SPECIAL: Mastertronic Exclusives

For many years, I've been thinking about writing about games by some of my favourite publishers that aren't particularly unique, and don't really fit in elsewhere because of their general nature of being kind of mediocre, but should probably be mentioned in some context anyway. So, finally, I figured I could replace the Unique Games series with a new one, and write just about games exclusively released on a certain platform by the chosen publisher (or perhaps include games that were only released on two very similar platforms), and since this month has been dedicated to Mastertronic games since 2020, what better time to start this new tradition, particularly as there's a Mastertronic book coming out later this year.

Milk Race (Mastertronic, 1987)

Developed by Icon Design Ltd.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum version by Phil Berry and Stuart Ruecroft.
Atari 8-bit version by Paul D. Marshall with music by Tony Williams.
Music for other versions by David Whittaker.
No other credits are known.

Published by Mastertronic for the Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, MSX and Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1987.

The C64 version was also re-released in North America as "Ten Speed" in 1988 by Mastertronic.

---

INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Another 1987 game from Mastertronic gets a comparison, but this time I chose Milk Race because of its sadly underutilised genre: cycling. I have always been a big fan of cycling in general, and racing bicycles and BMX bikes have rarely gotten the kind of high quality games they deserve. I'm not completely sure, whether Milk Race actually fits the bill, but at least it's one of the rare cycling games that can actually be made a comparison about.

The Island of Dr. Destructo (Mastertronic, 1987)

Developed by Clockwork Game Systems.
Amstrad and Spectrum versions written by Eugene Messina with graphics by David Lincoln-Howes.
C64 version written by Richard Aplin with music by David Whittaker.
Published through Mastertronic's Bulldog label in 1987.

---

INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

The third annual Mastertronic May starts with another rare example of an Amstrad original to be featured on the blog, which is also the first of Eugene Messina's only two 8-bit games ever created - the other one being the game included in Incentive Software's 3D Construction Kit; and the first of only four games he ever had a hand in. Rather neatly, it also brings a slightly different aspect to one of the most common occurences in 8-bit game comparisons, because these cases usually originate either on the C64 or the ZX Spectrum.