FRGR #18: Ski Jump International trilogy (PD/Ville Könönen, 1994-2000)

Lartzan Skijump (1994-1996)
Written by Ville Könönen
Graphics by Mikko Aalto and Janne Heinonen

Ski Jump International 2 (1997-1998)
Concept, design, programming, graphics, music, the works: Ville Könönen
Additional Programming: Mikko Aalto and Janne Heinonen
Additional Art: Johannes Lahti, Simo Virokannas, Toni Välitorppa

Ski Jump International 3 (2000-2011)
Concept, design, programming, graphics, webpages and what not: Ville Könönen
Additional programming and graphics: Lasse Makkonen
Account managers: Morten Indahl and Stas Szczurek
Also a throng of people credited for translations and beta testing.

The first game was released as freeware, and the latter two games as shareware for MS-DOS based PC's.

(NOTE: The picture for the floppy disk was found through an article on Matti Nykänen, written and published in 2019 on the Guardian's Sportblog, for which the picture was found through Shutterstock.)

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INTRODUCTION

Because the Finnish Retro Game Reviews series has mainly focused on games from the 1980's and a little into the early 1990's, there hasn't been much of a chance to talk about all the amazing Finnish PC games before things started taking a more commercial turn. To me, my absolute favourite era of Finnish game development is still the mid-1990's, when eager hobbyist programmers did all sorts of non-sensical and often inappropriate DOS games with little focus on anything other than humour. This time period did produce plenty of higher quality games, too, such as Slicks 'n' Slide, which I did write about at length as an earlier FRGR entry, as well as Mine Bombers, Ultimate Tapan Kaikki and Pro Pilkki, just to name a few, and the Ski Jump trilogy - regardless of its humble beginnings - belongs to this top tier group.

YouTube update: My Nostalgia Trip Games' season 7 ends with a bang!

Yes indeed, and for a reason too, because it just so happens, that the final episode of this season was the 100th episode of the series, so I had to think of something properly extravagant and different from the usual. So, I decided to make an episode dedicated almost entirely on the graphical adventure games by Sierra On-Line, because I realized, it didn't really matter, which platform they were ever played on, they would always be equally nostalgic for me. And I suspect, for many of you, as well.

In all likelyhood, My Nostalgia Trip Games will continue the usual pattern again come next February, unless something drastic and unexpected happens. Until then, enjoy this little monster of an episode!

Hunchback II: Quasimodo's Revenge (Ocean Software, 1984)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum version:
Written by Paul Owens and Mike Webb.
Published by Ocean Software in 1984.

Amstrad CPC version:
Programming by Simon Cobb
Graphics by Jonathan M. Smith
Music by Martin Galway
Published by Ocean Software in 1985.

Commodore 64 version:
Programming by Tony Pomfret
Graphics by Bill Barna
Music by Martin Galway
Published by Ocean Software in 1985.

Loading screen by Frederick David Thorpe.
Cover art by Bob Wakelin.

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GAME STATUS

Back in 2022, I wrote a comparison of the original Hunchback, whereupon I touched the subject of other games featuring Quasimodo, the protagonist, and mentioned that a comparison of Hunchback II might be coming up sometime in the not too distant future. Well, that future is now, at the 41th anniversary of the release of the first sequel to Hunchback, which was only ever released for the usual trio of 8-bit computers. Oddly enough, this is the first comparison of a game starting with the letter H since the first Hunchback. Go figure.

The Great Escape (Ocean Software, 1986)

Designed and written for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by John Heap.

Amstrad CPC version by James Software Ltd.

Commodore 64 version by Denton Designs:
Programming by Trevor Inns; Graphics by Trevor Inns and Steve Wahid.

All the above versions released in Europe by Ocean Software in 1986, and the C64 version released in North America by Thunder Mountain in 1986. Also released as "Escape" in Germany.

Enterprise 128 version also released by Ocean Software in 1986, but no details are known.

IBM-PC conversion by Malcolm J. Herd for Denton Designs, and published by Ocean and Thunder Mountain in 1987.

