Mosaic Publishing

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Mosaic Publishing
legal form unlisted corporation
founding 1983
resolution 1987
Seat London (UK)
management Vicky Carne

Mosaic Publishing was a British publisher of computer games. The company, based in the London borough of Islington , published games from external studios for home computers that were popular at the time. The majority of the Mosaic games are part of the adventure genre , especially the text adventure . Many of the games are licensed from popular contemporary books and television series.

history

The company was founded in 1983 by Vicky Carne, who previously worked for Sinclair Browne, the publisher of computer pioneer Clive Sinclair , and at Dobson Books in London. Her business idea was the publication of book-based computer games and the bundling of games and book editions. This principle had recently become popular in the USA, and Carne coined the term "bookware", which was common in the industry in the 1980s, and was the first company to have short stories and novellas written, which were printed and enclosed in the game packaging to deepen the gaming experience were. Through her publishing activities, Carne easily came into contact with her well-known literary agent, but at the time there was no legal basis in Great Britain for the licensing of books for use as game software. Mosaic Publishing pioneered this. A significant commercial success for the company was the adventure The Unorthodox Engineers: The Pen and the Dark , based on a short story by Colin Kapp , as Carne was able to sign a contract for this with a book club belonging to WHSmith , which was able to subscribe to the title for four years used the case of not ordering another game. Over 20,000 units were sold in this way. In 1984 Mosaic published a book, Beyond the Arcade: Adventures and War Games on Your Computer by author Nicholas Palmer. Also in 1984 there was a fruitful collaboration with the West English studio Level 9 , which had made a name for itself with self-written text adventures. Mosaic took on the licensing of the book templates, and Level 9 created three text adventures for the publisher as commissioned work. The first of these titles, The Saga of Erik the Viking , was based on an award-winning children's book by Monty Python member Terry Jones , which resulted in the game being used in British junior schools for eight- to twelve-year-olds and generating huge sales. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ , published in 1985 , based on a youth novel by the writer Sue Townsend , pursued a new control approach: Instead of having player inputs analyzed by a parser , the player was presented with several given options, as in a game book , and their choice branch the plot. This flattening of the interaction was intended to open up target groups for whom the previously common text adventures were too complicated. Thanks to this concept developed by Vicky Carne and Level 9 co-founder Pete Austin and a contract with Commodore , who delivered the game as a package together with the C64 in the 1985 Christmas season, The Secret Diary was able to sell over 100,000 units, making it the largest economic success of the company. As the successor to The Secret Diary , a conversion of the television series Coronation Street was under discussion, but due to the limited graphic possibilities of the home computers of the time, a television series was decided on adequately, but a radio series was chosen: The Archers is based on the eponymous series Series of the BBC and was implemented again by Level 9; the script was written by the radio series editor, William Smethurst. In 1987 a follow-up to The Secret Diary , The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole , was also an adaptation of a novel, but Mosaic only published the versions for the less popular systems BBC Micro and MSX; the versions for higher-volume systems like the C64 were made by Virgin Games . At the same time, an implementation of the novel The Story of the Amulet by Edith Nesbit , created by RamJam Corporation, was to appear, but The Growing Pains remained the last game published by Mosaic.

In the mid-1990s, Vicky Carne founded the mail order company Business Books Direct and in 2000, together with Mike and Pete Austin from Level 9, the communications service provider Email Reaction, of which she was still managing director as of 2016. She also works as a dog trainer.

Published games (selection)

year title genre Systems Studio annotation
1984 The Unorthodox Engineers: The Pen and the Dark Text adventure BBC Micro, C64, ZX Spectrum Keith Campbell Realization of the short story of the same name by Colin Kapp
1984 The Width of the World Text adventure ZX Spectrum Simon Gould Realization of the short story of the same name by Ian Watson
1984 Nomad of Time Text adventure C64 Shards software Realization of the novel Zeitnomaden by Michael Moorcock
1984 In the Beginning ... skill C64 Humphrey Walwyn
1984 The Saga of Erik the Viking Text adventure BBC Micro, C64, Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum Level 9 Realization of the children's book of the same name by Terry Jones
1984 The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World Text adventure C64, ZX Spectrum Shards software Realization of the novel of the same name by Harry Harrison
1985 The Snow Queen Text adventure C64, ZX Spectrum St. Bride's School
1985 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ CYOA Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, C64, MSX, Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum Level 9 Realization of the youth book of the same name by Sue Townsend
1986 Twice shy Text adventure Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum RamJam Corporation Realization of the novel false start by Dick Francis
1986 The Archers CYOA Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, MSX, Schneider CPC, Schneider PCW, ZX Spectrum Level 9 Realization of the radio series The Archers
1987 Yes, Prime Minister simulation BBC Micro, Commodore 64, DOS, Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum Oxford Digital Enterprises Realization of the TV series of the same name
1987 The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole CYOA BBC Micro, MSX Level 9 Realization of the youth book of the same name by Sue Townsend

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Filfre.net: Bookware. Retrieved September 25, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Retro Gamer # 12, January 2005, p. 41
  3. ^ SolutionArchive.com: Keith Campbell - musings of an adventure guru. Retrieved September 21, 2016 .
  4. ^ Thomas A. Christie: The Spectrum of Adventure . Extremis Publishing, Stirling 2016, ISBN 978-0-9934932-1-8 , pp. 86 .
  5. ↑ Popular Computing Weekly Vol. 4 No. March 13, 1986, p. 5: Mosaic computerises The Archers. Retrieved October 30, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Computer + Video Games # 056, June 1986, p. 85
  7. ↑ Bloomberg.com: Company Overview of Email Reaction Ltd. Retrieved September 21, 2016 .
  8. ↑ LinkedIn.com: Vicky Carne. Retrieved September 21, 2016 .