The Story and Games of Odin Computer Graphics | Kim Justice

Many thanks to Wireframe Magazine for sponsoring this video! wfmag.cc/kimjustice
Odin didn't last long, but in a couple of years they made classic computer games like Nodes of Yesod, Robin of the Wood and Heartland, getting the most out of the Spectrum and other micros. However, a deal with Telecomsoft would be their undoing. Here is their full story.
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A great deal of technical info and recollections of Odin can be found on the legendary Steve Wetherill's blog. He helped make Command & Conquer, don'tcha know. blog.stevewetherill.com/
0:00 Intro
1:57 Ad: Wireframe Magazine
2:57 Thor: The Company Before Odin, Jack and the Beanstalk, Other Bad Games
8:29 Odin Begins, Inspired by Ultimate: Nodes of Yesod, Arc of Yesod
18:10 Robin of the Wood, Possible Deal with Capcom?
23:07 Experimentations, Funny Stories, the Telecomsoft Deal, Heartland
32:05 Telecomsoft Games: Sidewize, Scary Monsters, Hypa Ball, On The Tiles etc.
41:03 How the Telecomsoft Deal Ruined Odin and What Happened Next?
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#kimjustice #zxspectrum #retrogaming #microcomputers #odin #c64

[@Kim_Justice]

What are your memories of Odin and their games? Have a shout here. Thanks for watching, and a big thanks to Wireframe for sponsoring this video: wfmag.cc/kimjustice

[@mgtproductions9524]

Kim - can we get a Graftgold documentary - Steve and Andrew still live in Essex - you might even get an interview...

[@terraspent]

Bravo, Kim, Bravo. Another lovely eighties micro doc' Bravo 💕❤💕❤️

[@WanderlustZero]

Hypaball on the C64! It looks a world better than the speccy version you showed here, and the music is still amazing

[@gettinoldgaming]

I remember my dad playing some of these, but never played them myself at the time

[@TedSCSI]

I remember brilliant ZX beeper music in Arc of Yesod & Robin.

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

I recall buying an Odin game in WHSmith .there was a voucher inside for two pounds off a forthcoming game in the small print it said words to the effect of ‘dear retailer, we won’t give you any money for this voucher, if you don’t want the purchaser to use it remove it from the packaging’. What a cheek!

[@error4159]

Lol, that sounds like something a 80's British game publisher would do.

[@colinfuidge8660]

Paul McKenna was a colourful character. At my first meeting with him, not long after the Telecomsoft deal was signed, he told me about a couple of thugs that threatened him with shotguns and burned down his barn the previous weekend.

[@garymckenna15]

Paul still has the space Ace laser disk machine, I can still play it right through without losing a life. He also has Dragons Lair for it too :)

[@Kim_Justice]

Thank you Gary! Really appreciate the kind words, and glad to know your Dad's kept that machine working all these years. :)

[@steve.wetherill]

Thanks for researching, compiling footage, and creating the video Kim, it is clear that a lot of effort went into the production and I really enjoyed watching it. Brought back a good few memories that's for sure! I do have a few posts on my blog site about the Odin period including a couple of 'making-of' posts that go into some technical detail, in addition to a few anecdotes scattered here and there (link for my blog is in Kim's comment below). I did intend to add my comments while the video was fresh in my mind, but that was almost a week ago now. I'll add a couple of things that I remember: - Nodes was definitely a team effort. I was the main Speccy coder but there are contributions from various others including Keith Robinson & George Barnes. The original coder, Dave, who left shortly after I joined and well before Nodes was completed should get some credit for the cool editor he had created, and for his work on the animation systems. - The Speccy code for Robin, Heartland & Sidewize (as well as Crosswize) was done almost entirely by me, though I recall Keith Robinson made some welcome contributions to Robin. I did the Amstrad Heartland (cassette and disk) port too (it plays faster and I like how it turned out) - I did a bunch of work on Arc of Yesod, but several others pitched in. - I did the Speccy 128 ports of Nodes and Robin. - I did the Elan Enterprise port of Nodes (some help from George Barnes on that one, mostly getting the downloader to work, and some initial work to get the tricksy video mode to work) - I was in no way involved with the original Desert Strike on the Sega Genesis. My involvement started and ended with the Amiga port, which was a solid effort if I say it myself. I think that is about all I can remember at the moment. Overall the video presents an accurate overview of the rise and fall of Odin. Thanks for putting in the effort to create this! Happy to answer questions here! :)

[@Kim_Justice]

Thank you so much Steve, hugely appreciated! Great to have some more details and a couple of corrections. And yes, everyone should have a good look through blog.stevewetherill.com/ -- lots of great articles there :)

[@lucasoheyze4597]

You're talking complete bollocks there Stevie baby.

