Defunct 1987 Founded 1982 | Products Computer games Ceased operations 1987 | |
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Industry Computer and video games Headquarters North West England, United Kingdom | ||
English Software was a software developer and publisher in the 1980s based in Manchester, UK.
Contents
History
The company was set up in 1982 by Philip Morris, owner of Gemini Electronics computer store in Manchester, to release video games for the Atari 8-bit home computers. By the end of 1983, English Software was the largest producer of Atari 8-bit software in the UK and Morris closed Gemini Electronics to concentrate on English.
The company continued to concentrate on the Atari 8-bit market but also released games for other home computers including Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Amiga.
Notable popular games include platformers Jet-Boot Jack (1983) and Henry's House (1984), racer Elektra Glide (1985), the multi-event Knight Games (1986) and shoot 'em up Leviathan (1987).
English had licensing deals that saw some of their games released internationally e.g. through Dynamics Marketing in Germany and Datamost in the US. A number of English's games were sold at budget price by Mastertronic in the US, which included exclusive ports such as the Atari version of Henry's House and the PC version of Knight Games. Philip Morris said in 2013 he did not license the Atari version to Mastertronic UK, even though English Software had the option to do this. How they managed to publish it is a mystery.