Rocman

Rocman is a 1986 ZX Spectrum record crediting the pairing of Magic Team and Alligata. Alligata Software was a British company from Sheffield that ranked among the busy publishers of home computer software in the first half of the eighties, while Magic Team is a name that left few traces in surviving sources.

1986 was one of the most prolific periods the Spectrum ever had. The machine was selling in enormous numbers, cassette games cost a fraction of console cartridges, and new titles arrived every week. For a small team that meant a game could be written, sold and released within a few months, but it also meant it could vanish into the flood of competition just as fast.

This entry lists neither a viewpoint nor a player count, which is common for cassette releases of the period. Contemporary covers and advertisements did not survive for every title, and catalogues have had to work with whatever remained on the tape itself.

This layer of history is the interesting one. Alongside the games still written about today, there were hundreds of titles released in a single run and remembered only by the people who bought them at the time. Without archives and emulation, nothing of them would remain at all.

The best way to find out what Rocman actually is comes down to trying it, and OldGame.cz launches it directly in the browser.