My Top 15 BBC Micro Games

Going back to my gaming roots here with my top 15 BBC Micro games. Enjoy!

This is my personal top 15, but I'd love to hear what your favourite games were.

[gibster]

Great list. Brought back a lot of good memories playing on my acorn electron. My favourites were chuckie egg, citadel and hunchback and the frogger clone. Can’t remember what it was called

[PaulnJenna]

Amazing memories.
I learnt to code on the BBC Micro at age 7. Taught myself from a book. I could code before I could even read lol.
At the time I didn’t have any games so had to make my own. Great times.

[thedarkknight]

I wanted either a Spectrum or C64, but my Dad said "Nope, you'll get what the schools are using", then we bought the Viglen PC Kit (made it look somewhat like a PC XT/AT, and installed 2 5.25 floppy drives). I also bought every copy of 'Input' magazine and thus the 4 binders to contain them, and lol, semi successfully programed and got working most of the 'input' programs.
Games wise? MANY were played...
- Thrust: HELL YEAH... excellent game.
- Elite: Yeah I did ok, until a friend of mine managed to get the cheat disk that allowed FULL weapons/armour/credits and such, and then spent hundreds of hours exploring, 'Kickin ass' and such... Good times!
- Chuckie egg: Hahaha you surely are bringing out the classics here!
- Mission Impossible: I played this on a mates C64... I THINK there was creepy speech in it too, "You'll stay (or something like that)
- Arkanoid: Oh God yeah, MANY hours on that one too!

What about Galaga? I chewed through MANY levels on that brilliant game! 😏🤣🤣
🦇😎🦇 🇬🇧

[RetroJack]

I remember the hardest game I ever played on the Beeb back on the day was called "Frak!" - it was a platformer where you played as a caveman with random missiles appearing from the sides of the screen. I'm pretty sure it was my first rage-quit!

[peterainsworth]

I was unwell for about a year so couldn't play outside in my school. I remember Chuckie Egg and Repton as a teacher was kind enough to set them up for me as something to do.

[BelaMadeira]

Who could forget, “Citatettal, Citatettal, Citatettal” lol. One of my favourites was a text adventure game called “Sphinx” which I played on my Electron. Thank you for the trip down memory lane!

[Discombobulated]

Wow that takes me back to my childhood

[pappachook]

That was an emotional rollercoaster down memory lane there.

[ayudatengopiedrasenlosrino]

2:09: 15. Thrust
2:53: 14. Blagger / Son of Blagger
3:33: 13. Elite
4:40: 12. Exile
5:42: 11. Killer Gorilla
6:11: 10. Chuckie Egg
7:01: 9. Repton
7:31: 8. Impossible Mission
8:36: 7. Daredevil Dennis
9:41: 6. Commando
10:46: 5. Palace of Magic
11:33: 4. Stryker's Run / Codename: Droid
12:38: 3. Citadel
13:42: 2. Arkanoid
14:53: 1. Imogen

[barrierichards]

I’m still amazed by how much fun can be had with 32k when you know no better. It also shows how wasteful programmers are today with seemingly endless memory.

[merkaba]

I'm happy to see Imogen take top spot, looking back it is definitely for me one of the most well-rounded and unique games on the system, and still a lot of fun to play today with its many simple puzzles and charming puns.

Citadel would have taken next spot for me at #2 (though if I ranked them at the time it would likely have taken first place!), that was an amazing adventure; it's a shame the late-game solution was so obtuse, requiring travelling through fake walls with no hints of their existence. A bizarre design choice there among an otherwise excellently put together challenge.

Number #3 for me would probably have been Castle Quest. Similar to Citadel, but smaller in scope and with more interesting interactions with enemies. But again, a ridiculously difficult, nay impossible, final puzzle to solve as you had to shoot a random brick with a wand to get the treasure. Another bizarre design choice, it's like these developers never wanted people to finish their games!

[mikeymike]

Hey there, I loved every penny of my £399.99 BBC micro model B.
Elite, holy guacamole batman, what a great game on a 32k computer, my all time favourite game, and Repton, played that to the death, along with spitfire and f1. Have to say you're right about collision detection, it was always perfect. All you're game picks are great, I can remember playing them all. Still have my beeb in the loft. 😀 👍 👍 👍

[liverush]

I'm 45 ( nearly 46 ) and a BBC Micro owner, yet I don't think that I've ever come across your number 1 pick. Fascinating.

[finnbedell]

I absolutely loved this, haven't seen these games since I was a kid in the 80s. Almost wept when I saw Citadel, Chuckie Egg and Repton, the screens are so familiar, even tho it's 30 years at least since I saw them. Thanks you.

[BlipITcom]

Starship Command (Acornsoft). Just about the right amount of predictability before the aliens attack, and that genius 'escape capsule' feature to add to the suspense.

[adamgmoney]

Chaos and Lazer squad on spectrum pure class

[Xesh]

As a kid we had a Beeb at home. What made it even better was that my stepdad was a computer science lecturer at Coventry & Lancaster polytechnic. He was able to get the 6502 and Z80 second processors as a part of his equipment for his lectures! Elite is amazing when played with the second processor.

Citadel is one of the few games on the Beeb that I actually finished.

Palace of Magic is actually the sequel to Citadel, hence the similarity between the two games.

[TheRetroShed]

Never had a Beeb back in the day but I do now. Love the system to bits. Just iconic! Great vid.

[richretrotech]

Absolutely love the bbc micro. Grew up with it in school and watched them on the bbc with the computer programme and micro live. Thanks for the video.

[johnsnowden]

Way back in the day I spent many an hour programming until 0400 in the morning on games we put out there at the time. Sad to say mine were text adventures, no graphical, when that happened I started to get left behind, and decided to follow another route. I still have a BBC32 and Master in the loft somewhere with the 5.5 floppy drive (dual, I was posh lol) along with some of the productions, Horror Castle, Shrinking Professor, were two, sold them through a company in Manchester at the time, might have been A&F software, not to sure. Great days long gone.