Datasoft (1980-1989) Documentary

[@mattmyers9351]

Great Documentary video! Well researched and entertaining! Thank you for all your hard work on these videos! I really appreciate it!

[@BastichB64K]

Thank you very much for always watching , it was a fun video to make 🕹️👍

[@mattmyers9351]

@@BastichB64K Your welcome!

[@8_Bit]

Nice work as always! Those 4 licensed Datasoft puzzle platformers are my favourite: Bruce Lee, Goonies, Zorro, and Conan. Conan's a bit glitchy on the C64 because it was a lazy port from the Apple II; they didn't rewrite it to use the C64's hardware sprites. But the gameplay is basically identical to the A2 version and I still find it fun.

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching , yeah almost everyone loves those 4 ! Definitely Datasofts most popular games and it's pretty cool that they were all originals too 🕹️👍

[@hayberdasher8625]

I also grew up with a C-64 and remember playing some of these. I often reminisce about the good old days, this was a great look back. Thanks!

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for checking out the vid , glad it brought back some good memories

[@grantd165]

I didn't realise they did O'Rileys mine, still one of my favourite pick up and play C64 games.

[@BastichB64K]

It's an awesome game , simple fun

[@hoagieimpact9189]

Certainly been one of my favourites in 1983.

[@SuperMoleRetro]

Alternate Reality the Dungeon is probably my top favorite game for the C64 of all time. No, it wasn't the best RPG, but the music and innovation on the way it handled memory constraints was amazing (I didn't realize that was the only reason the devourer was in the game until many many years later. I just thought it was a near impossible monster to kill). The magic and items you could find were awesome and the ending wasn't your usual "you win. game over" that was common on the 64. If you can play through to the end, I highly recommend it.

[@BastichB64K]

I never made it to the end , I remember my disk back in the day having some reading problem very far into it 😭 but alas it was epic for how far I got

[@rovikicus5630]

I hated that devourer with a passion. The Alternate Reality games were ahead of their time, there was supposed to be 7 or 8 games in the series but only two were made. Would love to see a developer make a modern version of this series.

[@BastichB64K]

@@rovikicus5630 yeah that's a good idea 👍 would also love to see the series continue and actually end

[@TeaLeavesProgramming]

I really love that you've done a deep dive into a company that of has some nostalgic value for you. Thanks for putting in the time!

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers thx , it was fun and I hope you enjoyed it

[@Woodwerker]

Love the history lesson here! Your channel is really awesome for us old people - lol. Thanks and keep the great channel!

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks , as long as you like em I'll keep making em ... I'm having lots of fun researching these old forgotten companies 👍

[@dennyhaynes3]

Another superb and edited video on Datasoft, fondly remembered by myself in the C64 era for my favourite Bruce Lee, The Goonies and Zorro. Force 7 looks a great clone of Alien syndrome and I'll definitely check that out 👍

[@BastichB64K]

Thx , force 7 is great and is definitely a great alien syndrome style game with way more strategy

[@Commodore64mania]

Hey!!! 😀 😀 Thank you very much my friend for the great video on the story of DATASOFT! I definitly love that early in the eighties game videos editor!!

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers for checking it out , I love making these style of vids

[@darrenlonghurst4433]

Hey B Man!! Thanks for this Awesome Doco!! Really entertaining and lost of great information! This brought back some great memories for me! I Remember me and my mates use to play Bruce Lee together and we use to compete in speed runs through the game. I also use to play Theatre Europe a lot. I always remember good old "Midnight Sun" Thanks again for all the awesome work you do! Keep it up buddy!! 😁

[@BastichB64K]

I played Bruce Lee sooooo much , in 2 player with friends things get hectic 🤣👍

[@ichiohta]

Am totally checking out some graphic text adventure games mentioned in the video. Thanks for the great content!

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers no problem , glad you found some new games to try out

[@oahupc4688]

Your videos are AWESOME!

