It’s nearly Christmas, and to get ourselves in the spirit, we’ve been revisiting a few of our favourite festive moments from the history of video games – you can find a stocking-load of these over on page 48. One game we didn’t find room to squeeze on the list, though, was a Yuletide gem named Moley Christmas for the ZX Spectrum. Given away on the cover of the January 1988 edition of Your Sinclair, it was essentially a cut-down spin-off from Gremlin’s then-popular series of Monty Mole platformers.
Aside from the usual jumping around and collecting stuff, Moley Christmas had a likeably meta backstory: as Monty, you had to shepherd the game’s code from Gremlin’s headquarters, to the duplication plant where the games could be mass-produced as audio cassettes, and finally onto the cover of the magazine, ready to be delivered to newsagents in time for Christmas. Little more than a glorified demo,
Moley Christmas was a curious snapshot of the early British games industry, and also intended as Monty Mole’s last-ever game, which would’ve made it a decidedly muted swansong: its last scene sees the hapless mammal running back and forth between a parked van and a shop, trying to avoid being hit by speeding cars. If you want an idea of how far games have come in 30 years, just imagine a Tomb Raider finale where Lara Croft ends her career unloading copies of Wireframe from the back of a Leyland DAF.
Have a magnificentChristmas, readers and enjoy Wireframe Magaine Issue 29
Ryan Lambie
Editor
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