Super Robin Hood is a 1986 platform game developed by brothers Andrew and Philip Oliver and published by Codemasters as a budget title for home computers in the United Kingdom. Based on the folklore of Robin Hood, the game takes place in the Sheriff of Nottingham's castle where Maid Marian is held captive. The player controls the eponymous hero, encountering enemies and navigating through the castle's ladders and platforms to rescue Marian.
After graduating secondary school, the developers devised the game's concept to solicit publishers at the 1986 Personal Computer World Show. The Oliver twins met the Darling brothers, who had just founded Codemasters, at the trade event and struck a deal. Originally developed for Amstrad CPC computers, the game was ported to Commodore and Spectrum platforms soon after. Years later, the Oliver twins recreated the game for the Nintendo Entertainment System as part of their foray into the North American market. Issues with Nintendo delayed publication, however; it was eventually released in the Quattro Adventure compilation in 1993. Codemasters also ported the NES version to 16-bit home computers as Robin Hood: Legend Quest.
Video game publications praised Super Robin Hood for its value as a budget title while its gameplay and presentation received a mixed response. The game sold well enough for the Oliver twins, who received royalties per unit, to invest in their company and pursue video game development as a career. The success sparked a long time partnership with Codemasters. The Darling brothers immediately requested a second title; the twins reused the game's engine to create Ghost Hunters in 1987. While Robin Hood: Legend Quest received a better critical response, it did not sell as well in a home computer market that had begun to shrink.
Gameplay
Super Robin Hood is an action platform game in which the player navigates Robin Hood through the Sheriff of Nottingham's castle to rescue Maid Marian. The medieval castle, which is populated with enemies like archers and spiders, consists of a large labyrinthine space visually divided into several floors with moving platforms and ladders. The player navigates the castle via flip-screening, viewing a fixed screen-sized area at a time. In later versions, this was changed to a side-scrolling view of each floor. Collectable items within the castle consist of tablets, which replenish health, red hearts, which provide a point bonus, and keys, which activate platforms in the castle that allow further progress. The player must collect all the red hearts to be able to free Marian.
To traverse the castle, the player can make Robin walk, jump, climb, and duck. Enemies can be defeated by attacking with Robin's bow and arrows. The player earns points by defeating enemies and obtaining collectables. In the later re-release, each castle floor has a visual theme representing different areas. The lower dungeons have rocky walls whereas middle floors include castle spaces like banquet halls, living rooms, and bedchambers. The higher levels consists of fortified towers, including the final room where Maid Marian is held captive.
Development and release
During their secondary school years, Andrew and Philip Oliver had developed several video games as a hobby, some of which were published. After completing their Advanced Level examinations, the twins had committed to studying electrical engineering in higher education. During an advising meeting, however, the two expressed their desire to create computer games rather than pursue post-secondary education. The brothers' advisor, Terry Hall, recommended to their parents that the twins take a year off to "get it out of their system." Their parents, Malcolm and Jenny Oliver, agreed with the stipulation that Andrew and Philip aim to seriously operate as a business; their father, also stated they could forego college if the two could generate a successful income. Through the United Kingdom's Enterprise Allowance Scheme, the Oliver twins set up a company, Complex Computer Software, to develop video games.
Planning to attend the Personal Computer World trade show in September 1986, the pair began brainstorming ideas to pitch to publishers. Seeing the success of the 1984 Ghostbusters game, Andrew and Philip reasoned that a high profile name was needed in order to sell enough copies to have a sustainable business. Realising they could not afford to license anything, the twins thought of using the public domain Robin Hood character after watching the Robin of Sherwood TV show. Additionally, the character's folklore provided a basic plot. Building on the idea, they conceived a castle setting where the player rescues Maid Marian and steals the castle's riches. The brothers also reasoned that Robin's arrows would be more visible projectiles that allow for better gameplay interactions and have less "negative political baggage" than guns.
Andrew and Philip travelled to London to attend the Personal Computer World Show at the Olympia exhibition complex. They arranged meetings with several publishers to pitch their Robin Hood game and explored the convention centre to meet new publishers. Among those attending were Richard and David Darling, who after developing games for Mastertronic, founded their own publishing company: Codemasters. After showing the Darling brothers their portfolio, the Oliver twins presented their Robin Hood game designs and solicited an asking price. David Darling offered , which the twins described in retrospect as stunning compared to their previous programming earnings. Andrew and Philip verbally agreed and promised the game in a month in order to publish it ahead of the Christmas season.