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers thx

[@nanorider426]

Oh my! Force 7! Thank you for this, I couldn't remember the title. I played this so much back then, it was one of my favourite shoot'em up/tactical games. Now I know where to look in my bootleg archive. 👍😁👍 Thank you for the great documentary. ^^

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers thx , Force 7 is a game i plan to do a separate video on in the Future or at least expand on it cause its such a forgotten gem

[@nanorider426]

@@BastichB64K Oh please do! That game is great. It's a tactical masterpiece.

[@markmacrae8158]

I love checking out your channel and discovering new content like this - I guess this is a bonus track for April! I'm actually going to sit down with this after work finishes tonight with a cuppa - cant wait and I'll leave some comments later :)

[@johnbutrovich7503]

Great Watch! Brought back a lot of memories. Forgot about many of the games.

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers glad you liked it , thx 👍

[@johnbutrovich7503]

@@BastichB64K I viewed moonshuttle was a bit of an embarrassment as my first game. All in all, 5 years at Datasoft was well worth it.

[@BastichB64K]

@@johnbutrovich7503 I played that game a lot as a kid so I had fun 🕹️👍

[@chaoslab]

Goonies was my favorite. Theater of War was fun too as well as Zaxxon and Conan. Thanks once again for an excellent video. :-)

[@BastichB64K]

Datasoft really cranked put a whole flew of my fav C64 games ..Bruce lee was my fav

[@ctbullett300]

Its a software house I didn't know a lot about, they just do not really spring to mind. After watching this though, they were a very competent studio, with more than a few great titles. Very well researched tour of datasoft. THX BastichB

[@BastichB64K]

As usual thank you for your comment , really fun video to research and put together

[@jmp01a24]

Datasoft was one of the biggest US software developers / publishers of the 80s. Then you must know little about 80s gaming Michael.

[@ctbullett300]

@@jmp01a24 I was born in 1980....so a lot of the 80's to me are fuzzy, though it is my fav decade, but between 0-9 years old, I could barely read the title of a game, never mind the software house. I know a lot more now due to this documentary. You are 100% correct Dr. Abuse, they were big, they were great, and deserve recognition.

[@aquinas8]

Brilliant video, brought back some good memories. I had forgotten all about Starfox (loved playing that). Bruce Lee is awesome (the new sequels are really good too). I rather enjoyed the Zorro tune to be honest. I was surprised about Mercenary (one of my most favorite games ever) being released by them, I know it was by Novagen over here in UK (Paul Woakes r.i.p.).

[@BastichB64K]

Awesome 👍 , thanks for checking it out

[@markmacrae8158]

Another interesting and informative documentary Bastiche. Highlights for me are Bruce Lee and Goonies. The big arcade conversions Pole Position and Pac Man tooke ages to hit the UK via US Gold. I think it was 1986 by the time they hit the shops and Pole Position looked sooo cruddy compared with Pitstop 2. I so badly wanted that conversion to be good. Keep up the good quality videos man

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers thx for watching , yeah I played pole position in about 1985 and I thought it was rubbish even back then .. I was so dissapointed 😭

[@OperationPhantom]

Thanks for taking a look at Datasoft, very interesting! I should really give some more time to a few of their earlier classics, like Goonies and Zorro. Somehow... Bruce Lee is my favorite as well and likely will remain just that. A lot of happy memories playing that one. As a kid I could hardly ever get past the 5 level moving electricity field... easy now! Then again, I now have the exact same problem with the fan-made Bruce Lee 2! :P

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching , that Bruce Lee sequel is a tough one ... I died a lot 😂😭

[@UltramanExplained]

Big fan of the channel! Keep up the great work!

[@BastichB64K]

Thx much appreciated 🙂

[@napoleonwilson3912]

Thank you for the video.

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching 🕹️👍👍👍

[@jay_cadiramen]

Another great video!

[@kumrogames]

Great info on one of my favorite c64 game companies!

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers and thank you for watching 👍

[@Paperinjerate]

Well done, well presented, well informing. Very intereseting story. Thanks for researching ans sharing, must have been a lot of work.

