinclair
Designer(s)Michael Batty
Platform(s)ZX Spectrum 48k
Release1990
Genre(s)Puzzle
Mode(s)Single-player

Earth Shaker is a Boulder Dash-inspired game published as a cover tape in 1990 in Your Sinclair (for the ZX Spectrum 48k). Notable in being the first covertape to subjectively set a high standard,[1] having been initially rejected by publishers Zeppelin because of First Star's suing of companies publishing Boulder Dash clones.[2]

Development[edit]

The game was originally conceived as a Boulder Dash clone by Michael Batty, but its scope grew through a long development process:

I started Earth Shaker about 4 years before it appeared in Your Sinclair. A Boulder Dash clone seemed like a reasonably easy thing to program. I thought Boulder Dash was great and played it for ages. I'm still fascinated by the way you can get such complicated behaviour and realistic avalanches by using a few simple rules. Earth Shaker just grew—I kept leaving it and going back to it. But it was the first machine code game I managed to actually finish.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Michael Fraser. "Earth Shaker". ntlworld.com. Archived from the original on 2015-04-16. Retrieved 2015-04-08.
  2. ^ a b "Home Action Replay Page - ZX Spectrum - Michael Batty Interview". homeactionreplay.org. Archived from the original on 2015-04-14. Retrieved 2015-04-08.

External links[edit]