Durell Software Ltd.

Chain Reaction

Chain Reaction

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1988

The Anti-Nuclear Party are up to their old tricks again. They have decided to infiltrate a nuclear power station and programmed the robots to empty the containment vault and attack all scientists inside it. To make matters worse, the entire facility will self-destruct in fifty minutes. As one of the scientists that survived the onslaught, the player must prevent this from happening by collecting eighteen fuel canisters scattered around all seven floors of the facility and disposing of them in the pit that lies at the center of the first floor, but only one canister can be carried at a time. If the player comes into contact with any of the robots, their radiation level increases. Once the player becomes totally contaminated, they will die. There are decontamination showers around the facility, and entering them reduces their radiation level. Players are also equipped with a jet-pack that can be used to fly over dangerous areas.
Combat Lynx

Combat Lynx

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1984

A semi-realistic helicopter battle game, viewed from behind. Allied bases must be protected from air and land attacks, and soldiers transported between them. The Combat Lynx is equipped with various weapons, including mines and heat-seeking missiles. A map enables the player to keep track of enemy forces. Includes various difficulty levels.
Critical Mass

Critical Mass

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1985

Mankind has spread throughout the solar system into vast colonies, which are under alien threat. The bad guys have anti-matter machines capable of destroying the planets' power source. You must destroy these before they can reach Critical Mass. Your journey involves travelling primarily to the east, in a hovering craft. It is rotated with left and right movements, and accelerated with forward motion. Laser and shield strength are limited and monitored on screen. Use them wisely, as hostile aliens and mines line the route. Get shot down and you re-emerge with a jet pack, now directed to the bay which can give you a new craft. The force-field gates near the power planets are guarded by turrets which must be shot down. The mission then boils down the insides of the plant, which must be destroyed before its tractor beam has sucked you into the core.
Dam Buster

Dam Buster

Camputers Lynx - Released - 1983

Dam Buster (also released as Dam Busters) is a side view single screen game where you are a pilot from the 617 Squadron in World War II, where your mission is to destroy various dams using a bouncing bomb. Your plane is flying at the top of the screen moving from left to right and reappears back on the left of the screen when it reaches the right side. One of the dams is on the bottom of the screen with the water on the left and you have to fly low and at the right speed to drop the bomb so it will bounce towards the dam and settle at the base of the dam before exploding. Below the water is a green bar which is the drop zone and the bomb can only be released over this. A flak gun on the top of the dam and the right of the dam fire diagonally upwards and you must avoid the flak and not hit the dam either or you lose one of three lives.
Deep Strike

Deep Strike

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1986

Deep Strike is set in World War 2, and you form part of a squadron attempting a dangerous mission of destroying a Nazi fuel depot. Your fighter plane is armed with guns; a team of bombers are out there with you, with one always in front. Initially you will face a few planes flying towards you. red planes shoot at you, and later there are black 'suicide planes' which aim to take you down Kamikaze style, and 'Blue Max' planes which are extra-tough. After the first minute or so another challenge is added, in the shape of hills to fly around or over. After this, you reach the bombing zone, in which you guide the bombers behind you and instruct them which sites to bomb. The game is viewed from the cockpit, with displays telling you of how much damage you and the bomber have taken, and whether you are steering in the right direction. A map is build in. The controls can be set in two ways, for 'up' on the joystick either equaling 'move upwards' or 'dive' (as on a real plane).
Deep Strike

Deep Strike

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1986

Deep Strike is set in World War 2, and you form part of a squadron attempting a dangerous mission of destroying a Nazi fuel depot. Your fighter plane is armed with guns; a team of bombers are out there with you, with one always in front. Initially you will face a few planes flying towards you. red planes shoot at you, and later there are black 'suicide planes' which aim to take you down Kamikaze style, and 'Blue Max' planes which are extra-tough. After the first minute or so another challenge is added, in the shape of hills to fly around or over. After this, you reach the bombing zone, in which you guide the bombers behind you and instruct them which sites to bomb. The game is viewed from the cockpit, with displays telling you of how much damage you and the bomber have taken, and whether you are steering in the right direction. A map is build in. The controls can be set in two ways, for 'up' on the joystick either equaling 'move upwards' or 'dive' (as on a real plane).
Durell Big 4

Durell Big 4

Commodore 64 - Released - 1987

Compilation of 4 games from Durrell Software, the games included are: • Combat Lynx • Critical Mass • Saboteur • Turbo Esprit
Fat Worm Blows a Sparky

Fat Worm Blows a Sparky

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1986

Fat Worm is locked inside a Spectrum's architecture, and is looking for a disk drive, in order to produce a clone of himself, which he presumably will Write Once and Read Many. He moves around the arrangement of chips, processors and boards, with the aim of finding his way through. On the way he will encounter bugs (of the insectoid type) which must be shot at, by 'blowing a sparkie' - releasing a bolt of electrical energy. Mines and impact shots can both be fired. Contact with these bugs causes them to jump on you, gradually slowing your movement and sappoing your energy. You must collect spindles in order to get rid of them.
Harrier Attack!

Harrier Attack!

