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Back in 1991 I received one of the greatest Christmas gifts of all, a Commodore 64 home computer. I adored that machine and I adored the magazine I collected alongside it, namely Commodore Format. Through that computer I met a chap named Colin who would go on to be one of my closest friends. He was a long-time reader of Format’s rival, Zzap! 64 and we’d take plenty of well-meaning jabs at each other’s favourite magazine over the next few years. (Actually, this continues to this day.) For the blog I now find myself buying my first copy of Zzap.

In the summer of 1987 the OiNK computer game would be released on the three main 8-bit computer systems of the day, the Commodore 64, the Spectrum range and Amstrad CPCs. I must’ve seen the adverts for it in the comic but having no interest in computer games at that stage it slipped my mind by the time I was loading up cassettes and disks at the beginning of the next decade. Over these next few months on the blog I’ll be covering this unique piece of piggy merchandise, showing you previews, interviews, a review and more. It’ll even include a special issue of OiNK!

The first mention of the game came in issue 26 of Zzap! 64, released on this day 35 years ago. Inside the June 1987 issue the preview followed an interview with none other than Douglas Adams, which was a bit of a scoop! But I digress. The article contained a look at the origins of the comic itself and, unlike modern day press reference to OiNK, it’s an accurate depiction of those events (in other words there’s no mention of Viz). There are also some interesting nuggets of information for seasoned pig pals and a cameo by Marc Riley in his Snatcher Sam guise.

There’s a mention of the original idea for the comic being that of a fanzine, so unsure were Patrick Gallagher, Tony Husband and Mark Rodgers of whether a publisher would pick it up, which is new information to me. However, when the dummy issue was produced (a lot of which made its way into the preview issue) it went down a storm with IPC Magazines and our favourite publication was born. Also here is the first mention of the forthcoming OiNK record and a quick mention of the original flexidisc being played on a local radio station (we already knew John Peel played it on his BBC show).

Here’s the article in full, the opening paragraphs of which do beg the question of how many times can you mention Whizzer and Chips?

As OiNK fans who played the game will attest, the finished product had little-to-nothing to do with the individual characters it was meant to represent. There were some comic panels in it written by Tony Husband to try to bring a bit of the comic’s humour to the game, but that was really about it. As such, the general consensus seems to be that the game sucked because of its lack of OiNK content, but is this actually an unfair conclusion? You’ll find out in a couple of months when Zzap! 64 reviews it.

Already on the blog you can check out a Retro Gamer article featuring an interview with the game’s coder Jon Williams. There’s more to come, including a special issue of OiNK inside Crash magazine, which also had a special article and an extra page from none other than Frank Sidebottom, so look out for that on Saturday 25th June 2022. Then just a few weeks later I’ll show you the Zzap! 64 review of the game to see how it was received at the time, on Saturday 9th July. Later in the year I’ll tell you how I was finally able to play the game decades later when it was released under a completely different name, plus there’ll be a full guide to beating the game. These both relate to Commodore Format and in keeping with the real time nature of the blog I’ll be covering those issues on Thursday 13th October and Thursday 10th November.

THE OiNK! COMPUTER GAME MENU

OiNK MERCHANDiSE MENU

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On the surface this magazine might seem a strange addition to the blog but there is method to my madness. A pig pal by the name of David Crookes has been able to score a chat with Jon Williams, the coder of the OiNK computer game released back in 1987. This was set to appear in #221 of Retro Gamer and I’ve now got my trotters on it. UPDATE: Over a year later, and with the magazine no longer available, this post has been updated with the complete OiNK article and a full break down of the mag’s contents.

The article itself is only two pages but does include some insider knowledge and screenshots for anyone not familiar with this particular piece of OiNK merchandise. Sadly, it begins with that well-trodden myth that OiNK was created as a children’s version of Viz, which is simply not true. OiNK was created in response to the tired humour of other comics, to create something for the kids of the 80s, with Mad Magazine influencing some of the potential ideas. That particular publication will pop back up again further down this post.