[@lower_case_t]

This brought back some good memories. IMHO, Sidewize was one of the best if not THE best shoot'em up ever written for the Speccy. The insane speed, the incredibly smooth movement, the difficult gameplay that never gave you a pause but also never really put you in impossible situations - all that put it on par or even above other classics like Uridium, R-Type, Flying Shark, or Zynaps. And yes, memorization helped, like in any other game of this genre, but you could also accumulate enough firepower to blast right through the walls that you mentioned. Nodes of Yesod was awesome, too, but I never finished it.

[@HertzBlut]

What a fantastic way to start the weekend. A can of beer and a brand new Kim documentary.

[@mgtproductions9524]

Me too except I am eating a bowl of cornflakes as well...

[@billybollockhead5628]

Agreed.. I know very little about Odin too

[@FintanMoloney]

I just did the exact same thing

[@pinkdebugger]

You’ve heard this many times already, but I just have to say how much I love your documentaries. They’re always excellent. Thank you.

[@garymckenna15]

Great video and all accurate to what my Dad has told me over the years. I was also happy to be the main game tester for the mobile version for Steve and Paul McKenna my dad.

[@reagandow850]

Your father must have some great stories to tell. ;) Are you a programmer or in the same type of business now? I’m not a reporter, just curious.

[@steve.wetherill]

That is a great point actually Gary, and not mentioned in the video, but Paul and I did create mobile versions of Nodes of Yesod for J2ME phones in around 2005 or 2006, and indeed Gary did hours and hours of testing on that version. Sadly, that version was never released because the J2ME market was rough, but elements of that version did make it into the 2010 25th Anniversary Edition for iPhone and the later 30th Anniversary Edition for Apple TV.

[@AmAtAm]

To this day, no computer game experience has felt more exciting than the moment the mole in Nodes of Yesod chewed through a wall to access a whole new area of the game - it took the breath away (as a 7 year old). And no gaming experience was more scarring than when that particular Amstrad cassette stopped loading.

[@stevesrover]

I don’t know why you make these brilliant documentaries but I’m glad that you do! I had The Plot. Quite enjoyed it!

[@PooperScooperTrooper]

I didn't know Thor became Odin! You learn something everyday! Chirst, Jack and The Beanstalk was HARD. I remember I had this running at just about a playable speed on an early Amiga speccy emu...still couldn't get onto the second screen!

[@ashleykingston1980]

Never played Yesod until today after watching this video. Thanks for introducing me to this classic Kim.

[@koobert]

That nodes of Yesod music is fantastic. I didn't know the Spectrum could do that!

[@comrade177]

Another fascinating video on a British studio making speccy games. Thanks for this Kim, really appreciate each time your videos come along.

[@darrenlawrence587]

I can't help but tie Nodes of Yesod together in my mind with Prince's Purple Rain album as I was constantly listening that album while I played this game back in '85 on my rubber key speccy. I played most of Odin's games and a few of Thor's. Jack and The Beanstalk was brutal and I still get an oddly depressing feeling when I see it in action. The Yesod's were fantastic, they were a quality outfit with quality titles. I remember getting the Robin game for Xmas that year and loved it, played a ton of it. Until this video popped up I'd forgotten how good Odin were.

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

The cat sprite in On the tiles is a work of art. So it has that going for it. Also adopts waiting position for the next part.♥️

[@nickthelick]

Was On The Tiles available for the spectrum? 🤔 I remember playing a similar game except it didn't scroll, you progressed screen by screen. I would've been 7yrs old and never knew what the game was called! But On The Tiles is very similar.

[@robintst]

Really learned a lot here, Kim, you're always my go-to channel for all the stories about the UK home micro scene from the 80s. Cheers from across the pond!

[@roolaing]

This is excellent, Kim. Thanks! Nostalgia maxed. I loved Saber Wulf but had totally forgotten the name of nodes of yesod and Robin of the wood. Treasure Island was another I loved...

[@mariocosti4698]

I went to the Stairways nightclub in Birkenhead once. Yes, it looked just like the game!