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks you very much , it was a lot of work for sure but as long as you enjoyed it then it's all good 😃👍

[@tumppigo]

This is awesome. Keep it up and your follow count will explode!

[@BastichB64K]

Thank you very much

[@IsaacKuo]

Cool, lots of info I didn't know about, and some great titles for me to check out and also draw inspiration from! Awesome documentary as usual! I think the title which is most beloved among the lot is Bruce Lee - as evidenced by the fan updates/remake/etc. For me, what makes Bruce Lee so special is the fun of fighting with a second player - the fun of utilizing the traps, or having them used against you, and the chaotic effect of that ninja interfering with the fights. The Conan game was one which I remember really wishing for since I saw it first on the Apple ][ on school computers. I was happy with the C64 version, being more or less identical to the Apple original. Sure, it didn't use sprites and the limited colors were obviously a straight port from the Apple version, but that was fine with me (same with other Apple ][ ports I had to wait for, like Karateka). I don't think the C64 version was any more flickery than the Apple version, though ... maybe it's just less noticeable on the Apple version because you expect that from Apple ][ games?

[@BastichB64K]

Yeah Bruce is the king of that lot for me too , everything you said is spot on . I played the Conan game on a Apple 2 at school as well and I just remember it playing much better overall

[@ninoinoz4437]

Alternate Reality: The City has massive disk swapping on the Atari 8-bit as well. You could enter The Dungeon through an exit in The City. It then asked for one of The Dungeon's disks. Very frustrating as part 2 hadn't been released when I was playing part 1.

[@BastichB64K]

Yeah the disk swapping really makes the game hard too enjoy at times 😑

[@ralang999]

I played tons of Gauntlet and Alien Syndrome on my C64, and now I really wish I'd had Force 7!

[@BastichB64K]

It's a really great hidden gem , worth checking out

[@Jay_J]

Loves these documentaries, and your top 10, 20 top whatever lists for various genres. Would you be able to list the various games, by year, in the comments section for this video (and all videos going forward)? This would go a LONG way towards trying to find C64 games online that could be downloaded for play on the Mini 64. Thanks!

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching I appreciate it , when I get some time I'll try update the descriptions I'm just so busy making new vids right now 😂👍

[@Jay_J]

@@BastichB64K Understood, thanks! Oh one last question, that intro music that play's in first 10 seconds or so, did you write that, or is that from some game? It's really catchy!

[@BastichB64K]

For the logo at the beginning it's actually a free piece of music from an editing program I have ... It had a good funky game vibe 🎶👍

[@Jay_J]

@@BastichB64K It does have a great 80's vibe about it, which made me wonder if it was from a game or? Keep up the great work, I look forward to your KZbin videos each week, as there are very few that take the time to cover retro gaming, that's not home-arcade based like Arcade 1Up and RetroPie (not that I have an issue with those, as I have 3 A1UP's and a modded PS Classic Mini with like 250 retro games on it, lol)

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching and glad you enjoying the content 😄👍 I'm having a lot of fun making these vids as you can probably tell 😂

[@ostrak1725]

I absolutely loved Alternate Reality, the City. I still have the disks for the game. Wish I still had the original box. Got any spares?

[@BastichB64K]

😂😂 sorry i don't

[@lurkerrekrul]

I liked Bruce Lee and The Goonies (although I never did figure out the last screen of The Goonies). Conan I didn't care for (c64 version). I kind of liked Zorro, despite the annoying music, but I never knew what to do. The Goonies was much easier because you only had to deal with one screen at a time, but Zorro let you move between screens and I was never sure if I was missing something or if I needed to get something else from another screen first. I liked Saracen and actually played through all the levels. I always liked games like that. It reminded me of Lode Runner in that it had simple mechanics making up each level. I finished Lode Runner too, although I did use the cheat keys to pretty much give myself unlimited lives. Rubicon Alliance is a game I wanted back then, but I never thought it actually came out. I had a software catalog, I'm not sure if it was Datasoft or another company, but they had it listed with some artwork and I searched for it for years. Well, pirate sources, and nobody ever had a copy of it. It wasn't until many years later, after getting on the net, that I learned that it came out and usually went by the name Starfox.