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1983

The player controls a Sea Harrier fighter, looking sideways onto a right-to-left scrolling seascape and landscape. The aim of the game is to take off from a carrier, attack ships and land targets, avoid the odd missile and enemy fighter, then land back on the carrier again. Although the game was a work of fiction, it was inspired by the 1982 Falklands War, in which the Sea Harrier had played a major role. One interesting little quirk to the game was that, it was possible to bomb your own ship as you took off from it. If you did this, when you returned it would no longer be there (having sunk, presumably) and being unable to land on it your plane would just continue flying until it ran out of fuel and crashed. Durell managed to get the executable size down to just under 9 kilobytes, which allowed for a fast loading time from cassette. The game sold over 250,000 copies in total.
Roland Goes Square Bashing

Roland Goes Square Bashing

Amstrad CPC - Released - 1984

A logic puzzle game in the popular Roland game series. In this game Roland looks a little more square and squashed than usual but he has a very square job to accomplish, as the goal of the game is to visit each square in the game area just a single time as they start to dissolve as soon as you step on them. So you have a short period of time to determine the path that will get you to every square and then you have to do it with a quickness or go falling into space. It isn't exactly Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying but it ramps up to a pretty good challenge.
Saboteur

Saboteur

Commodore Plus 4 - Released - 1986

Saboteur combines platform, beat 'em up and stealth elements, setting you as a lone samurai trying to infiltrate an enemy complex. You are capable of all manner of ninja-style moves including kicks and punches, as well as using weaponry. You must travel through an underground complex linked mainly by platforms and ladders, before triggering a bomb and escaping the complex. Your energy recharges if you stay still, so finding areas free of guards (kill these for money) and dogs (avoid them; killing them gains you nothing) is useful, especially as you only have one life. There's plenty of object manipulation involved, although only one item can ever be carried at a time.
Saboteur II

Saboteur II

MS-DOS - Released - 1987

The ninja hero of the original Saboteur game has been killed, and his sister Nina is out to avenge this injustice. She has an array of kung-fu moves on offer, and must put them to use through 700 screens of action. The game design is very similar to the original, right down to the unusual background graphical style. The sections of the game are on multiple levels, separated mainly by ladders, and with lots of weapons and ammunition to pick up along the way. To beat the game you'll have to collect tapes and collect a 14-part computer code.
Scuba Dive

Scuba Dive

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1983

The aim of the game was simple yet unique. Starting with three divers (lives) on a motor boat you were to drop into the deep blue and gather underwater riches such as pearls and treasure. Nothing like this had been released on the ZX Spectrum before, a game based around wet suit shenanigans was totally original. Controlling your sprite was a little tricky at first, but once you got the hang of it you would be moving through the underwater caverns with the grace of Shelly Winters. Well nearly. You could rotate your character clockwise or anti-clockwise then 'swim' in the direction you were facing. Acceleration to full speed took a couple of seconds (realistic) as did slowing down to a halt (again, realistic). It was up to you to collect pearls from oyster shells (which would open and shut, timing to swoop in and nab the pearl was key), and to locate lost treasure (but only in the deepest parts of the underwater cavern). There were hazards to avoid in the water such as sharks, jellyfish, eels and giant octupus. Colliding with any of these would take away one of your lives and lose all three and it was game over.
Scuba Dive

Scuba Dive

Oric Atmos - Released - 1984

Take on the role of a fearless pearl diver, as you plunge into the unknown ocean depths! You'll be swimming with sharks, squid, jellyfish and all manner of strange and deadly creatures. When you find a clam, wait for its shell to open, then swoop down and grab your prize! Descend further, to find larger clams with bigger pearls. And if you go deeper still, you may find cave systems with ancient treasures to be taken. That is, if your oxygen holds out and you can get past the waving tentacles of the octopuses which guard these forbidden places! Once you've taken as much as you can find, you'll have to make it back to the surface. Climb aboard your boat, offload your booty, then strap on a fresh oxygen tank and take to the waters once more.
Sigma 7

Sigma 7

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Released - 1987

The space station Sigma 7 has a problem: all robots have gone havoc. Now the player has to set things right by using the central controls inside the station - but of course it is not that easy. He first have to solve three levels with different gameplay mechanics: The first is a diagonally scrolling shooter which plays very basic: don't getting hit by the mines which come in formations of three. It is best to shoot them, however, because surviving mines may come back from the side, which is deadly. After reaching the station, the game becomes a Pac-Man variant. In a maze-like field the player needs to pick up glowing balls on the floor without being touched by the enemies. But there are two important differences: the player controls a tank, i.e. he can shoot the foes, and he doesn't have to pick up all balls. If he got enough, he can simply use the exit. However, a few balls can't be picked up and the pattern needs to be remembered, During the last mini game the player gets presented with a panel of buttons. He bounces a ball on those buttons to recreate the pattern from before. He needs to look after a force field which follows the ball's movements - touching it results in losing a life. The buttons also flash in different colours and the bouncing only gets registered when the right colour is active. After finishing this level the game loops with faster enemies.
Sigma 7

Sigma 7

Commodore 64 - Released - 1986

The space station Sigma 7 has a problem: all robots have gone havoc. Now the player has to set things right by using the central controls inside the station - but of course it is not that easy. He first have to solve three levels with different gameplay mechanics: The first is a diagonally scrolling shooter which plays very basic: don't getting hit by the mines which come in formations of three. It is best to shoot them, however, because surviving mines may come back from the side, which is deadly. After reaching the station, the game becomes a Pac-Man variant. In a maze-like field the player needs to pick up glowing balls on the floor without being touched by the enemies. But there are two important differences: the player controls a tank, i.e. he can shoot the foes, and he doesn't have to pick up all balls. If he got enough, he can simply use the exit. However, a few balls can't be picked up and the pattern needs to be remembered, During the last mini game the player gets presented with a panel of buttons. He bounces a ball on those buttons to recreate the pattern from before. He needs to look after a force field which follows the ball's movements - touching it results in losing a life. The buttons also flash in different colours and the bouncing only gets registered when the right colour is active. After finishing this level the game loops with faster enemies.
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