Release date(s) 1990 Initial release date 1990 Designer Michael Batty Mode Single-player video game | Genre(s) Maze game Developer Michael Batty Publisher Your Sinclair Platform ZX Spectrum | |
Similar Maze games, Other games | ||
Earth Shaker is an maze game released in 1990 by First Star Software Inc. Published as a cover tape on Your Sinclair (for the ZX Spectrum 48k). Notable in being the first covertape to subjectively set a high standard, having been initially rejected by publishers Zeppelin because of First Star's suing of companies publishing Boulder Dash clones.
Development
Originally conceived as a Boulder Dash clone, Michael Batty, but its scope grew through a long development process:
"I started Earth Shaker about 4 years before it appeared in Your Sinclair. A Boulder Dash clone seemed like a reasonably easy thing to program. I thought Boulder Dash was great and played it for ages. I'm still fascinated by the way you can get such complicated behaviour and realistic avalanches by using a few simple rules. Earth Shaker just grew - I kept leaving it and going back to it. But it was the first machine code game I managed to actually finish."