Unofficial Atari 400/800 conversion based on the C64 release written and released to
public domain in 2015.
Programming by Mariusz Wojcieszek
Loading screen and graphics by José Pereira
Title screen by Filippo Santellocco
Music by Marek Pešout
Sound effects by Bartlomiej Wieczorkowski

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

In further attempt at bringing more balance out of the C64 reign on this blog, I decided to take a deeper look at The Great Escape, which was among the first games I ever had for my own C64. Because at the time, I was disappointed in the game being black-and-white, slow and almost soundless, I never really got to enjoy the game for what it does offer. Later on, I have become to appreciate the design choices, but I have yet to fully understand what makes The Great Escape tick. So, this is also an attempt at finally getting my head around and into the game that is considered a classic by many.

Mr. Wimpy: The Hamburger Game (Ocean Software, 1983)

Acorn BBC Micro version written by Richard Kay.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum version written by Paul Owens.
The BBC Micro and Spectrum versions were published by Ocean in 1983.

Commodore 64 version written by David Selwood.
Tangerine Oric 1/Atmos version written by John Woods.
C64 and Oric versions were published by Ocean in 1984.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

It's time for another Ocean-themed October, and because the previous entry went so badly awry in terms of bringing balance to the blog, I decided to bring in another game from the early 80's with Mr. Wimpy - a game largely based on Data East's classic BurgerTime, acting as a promotional device for the Wimpy fast-food restaurant chain. Whether this might actually bring more balance or not, remains to be seen.

TWO-FER #28: Zeppelin Games from the 1990's!

AMERICAN 3D POOL

Commodore 64 version:
Programming and graphics by Stephen Walters; Music by Thomas Mogensen. Published by Zeppelin Games in 1991.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum version:
Programming by Andrew J. Richards; Graphics by David "Tink" Taylor. Published by Zeppelin Games in 1992.

SLEEPWALKER

Commodore 64 version:
Programming by David Sowerby; Graphics by Neil Hislop; Music by Andrew Rodger. Published by Zeppelin Games in 1991.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum version:
Programming by John Carlyle and Steven Turner; Graphics by Clive Thompson. Published by Zeppelin Games in 1992.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS, PLURAL

To bring some more 1990's games into the blog's archive, I had to think of something really out of the ordinary to make an interesting two-fer, and eventually came up with another publisher that had not been featured too many times on the blog. Eventually, I found two games from Zeppelin Games that were both released in 1991/92, that would fit a two-for-one comparison entry nicely, particularly as Sleepwalker and American 3D Pool couldn't be much more different from each other. Not a high profile publisher by any means, but they do have some interesting titles, these two included.

UpDaTeS sChMuPdAtEs...

As much as I would have wanted to continue doing comparisons, I had to resort to doing this quick Updates entry because of one rather considerable and inconvenient reason. One of my external hard drives broke down completely all of a sudden, without it having taken any physical damage or anything of the sort, and this particular hard drive had most of my work files for FRGCB's YouTube material (along with plenty of irreplaceable work-in-progress music stuff and videos), so I'm only able to finish this season of My Nostalgia Trip Games, before having to redo all my previous plans. Right now, I'm trying to salvage things from my other USB hard drives, which are even older, and on surface, in an even worse condition than the one that broke down, so it'll take a week or two before I'm able to put all my usual focus on blogging and making videos. So, just to get something out to get this month started, I took the time to do this Updates entry to mention a few previously undocumented game things worth mentioning, some of them quite recent, too.

First off, some of you might have noticed from the comparison of IK+ having been updated a few days ago, that the retro gaming YouTube channel WORG - World of Retro Gaming - has given permission to link their comparison videos to my text comparisons, whenever possible. This means FRGCB is now collaborating with five different YouTube channels: WORG, Gaming History Source, Theshadowsnose, mikroman01 (the Mikroview series) and Retrocore. Thanks again to each of you for the permissions, if you're reading! ;)

Now, for the actual game updates that have been waiting to be done. As far as I've been able to dig into the blog's past, I can only update four entries now, but it's all better than nothing, so let's get on to them.