[@Peter-MH]

Always a treat to see a new Kim Justice documentary pop up on your KZbin feed! 👍

[@torhansen8570]

I remember being fascinated by the concept of Heartland. Absolutely beautiful to look at. Anyhoo, thank you for another excellent documentary.

[@symonetics]

I so love your documentaries! As an 80's kid this is my childhood :)

[@Peter-MH]

Same! A lot of the games I see in Kim’s documentaries I’ve never even played, but remember seeing the box in my local newsagents or dixons!

[@superspudgun]

Another great documentary. I've got to admit to having a soft spot for "The Plot" - a huge sprawling map to explore kept me coming back.

[@jeremybowers3181]

Very cool indeed Kim. Albeit a LITTLE before my time it's still nice to see this stage of video game history being shown some retro love!🤘😎

[@randy7894]

Another document chuckfull of info and entertainment. Awesome how you make these gems every time. Cheers!

[@th45h1zn1t]

Thankyou for yet another thorough and well presented slice of gaming history!

[@Knightlore]

I love this series! You are doing great job covering all these Software House from the past! Wonderful memories come to my mind when i remember browsing through Software Stores in the early 80ies spending my first hard earned money from my work on construction sites......

[@KingofPotatoPeople]

Robin of the Wood is pretty much burned into my soul. I grew up with the c64 version, I still revisit it and sometimes I’ll play the soundtrack.

[@DataHombre]

Keep doing what you're doing, Kim. Your content is simply brilliant! :)

[@NettiGaming]

So pleased to see another smashing documentary. Thank you Kim. I always love your retro-spectives

[@gearsofgames]

Very interesting! Did a little bit of digging about Odin myself, but never gotten around to doing much beyond some shorter game specific videos. Loved Nodes of Yesod back in the day! It was great how the game allowed you to actually get somewhere before it was game over. I think I almost got hold of all those alchiems, but never managed to finish it. Still loved the exploration!

[@Paul_Henshall]

Loved the first Odin games in the 1980's, shame they couldn't keep up the quality of them with the later titles.

[@JanusZudnik]

Very enjoyable indeed. It does always amaze me how many games I've, fortunately, missed in the old C64 days...

[@AntonioSilva-hn5xv]

'Robin of the Wood' was one of the first speccy games I played, along with Sabouter, Jet Set Willy, Zorro and Match Day (I started well) and became, ever after, one of my favourite games. It increased my taste for open-world games and exploration games. And is almost flawless. Wonderfull graphics, fluid gameplay... and it was 1985!

[@marcgoesblindgaming2076]

This was great Kim, I played So much on my ZX spectrum as a kid And these documentaries of yours really Tell me a lot of things I Never knew, Keep up the good work mate and have a wonderful weekend

[@pda1799]

Another great history video. I can only wish for a C64 story, of course. Keep them coming!

[@Thecinemonsta]

A great watch, thanks, really enjoyed it. They were entertaining if not chaotic days. A great bunch of friends in their late teens/early 20s having fun making games. The Telecom deal was indeed a stretch. I think Nodes took about 6-8 months to create, and Scary Monsters having 2 months. It was not even a completed game yet, but forced to ship without any of the outdoor work being completed and a rushed indoor part too. Hey ho, it was fun though. A couple more corrections. Eldritch the Cat was started by myself (Marc Dawson then Marc Wilding now) and Steve. Astaroth the game shown was actually pre Eldritch and by myself, then credited as Marc E.H. Dawson, but it was completed after Steve and I set up the company and started work on Scrollerball. That game was pretty much identical to SpeedBall, which was yet to be released. On its release we had to change the game significantly. It was eventually released as Projectyle by EA and the first full release by Eldritch the Cat I was also the programmer that married the Girl that applied. Now still happily married 37 years later! I left the games industry 10 years ago after working on many AAA games including Fifa 98 - > Fifa 2003, Mafia 2, Griffey Baseball, All Star Baseball and many more. Many Many fun years. Thanks for the memories!

[@stucooper9668]

Thanks - really enjoying all the retro gaming docs. I never knew anything about the companies involved until finding your channel on KZbin!

[@mikedrop4421]

Kim, you just always deliver. Thank you ma'am.

[@FintanMoloney]

Great work again Kim. Always get excited when I see a new production of yours come up. The amount of research you do is incredible. I had not ever heard of Odin until now.

[@PooperScooperTrooper]

I do wish I figured out how to play Heartland...but what a title tune!

[@Polaventris]

Cheers for the shoutout! 2011, damn! Has it been that long already.

