Ground Zero was yet another text adventure created in 1984 by Artic Computing. Advertised for the likes of the Spectrum and the Commodore 64 in various magazines, only the Spectrum version seems to have surfaced.
The C64 version is very much at large, or even missing completely as a result of never getting completed (Gamebase64 have an entry listed as missing). We’re not entirely sure why, as a text adventure is relatively simple to convert and there were the likes of the Quill and GAC available to do the job.
So what happened?… did the Spectrum version not sell very well?
Contributor Strident commented: “Ground Zero was a Quilled game on the Spectrum, so it should’ve been a very easy title to port across. It was actually produced originally by the author, independently of Artic.
Before its publication by Artic, the adventure’s author, former journalist Colin Smith apparently planned to sell his house to raise capital to launch the game. “I thought that participating in the game would bring home to people the horrors of nuclear war more powerfully than any film or book,” Colin explained to a reporter at the time, with the game intended to highlight what he considered the ‘inadequacies’ of the Government Protect and Survive civil defence scheme.”
At present, we don’t believe that Artic sold the C64 edition at all, suggesting that nothing was completed, but was something started at least?
Contributions: John Christian Lønningdal, Strident
(I think the images added to this entry should be for the other missing Ground Zero game?)
Ground Zero was a Quilled game on the Spectrum, so it should’ve been a very easy title to port across.
It was actually produced originally by the author, independently of Artic.
Before its publication by Artic, the adventure’s author, former journalist Colin Smith apparently planned to sell his house to raise capital to launch the game. “I thought that participating in the game would bring home to people the horrors of nuclear war more powerfully than any film or book,” Colin explained to a reporter at the time, with the game intended to highlight what he considered the ‘inadequacies’ of the Government Protect and Survive civil defence scheme.
Whoops, thanks! This must have happened during the old site migration back in 2012. All fixed and images now in the correct place.
I’ve also updated the page and added your comments into the main piece as well. Does seem strange that a conversion wasn’t done, so I do wonder if it was to do with poor sales.