Ludography
Cassette 50 cover

1983 · Arcade · Pinball

Cassette 50

Cassette 50 is a compilation of 50 games that was released for a variety of 8-bit home computers, albeit with different selections of games on different computers. The majority of games within the collection were programmed in BASIC and are widely considered to be of poor quality.

Released
1983
Platforms
Acorn ElectronAmstrad CPCApple IIAtari 8-bitBBC Microcomputer SystemCommodore 64Commodore C64/128/MAXCommodore VIC-20Dragon 32/64Sinclair ZX81ZX Spectrum
Genres
ArcadePinballPuzzleShooter
Developers
—
Publishers
Cascade Games
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Bird view / IsometricSide viewText
Country
United Kingdom

About

Cassette 50 (released in Spain as Galaxy 50 - 50 Excitantes Juegos) is a compilation of games published by Cascade Games in 1983 for multiple 8-bit home computers. It was promoted based on the quantity of games included, all of which were programmed in BASIC and were of poor quality. According to the instructions, "the games will provide many hours of entertainment for all the family at a fraction of the cost of other computer games". The compilation was heavily advertised in home computer magazines. Buyers received a Timex digital calculator watch with each purchase.

In an interview, Matthew Lewis, the author of Galaxy Defence, said he wrote the game when he was 14 and submitted it in response to a small, anonymous ad in a local newspaper. He was paid £10 for his game, but he had to give up all rights to it. Galaxy Defence took 12 hours to code and the graphics were done by his father, Ernest Lewis.

Keywords

  • breakout/arkanoid clone
  • space invaders clone
  • pac-man clone
  • game collection

Media

Cassette 50 screenshot 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Reception

The games, almost without exception written in BASIC, were deemed to be of poor quality. They have been described as "so bad it caused physical discomfort", "beyond awful", and "a piece of crap collection". The poor quality of the games inspired the annual Crap Games Competitions (for example the comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition and the C64 Crap Game Compo) and a now-defunct site reviewing bad games.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
ZX Spectrum31 December 1983Europe

Games like this

Collections2 collections

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.