The two programmed the game in their bedroom, sharing an Amstrad CPC 664 computer. To meet the deadline, the twins used the computer 23 hours a day every day of the week, taking two 30 minute breaks daily to prevent the computer from overheating. Both brothers adopted a schedule with partially overlapped 18 hour shifts that included eating while they worked and writing code on paper when the other was using the computer. To expedite the development, the twins used Panda Sprites, a graphical software package they had recently created, to quickly draw game sprites that could be imported into their game programme.
Inspired by the 1982 Monsters and 1983 Chuckie Egg on the BBC Micro, the brothers implemented a side-view game design involving ladders and platforms. Unsure how big to make the game's castle, they fit as many rooms as the available memory could hold and then created a map editor to place various sprites into the map. The two would adjust the locations of the sprites to improve the gameplay and saved the map data as they designed the castle. This process allowed them to create a playable prototype that they could easily update and expand. To encourage exploration, the pair omitted linear progression via levels in order to allow the player to move freely around the map. They felt the backtracking emulated a maze and extended the gameplay. A health gauge was added to reduce the number of times the character dies; the health mechanic also provided motivation to search for health tablets in the castle.
The pair's neighbourhood friend, Jon Paul Eldridge, provided audio for the game. Eldridge had learned to code with Andrew and Paul growing up; he eventually branched off to write music and sound effects for video games. After the Oliver twins heard his work, the three began to collaborate on projects. Andrew and Philip included voice synthesis in the game to make it stand out, which was advertised on the cover art. Their mother recorded the lines for Maid Marian at their home. She recited the phrases into a microphone connected to the pair's computer.
When the two brought the finished game to Codemasters, the Darling brothers reacted positively; however, they offered a contract different from the verbal agreement a month ago: a first production run of 20,000 units with a payment of 13.5p per copy sold. While initially disappointed, the Oliver twins still consider it a good deal and signed the publishing contract. Codemasters then published the game within a fortnight in November 1986. The Darling brothers added "Super" to the title to "spice it up a bit;" the Oliver twins believed it made the title feel more special. Nigel Fletcher designed the cassette J-card as well as the cover artwork. As part of its "budget-game" marketing strategy, the company included four game screenshots on the back cover to provide customers an accurate preview.
Codemasters then ported the game to the Spectrum and Commodore 64 platforms. The Oliver twins received an additional 5p per copy sold of the ports. The pair began developing their next game, Ghost Hunters, while other programmers were hired to convert Super Robin Hood. Mark Baldock converted the game to Spectrum computers. David Whittaker handled the audio. Codemasters later re-released Super Robin Hood on a compilation CD for Spectrum and Commodore computers in 1990. In 1993, it was included in another Codemasters anthology, Smash 16 Arcade Hits. Decades later, the game was made available on the Antstream Arcade gaming platform. The ZX Spectrum port was released first in March 2021; the Commodore 64 version followed later.
Nintendo Entertainment System remake
Codemasters had signed a distribution deal with Canadian company Camerica to sell Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) titles in the United States and Canada; as a result, Codemasters needed games to release. The twins saw the North American region as an untapped market and began releasing several games on the console as part of the deal. Although they began developing for the console late into the system's lifecycle, the brothers continued NES development because of the newfound success.
In 1991, they decided to recreate Super Robin Hood for the NES. They believed making another Nintendo title would be quick based on their experience coding Fantastic Dizzy the year before. As their life circumstances had changed, however, development took longer than anticipated and lasted from September 1991 through April 1992. Additional motivation was that NES development costs were lower than switching to 16-bit systems and they liked the console's anti-piracy features. Furthermore, the Oliver twins felt comfortable with the NES's hardware, which uses a custom 8-bit 6502 chip, because they had experience working with the 6502 microprocessor from developing Commodore 64 titles. The developers later said that the quality standard to meet was higher for NES games because they use cartridge media; replacing cartridges due to errors was cost prohibitive compared to cassette games.
The NES remake uses a 64kB ROM cartridge that includes 8kB RAM for redefining sets of graphics. The twins' development environment consisted of two 8086 computers with Programmer Development System (PDS) cards. Cables connected the PDS cards to special Codemasters NES Development Boards, which in turn were connected to retail NES consoles. The consoles were connected to a PAL and NTSC monitors to check compatibility with regional systems. The developers used a text editor and 6502 compiler on each computer to write the game's code. They used floppy disks to back up and transfer their work between the computers. To create the graphics, they used an Amiga 500 computer with Deluxe Paint III. Similar to the earlier version, the Oliver twins outsourced the game audio as they did not have a musical background. Allister Brimble created ten music tracks and over 20 sound effects based on the brothers' specifications. Gavin Raeburn wrote the music driver, which they used for all their NES games.