[@BastichB64K]

I enjoyed lode runner as well it was very addictive. Yeah I played Rubicon under the Starfox name ... I never knew it's other name until a few years ago. Thanks for watching 👍

[@lurkerrekrul]

Back when Championship Lode Runner came out, I started playing it, but I hated the save system where every time you loaded a saved game, it subtracted one of your lives until you eventually had none left. You could copy the disk, but that was a pain in the butt. I also discovered a problem with it. There was one level where you have to move IMMEDIATELY at the start. You have to be pushing the stick when the level starts, or you'll get killed. When I played that level from a saved game, I got killed regardless. It was like loading a saved game changed the timing slightly. So after investigating the level layouts with a sector editor on both the original game and the Championship version, I created a program that would read in each level and write it back to disk in the original format. You could then use the disk as a data disk for the original game and use all the cheat keys, like giving yourself tons of men and jumping to any level. I was working my way through the levels this way when I got my Amiga and gradually lost interest in finishing it. I've had the urge to go back and complete it, but I'm not sure now where my conversion program is, or my copy of the disk that I converted. If the disk still works, I have it in the house somewhere, I'm just not sure where. At some point, I'd like to transfer it over (I have a 1541 adapter) to use on emulators.

[@speedbird737]

@ 22:34 - game is pronounced SARA-CEN (CEN pronounced SEN or like first part of us coin CENT) - I loved Dallas Quest had the disk for my C64 here in the UK - theme music at the start and end was great!

[@BastichB64K]

Thx , literally never heard anyone say its name before 😂 . Yeah Dallas Quest was pretty good , good rendition of the tv theme

[@speedbird737]

@@BastichB64K its a british thing 🙂kzbin.info/www/bejne/ppDOk41vpaiVfaM&ab_channel=EmmaSaying

[@dryerlint17]

Everyone who wasn't old enough to play Atari's Pac-Man when it came out doesn't understand that everyone liked it back then. We knew that Atari couldnt replicate arcade games perfectly. I'm just setting the record straight.

[@BastichB64K]

Not really i got it in the early 80's and my dad and i though it was bad ... Which it is 😂 and this is not coming from an atari hater as the 2600 was my first console and loved that thing but pacman just wasnt good .

[@dryerlint17]

@@BastichB64K I said liked not loved! I love your content. I was born in 1973 and lived through it all. We never experienced a time when we didn't play them. From Odyssey to Atari to Commodore and Nintendo. Looking forward to your 70's arcade video. Thanks!

[@BastichB64K]

@@dryerlint17 cheers , thx for watching . Got a big 70s gaming video coming out soon 👍

[@solsticeprojekt1937]

What's up with the typos? "untigrated", "orginise", "disipline" ... :/ Still, great fun and informative video and I'm actually watching it through. ... and my mom LOVED pooyan! :D I totally forgot that existed! :D I've been playing O'Riley's Mine so much! What a gold mine of great classic games I've played in this video! :D

[@BastichB64K]

Yeah sorry I'm only human at some point when you've looked at a video 5000 times you can't even process anything anymore 😂. Pooyan was such a cool conversion and I played the hell out of O'Riley's mine as a kid

[@solsticeprojekt1937]

@@BastichB64K Mistakes happen. :D It was a great video and amazing throwback into my past. Awesome you've played O'Riley's mine as well, it was fantastic! :D

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching and I'm glad you enjoyed it 👍

[@ninoinoz4437]

I dimly remember Datasoft tried to get into business software but failed to produce much.

[@RadimRadim-li4uj]

Loved the video even though Datasoft wasn't really my cup of tea. But why not contacting Pat Ketchum nowadays in his shop?