[@worldofretrogameplay6963]

I’m settling in for the evening with a new Kim documentary. Love and peace from the US!

[@youreallyplaythat]

The Kim Justice show. Love this channel! So many interesting games I'd never know about!

[@roudanskalamir9251]

Knowing Steve Wetherills role in Westwood, on of my personal favorite game companies of all time, makes me appreciate this as an American. Good stuff here.

[@BottIsNotABot]

Kim thanks for this, it appears Odin passed me by as a software house as a child. It looks like there are some cracking games to try out! Excellent video as always.

[@BillsOldandNewGaming]

I bought nodes,arc and robin back in the day. Enjoyed them all. Great informative video.

[@lokiskywalker]

25:36 "Teatime. Teatime never changes."

[@kirgahn]

Fantastic video as always. Your productions are always of the highest standards. Congratulations and keep teaching us more about the brit scene of the eighties!

[@xxnoxx-xp5bl]

I nearly spat coke over my screen when I learned that Steve went on to produce for C&C - amazing stuff!

[@cptnkrenon]

I really enjoyed playing Robin of the Wood - much more so than Sabrewulf. RotW took heavy inspiration from the TV series 'Robin of Sherwood', which was popular at the time (and also a favourite of mine). 😁

[@skijumpnose]

Always great seeing some Speccy content! Thanks, Kim!

[@christaubert2175]

another great retro game post Avalon (ZX Spectrum) and the second game were my fav

[@CPCGameReviews]

I remember the incident back in 2005 when Odin's and Thor's games were removed from World of Spectrum. Paul McKenna sent a *really* angry e-mail to Martijn van der Heide, who maintained the WoS archive at the time, threatening legal action and demanding logs of the downloads of the games. They were removed pretty quickly, and Paul had a right to ask for them to be removed, but the manner in which he requested their removal caused a lot of ill will and resentment within the ZX Spectrum scene. I certainly haven't forgotten it to this day.

[@Larry]

Most excellent retrospective Kim, Kudos!!!

[@gregd3344]

Always a treat watching your content

[@nulsh331]

This was top. Thanks as ever for these stories!

[@Everstar08]

Yeah! Another fantastic and enlightening vid from my favourite youtuber! Thanx, Kim!

[@tonyp3824]

Love it, Kim. Keep up the good work.

[@ThePerradox]

Excellent video KIm 👍

[@Nolasco.]

Love your videos Kim. Thank you so much for your hard work 😁👍

[@hardcore8uk]

Nice 1 KJ , another great docu-vid !!!

[@kjd9634]

Cheers mate, stumbled across your page a few months ago and really enjoy your content.

[@AgNoSticPope666]

Great stuff as always!

[@JD.78]

Excellent in depth video Kim. I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Cheers.

[@BastichB64K]

Excellent look at a company I knew little about besides playing Nodes , Robin and Heartland . Great informative video thx 👍👍

[@Gylve81]

Thank you Kim. You are the best!

[@SweetStevieAaron]

Another good video. Have you thought about doing a full video on the infamous Harry Price? I’d be interested at least.

[@RobVespa]

Great video! This is so nice. Love hearing more about the people in the industry in the days of yore. It seems like it was the wild west.

[@curiousmatt]

Great video. Interesting to hear some different pronunciations. I've always known "Yesod" to be pronounced "Yes-odd" like the in-game speech says at the menu screen.

[@PigDogBay]

Excellent video, looking forward to the text adventures. Going fire up Level 9’s Version of Colossal Cave adventure on my beeb.

[@JustJamie1983]

Cheers Kim

[@Kousaburo]

I wish I was a Speccy kid. The 4 colour display is much more appealing to me now than the cold grays of the C64.

[@peterhaynes1433]

Thanks Kim 😁

[@punisher007ish]

No way man Birkenhead is about ten mins from where I live and I totally get that reference. That's mad

[@RespectTheLogos3]

Great video on the unsung hero of the Speccy era Odin! Now I’m waiting for videos on Rare Ltd, Mastertronic, Quicksilva, Millennium (Guerilla Cambridge), Argonaut, Hewson Consultants, Virgin Interactive, Elite Systems, Reflections and DMA Design

[@colinthomson7518]

this was brilliant

[@markpotter8280]

You got me thinking all these years I have pronounced it nodes of yes-od but now I'm thinking perhaps it is nodes of ye-sod. However, it is pronounced it's a great game and another great video thanks Kim😃

[@GaryMc0705]

