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Australian Video Game History Documentary Seeks Community Support

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Australia’s video game development history is set to take centre stage in Region Locked, an upcoming documentary series aiming to explore the untold stories behind Australian-developed video games and the people who created them.

According to the project’s creators, the documentary will delve into the rise of Australia’s game development scene during the 1980s and 1990s, featuring stories from developers, publishers and industry pioneers who helped put Australian-made games on the global map.

The team behind Region Locked says interviews are planned with creators connected to classic titles including The Hobbit and Way of the Exploding Fist, alongside a broader look at the challenges, innovations and successes that shaped the local industry. The documentary also intends to highlight the role of Australian studios such as Beam Software during a formative period of gaming history.

To help bring the project to life, the creators have launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign and are seeking support from the Australian gaming community.

For retro gaming enthusiasts, preservation of gaming history is an important part of ensuring the stories behind the games are not lost to time. A documentary focused on Australia’s contribution to video game development could provide an interesting look back at a significant chapter of our local gaming heritage.

Interested readers can learn more about the project and its crowdfunding campaign via the project’s Kickstarter page:

👉 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/regionlocked-doco/region-locked/

Disclaimer

Ausretrogamer has not been involved in the production, development, or funding of Region Locked and cannot independently verify all claims made by the project’s creators. This article is provided for informational purposes only. As with any crowdfunding campaign, readers should conduct their own research and carefully consider the risks before making a financial contribution.

The Tainted Recreated ZX Spectrum

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There are some crowd-funded projects that have a sordid and tainted history, like the darn Atari GameBand watch that never eventuated (Ed: we got burnt by that one!). Then there is Elite Systems’ Recreated ZX Spectrum (aka: Bluetooth ZX Spectrum), which was successfully funded on February 1, 2014 (via Kickstarter), but since then it has been nothing but heartache. Fast forward 8+ years and there are backers that have yet to receive their rubber-keyed beast. Back in 2016, Eurogamer documented the plight of this troubled campaign, which leaves us deflated even now, with the knowledge that another retro-inspired project had become a dumpster fire.

When we recently were donated a swag of retro goodies, amongst the absolute gold was a shiny ZX Spectrum which we thought looked brand new! There was a reason it looked brand new, it was indeed the elusive (and quite tainted) Recreated ZX Spectrum keyboard! Upon inspecting this recreation, we were quite impressed with its build and its close resemblance to the real deal from Sinclair. But that is where the good impressions stopped. This is nothing more than a glorified Bluetooth keyboard which you actually can’t even use as a keyboard as it sends ‘op codes’ when trying to use it on Windows, Android and iOS. It has an A and B layer switch, with A putting the keyboard into game mode and selecting B setting it to keyboard mode – but it doesn’t!

Surprisingly, the Recreated ZX Spectrum companion app is still available on the Google Play and iTunes stores, with a load of ‘free’ games to play. We eventually paired it to our Galaxy Tab and played Chuckie Egg. The experience was somewhat gimmicky, as using the keyboard to control Hen-House Harry proved to be sub-standard, with the keys feeling mushy or not responsive without a heavy push. We are still stunned that this made it in the donation we received and we must admit, we feel dirty about it.

Don’t even bother pairing it with Windows – it is useless!

The underside gives it away – it is or trying to imitate a classic Sinclair computer!

The only major switch on the back is the Layer A and B – which switches between game (control) or keyboard mode

The only redeeming feature (if we can even say that!) is we played Chuckie Egg on the companion Android app!