Frankie Goes to Hollywood

[Unofficial Who]

Couldn't decide whether to post this in the C64 or Spectrum thread so it gets it's own thread.

 

https://www.facebook.com/MrHollyJohnson/

 

Quote

I have a copy of this early computer game that was developed in Liverpool and released via Ocean Software for both the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 computer platforms. I've never owned either computer, so I was unable to play it at the time. I hear it takes quite a while to master and finally arrive at The Pleasuredome.

We were the only group to have a Computer Game at the time. It was, in retrospect, quite a collector's item. It also included a version of RELAX on cassette.

Here’s a run through of the game, although many people couldn't work out how to solve all the problems to get to the end: smarturl.it/HJFrankieGame

 

 

[jdanddiet]

I saw that on FB, interesting post. Apparently the band didn't want their likeness in game, hence the use of the character from the album sleeves.

Really interesting game though, spent hours trying to become a real person back in the eighties lol

[Peter St John]

I have always wondered about this game. As far as I know, Denton didn't have that much input from anybody else, but they managed to make the most ZTT/Paul Morley game ever, and it's simply glorious, although I remain a little sad that there wasn't a 128K Speccy remix that included AY music and the missing room/game types from the C64 version…

[Protocol Penguin]

10 hours ago, Peter St John said:

I have always wondered about this game. As far as I know, Denton didn't have that much input from anybody else, but they managed to make the most ZTT/Paul Morley game ever, and it's simply glorious, although I remain a little sad that there wasn't a 128K Speccy remix that included AY music and the missing room/game types from the C64 version…

One of the fanzines I read in the mid/late ‘90s interviewed John Gibson of the Dentons, and I remember a mention of Ally Noble actively speaking to the band members and label reps about ideas and concepts for the game during development… Can’t remember which fanzine TBH, but I very likely have it in storage.

 

(Some of those old fanzines were superb, and have interviews and information which are still not widely documented online.)

[dumpster]

Played this on Spectrum back in the day and had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing. 

[ulala]

4 minutes ago, dumpster said:

Played this on Spectrum back in the day and had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing. 

 

take a pleasure pill

[Monkeyspill]

I finished this a few times on the C64. It seemed massive at the time and quite a feat to fit into 64k.

[Qazimod]

Wasn't this #1 of a top 100 staff poll in Commodore Force (née Zzap!)?

 

(E: yes!)

[Darwock]

15 hours ago, dumpster said:

Played this on Spectrum back in the day and had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing. 

Same, except for the bit with Gorbachev and Reagan spitting at each other. We were always happy when that came up because it was the only part we understood. Then back to lots of random door hopping.

[Vespa Alex]

I never completed it, but did make plenty of progress. It always felt on a whole different scale to most C64 games. 

[dumpster]

5 hours ago, Darwock said:

Same, except for the bit with Gorbachev and Reagan spitting at each other. We were always happy when that came up because it was the only part we understood. Then back to lots of random door hopping.

YESS!!!! Exactly that. 

[Clipper]

was this one of those situations that was very common in the 80's for the pirates. You get a pirate copy of a game on cassette that is for a complex game or slightly different from the norm. You don't have the instructions (obviously) and therefore you have no clue what you are doing and switch it off thinking it's rubbish.

 

This is the curse of the pirate exacerbated by the limitations of 8 bit microcomputers. The instructions were essential, these days there is plenty of memory and space to have a tutorial or onscreen instructions. In the days of the 8 bit micro you crammed the game into the memory you had and there was none spare for even a plain wall of text and you knew your game had instructions on the cassette inlay anyway so it was  a "waste" of computer resources.

[jdanddiet]

On 18/10/2022 at 11:58, Protocol Penguin said:

One of the fanzines I read in the mid/late ‘90s interviewed John Gibson of the Dentons, and I remember a mention of Ally Noble actively speaking to the band members and label reps about ideas and concepts for the game during development… Can’t remember which fanzine TBH, but I very likely have it in storage.

 

(Some of those old fanzines were superb, and have interviews and information which are still not widely documented online.)

 

Probably similar to this: https://www.eurogamer.net/the-making-of-frankie-goes-to-hollywood

[dumpster]

Sadly, FGTH was one of the rare few original games I owned.  I remember because there was a big box and the tape had the music on the B side.  Maybe mine was missing the instructions.

[Monkeyspill]

The most annoying bits were riding the cloud to the halos and also the shooting range. The puzzle room and the teleporting hoops were also irritating but you couldn’t really mess them up.

I spent a lot of time playing this game! 
 

I seem to remember you could make the game unwinnable by using a useless item like the socks or red herring.

[Darwock]

On 20/10/2022 at 18:35, Clipper said:

was this one of those situations that was very common in the 80's for the pirates. You get a pirate copy of a game on cassette that is for a complex game or slightly different from the norm. You don't have the instructions (obviously) and therefore you have no clue what you are doing and switch it off thinking it's rubbish.

 

No, there were no instructions relating to what the hell you were supposed to actually do (although I vaguely remember it was a murder mystery or something?). The instructions were probably just how to load the game.

 

We had the same big box with 2 cassettes that dumpster did.

 

Might be worth tackling it as an adult and seeing if any sense can be made out of it now.

[Clipper]

https://worldofspectrum.org//pub/sinclair/games-info/f/FrankieGoesToHollywood.pdf

 

those are the instructions you had in the box. I remember them when I had it. It contains info on the various mini games and aims.

[Darwock]

Yes, the third page is the only one I remember. My eyes must have glazed over when trying to comprehend the other pages. Or I just couldn’t read yet.

[Peter St John]

If you were playing on a C30 C60 C90 Go! special, though, things like the dead body were something of a surprise

[JohnC]

I remember it on C64. Pretty sure it was part of a compilation (legit, not pirate), so didn't have the song with it.

[Peter St John]

I think a lot of people got it via the Magnificent Seven comp: https://archive.org/details/uta_Magnificent_Seven_The_1987_Ocean_Software_Ltd_6992

[Clipper]

that compilation also had the same instructions (formatted differently). Pirates struggled with the more complicated 8 bit games due to lack of instructions as I say, I know I did and the Denton Designs games certainly passed me by as a result. But games I bought I tended to read the instructions, mainly because that is what we did on the bus back from town avidly read the instructions on our new game I have no idea how any pirate played "The Sentinel" for instance!

 

[Peter St John]

I still have no idea how Shadowfire is actually meant to work.

 

(my collection was about 2/3 legit, 1/3 copied - there was a group of us in primary school that shared our games between ourselves via my dad's audio equipment!)

[Clipper]

Zoids was the one for me - read the instructions and still didn't understand it - still don't.

 

Scarabeus I bought after a great Zzap review but again even with instructions I found it too obtuse with the heiroglyphics making very little sense.

 

Maybe we need a thread for over ambitious 8 bit games