The piece also says that our three editors, Patrick Gallagher, Tony Husband and Mark Rodgers approached CRL to make a game for them but as we’ve learned in previews in contemporary magazines (Crash and Zzap!64) it was the other way around. I could be nitpicking here of course (also, the contributors were brought on to OiNK before it was given the go ahead so they could make a dummy issue) and the bulk of this article is actually quite interesting, focusing on a chat with the game’s creator, Jon Williams.

What’s clear from reading this is how Jon was completely unfamiliar with the comic, which is fair enough, those working on licenced games didn’t necessarily have to know the property. However, CRL providing a few photocopies isn’t a great amount of research and the ideas sound more like those for a generic game about comics rather than anything pertaining to a specific licence. It’s interesting to read how it all came to be but it does seem to back up the notion from pig pals that it was an OiNK game in name only.

It seems the game came first and the licence was an afterthought

A small budget was given to its creation so, music aside, it was fully coded by Jon which was not a rare occurrence for the time. (The ‘Ian’ mentioned is Ian Ellery of CRL, although his surname and position aren’t printed here.) When it came to designing the game it wasn’t a matter of researching OiNK’s characters and trying to create something original around them. Instead, rather disappointingly Jon wanted to make a Breakout clone and a copy of an earlier game of his and saw this as his opportunity, shoe-horning OiNK into them instead. Only the Rubbish Man mini-game in any way resembles the character, but all of the humour, stinky super powers and random villains are nowhere to be seen.

This feels like a wasted opportunity. OiNK had such an anarchic sense of humour, ripe for a crazy, original game like the Monty Python one released on the Commodore 64 just a few years later which took the best elements of that show and created something unique around them. But instead it seems the game came first and the licence was an afterthought. Again, this feeling when playing a licenced game wasn’t uncommon in the 80s and 90s.

However, Jon should be commended for creating a game (actually, three games in one) in such a short period of time and the interview really is rather interesting with details about the start-stop nature of its development, the rush to get it completed with that tiny budget and the shortcuts he had to take which inevitably had a impact on the finished product. I was surprised to read much more input from the comic’s team had apparently been promised at the outset, although this was unfortunately pared back when things fell behind schedule.

Some of the revelations here make me want to tear my hair out

As a former obsessive with the Commodore 64 I found the technical aspects mentioned alongside some of the design documents fascinating. The game was originally created for my old home computer with the conversions for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC computers handled by other people based on Jon’s code. This does beg the question why a Spectrum magazine was the one to give away a free OiNK comic (Crash) and not a C64 publication (like Zzap!64).

While some of the revelations here make me want to tear my hair out (we could’ve had a game more closely associated with the comic, there was little real research done, the programmer just wanted to create a specific game and used our licence to do so) it’s always interesting as an OiNK fan to find out more behind-the-scenes information about my favourite comic and any related merchandise.

By sheer coincidence the feature right before the OiNK article might also be of interest to readers of our piggy publication. It’s an in-depth look at the creation of the Spy Vs Spy games based on a hit comic strip from Mad Magazine, which as I said earlier was one of the influences cited by the creators of OiNK. I have very fond memories of playing all three of these games in the early 90s with my friend and only many years later finding out it was based on a comic.

Elsewhere there’s one more little link to OiNK hidden away in a great interview with Violet Berlin, who I used to watch on Bad Influence on UTV and Gamepad on Bravo. Yes, that’s our very own Frank Sidebottom aka Chris Sievey popping up on one of Violet’s earliest shows! If you’d like to read any of these extra features, or maybe you’re just an OiNK completist like me, you can contact Future Publishing for Retro Gamer #221 via the Future shop, although you’re more likely to find it on eBay.

Towards the back of the issue is a list of all the main games covered and the average prices they can go for if you’re interested in picking up the OiNK game on the C64, the ZX Spectrum or Amstrad CPC machines, if you happen to own one. There’s more on the OiNK computer game elsewhere on the blog, including the previews from Crash and Zzap!64, that special edition of OiNK, Zzap!’s review of the game, Your Sinclair’s review as well, a look at when its name was later changed and even some tips for completing it!