Kim saying it wrong. It’s Yezod

[@mattshark7665]

Me remembering going to Stairways in the late 90’s early 2000’s 😂

[@techkev140]

I don't recall if you mentioned about Nodes of Yesod, but... in reverse Yesod spells... dosey. On NoY. I thought the 48K guitar music was superior to the 128K AY chip music. It was technically way better, although it could not be played during the game play. Both Robin of the Wood and Nodes of Yesod featured some of the best audio Spectrum games have ever produced with the humble beeper. For those that don't know, the beeper is the single tone speaker that all ZX Spectrums have. The music was so good, my best friend tracked me down one evening at my sisters and played it over the phone to me. It really was that good, really, ground breaking feat.

[@hotdogsoup-nl]

Yay! Odin was my fav speccy games studio!

[@anactualmotherbear]

When The Wind Blows... good lord... HOW.

[@b213videoz]

Robin of the Wood, it took me over 30 years to complete their masteriece of a game

[@katieblackmore2004]

The thing i loved and found so great about the Spectrum, was the fact that every game seemed to be made by people on an acid trip..... I mean Manic Miner, Jet set Willy, Sabre wulf..... many more, the sprites and enemies in that are ridiculous yet absolutely fantastic. I wish somehow Xbox would release 200 plus spectrum games on the Series Consoles..... People would buy them. I'd love to have Ant Attack, Death Chase, Penetrator, Turbo Esprit, Jet Set, Manic Minor, Howzat, Match Day.... So many games could be put in a bundle.

[@GregDaniel78]

35:03 So *exactly* as vicious as Delta then ;)

[@faenethlorhalien]

A new long form documentary! HUZZAH!!

[@alexstokoe2542]

I definitely get a vague feeling that the original ToeJam and Earl may have taken some inspiration from the Robin Hood game...

[@JeVoudrais12]

I wonder if Kim will ever cover Elite Software

[@RoseWaltz]

the end music if beautiful! what game is that from?

[@freakishuproar1168]

6:25 It might just be because I've been ill today and only got out of bed an hour ago, but I could swear there are two disembodied willies jumping around that level. If I'm hallucinating them, don't hesitate to let me know... ;p Fantastic video, as always Kim :D Also, if the next GTA game isn't set in a NWOBHM night club in Birkenhead than Rockstar are missing a trick.

[@garysmith1710]

Hey Kim I would be really interested to know more about the business side of the old arcades. Ive looked on KZbin to see if anyone has ever made a doco about this and cant find anything. Some of the things Ive always wondered - Was there a trade magazine for operators to see the latest releases ? What was the going rate to hire machines? Was there any operators that were interested in the games, or was it just a way to make money? Anecdotes about running arcades i.e getting some of those bulky machines in and out, things that went on in the arcades. Reckon there's a story to tell there ?

[@glemonsbhatkin514]

Hypaball on C64 has the best tune ever!!

[@zeprfrew]

It's magnificent. I loaded that game quite often at the time to enjoy that rumbling bass and smashing drum sound. I had the music running through my head as I watched this video.

[@nosferadu]

7:00 wait, what? Connecting a Currah, what's that? I played a bunch of Booty as a kid and never found this other game.

[@darkfalzx]

What a shame Nodes of Yesod 30th anniversary is an AppleTV exclusive that never made it onto PC/Steam. Would've been a blast to play on a Steam Deck.

[@steve.wetherill]

I did complete a 64-bit version of Nodes for the iPhone, even localized into 4 languages, but then sadly ran out of steam before the whole rigamarole of submitting it to the App Store. One of many projects relegated to the great to-do list of life.

[@blatherskite3009]

Contracting to make 10 games in 1 year was insane. That's about 5 weeks per game, which is the kind of dev-time people had to make 4 Kilobytes of Atari 2600 game, so that's about the standard and complexity you'd have to expect. But 10 all-new full-price games to stand alongside Yesod and Robin? Not a prayer. I'm kinda surprised the business side of things was so naive back then, on both sides.

[@LoverBoy-im7xv]

I love the way mxs looks. Review more mxs games. Maybe Maze Of Galius.

[@LoverBoy-im7xv]

Oh, these are Zed X. Cool, looks good too.

[@EskeAndersen]

The C64 tune in the background in the beginning of this video - what game is that from?

[@Kim_Justice]

That's from the original 'Alien' game.

[@iainqblank]

What is the game @0:18? It gave me a flashback

[@djsquibby]

Cool vid ;)_~