Retrospective - Sensible Software

Before Traveller's Tales or Creative Assembly, the top British game developers were Rare and Sensible Software. Sensible, in particular, is a perfect British example of the 'American Dream' -- a company founded by two failed musicians that went on to make some of the best games in history. Today, Adam Montgomery takes a look back at the history of Sensible Software, from humble beginnings to meteoric rise and eventual collapse.

It was 1985 and Hamsterfish had failed.

Jon Hare and Chris Yate’s rock band was a flop, and they needed real jobs to pay the rent. Jon, a talented artist, and Chris, a skilled programmer, decided to pursue their interest in videogames, and found employment with LT Software.

It wasn’t a glamorous job, but the friends were working together, and learned a lot while producing two ZX Spectrum games in their time there: Sordov the Sorcerer and Twister.

Taking what they learned from their nine-month stay at LT, the pair broke away and formed their own company. Sensible Software was born.

The two-man team immediately set to work on Parallax for the Commodore 64, which won them a £1000 deal with Ocean Publishing, and became Sensible’s first success.

Wizball was their next project, and it was named “Game of the Decade” by Zzap 64 magazine, which was a huge accolade. The company was establishing a reputation for high-quality software, and Wizball was just the beginning.

More critical acclaim was heaped upon Sensible with the release of Shoot-Em Up Construction Kit, a revolutionary title which allowed players to produce games without any programming knowledge at all.

In 1988, well-known game music composer Martin Galway joined Hare and Yate at Sensible, and that summer, the three-man company released Microprose Soccer, which was hailed as the sport’s finest simulation to date. The sport theme continued with International 3D Tennis, which became one of their final projects for the C64.

Jon and Chris now found themselves leading a profitable, reputable company. It was a meteoric rise since joining LT Software as college-dropouts, but their success hadn’t peaked yet.

In 1990, Galway left to join Origin Software in the United States, but his departure didn’t slow Sensible’s growth. Armed with confidence and an established reputation, the company left the 8-bit machines behind and made the leap to the more powerful Amiga and Atari ST. They also took a break from the sport genre to work on two of their most original products: Mega-Lo-Mania and Wizkid. The former was a well-received simulation of a God’s struggle for dominance, and the latter was a platformer which continued the narrative of their earlier hit, Wizball, despite being of a wildly different gameplay style.

Sensible Soccer marked the company's return to sports and was released to a roar of critical acclaim. It was an instant classic, and spent an incredible 50 weeks atop the charts. It eclipsed Microprose Soccer to become the greatest football game of all time, although you would only realise this if you played the 1.1 version of the game as the original 1.0 release suffered greatly from many gameplay bugs.

With numerous updates and ports of Sensible Soccer selling in huge numbers, the company next produced the social commentary Cannon Fodder, which was greeted with critical acclaim, but was also accompanied by controversy centred on the poppy-adorned game box. Detractors also (wrongly) claimed the game glorified warfare, when in truth it was a satire of those that engaged in such conflict. Despite such negative coverage, the game was a success; but it would be the company's last.

Sensible’s new IP’s beyond this point met with disaster, including the disappointing Sensible Golf. The company explored new concepts with the game Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll (likely a reference to Chris and Jon’s days in Hamsterfish) but support for the project was pulled due to the game’s controversial themes. Development of a PlayStation project named Have a Nice Day met a similar end as it collapsed under the weight of technical issues the company faced when moving to the new 3-D format.

At this point, Sensible’s owners were looking for a way to bow out gracefully, and their wish was granted when veteran UK publisher Codemasters bought them out in 1999. Jon Hare has maintained a close working relationship with Codemasters ever since, designing many games for them including updates of Sensible Soccer for the PlayStation, Cannon Fodder for the Gameboy Color, and a recently updated Sensible World of Soccer for Xbox Live Arcade.

And that’s all, folks. That’s the story of Sensible Software, the British gaming giant, in a nutshell. Their unique graphical style, light-hearted comedy undertones, and design genius still resonate in the games of today, but the name itself is sadly unknown to many modern gamers.

As someone who loved their games as a lad, I offer a “thank you” to Sensible.