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching , im a nobody why would he even bother talking to me

[@ninoinoz4437]

I owned Tomahawk on the Atari 8-bit. It took 35 mins to load from tape. I am not joking.

[@BastichB64K]

Definitely not worth the wait for that game 😂

[@gamingtonight1526]

I would put Red Storm Rising just slightly above the Hunt for Red October simulation, as I thought the latter was excellent, just a tiny bit less detailed.

[@BastichB64K]

I would put Red Storm head and shoulders above ... They not even in the same league for me anyway

[@SuperMoleRetro]

I thought I would mention that there IS INDEED a person working on a remake of the Alternate Reality series. He is making great progress on The City and The Dungeon and has plans to make all of them, but is a one man show. Check him out at kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJ-aoXyag7Gtpqs and give him credit for the monumental task he has taken on himself. You can download his builds and actually play them now.

[@BastichB64K]

Wow! Thanks for sharing .. I hope he is able to complete his vision! That's an epic task

[@sycoraxrock]

5:49 Clowns and Balloons was a *stone cold classic* and I will NOT heat another word about it, you whippersnapper! (by which i mean: it was fun when I was 6)

[@BastichB64K]

😂 i was just stating facts not an opinion 😂

[@sycoraxrock]

@@BastichB64K Fair enough. I hadn’t realized how many Atari 8bit games I loved came from Datasoft. I know Bruce Lee was their game, though, and that game genuinely still holds up. My Dad and I used to play it co-op, where one of us would be Green Yamo fighting the ninja and one of us would be Bruce getting the lanterns.

[@BastichB64K]

@@sycoraxrock Bruce Lee was the best in co-op and still is so much fun

[@scality4309]

Great docu. But could have been in a Kim Justice style done. The pace is too fast for the massive datasoft catalogue. And.. did you leave out Biggles?

[@BastichB64K]

Biggles was Mirrosoft .. it's easy to confuse , great game by the way . Thx for watching

[@scality4309]

@@BastichB64K ah yes..

[@randomwrestlingarchive3937]

Where's the Heathcliff game?

[@BastichB64K]

Its an edutainment product not a real game , hence its not here , this is just video games

[@cjhonsons]

14:27 Bruce Lee Atari XL

[@300LEGOSporks]

I love the video and the information, but if you could stop flashing the same thumbs up picture every 2 minutes, that'd be great. :D

[@BastichB64K]

Sure

[@youarepredictable]

Was Mercenary a European game? My buddy had that game, and I had no idea.

[@BastichB64K]

Yes it was , Datasoft just distributed it in the US

[@skRapKlan]

Thanks for the wast amount of historical information!

[@BastichB64K]

Glad you enjoying them

[@CondemnedToBeMe]

✔✔✔

[@jmp01a24]

PACMAN for the C64 was developed by Atari. I know Datasoft later sold it under their arcade label, but they had nothing to do with the development of the game, they strictly repacked it and sold it. Same with Zaxxon. Since I am a strictly C64 person I would have liked to see a Datasoft documentary that focused ONLY on their C64 titles. I find the Atari/Apple/PC/TRS80 titles boring and just useless information. But good job on the video... as it is. Thumbs up!

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for checking it out . In all the games that were simply distributed by Datasoft I specifically said distributed so there would be no confusion as to what they made themselves or simply repackaged . Thank you for the comment 👍

[@jmp01a24]

@@BastichB64K I would still like to have heard the details about how they got to distribute say PACMAN for the C64. In the datasoft release there is no credit given to Atari at any point or even mentioning them, from what I can see. Same story with Zaxxon. But I guess you would have to make a C64 special about Datasoft for that info to become center. I think focusing on the Datasoft exclusive games, not distrubuted titles, would been interesting too, for the C64. They did develop, or have exclusive titles, quite many actually, of really good C64 games.

[@BastichB64K]

In the future I plan to make specific Top 10 videos for all the companies I love so maybe then a C64 Datasoft exclusives will come into play 🕹️👍

[@jmp01a24]

@@BastichB64K I am onboard for that!