Horror Drive is a really neat and promising 2 player split screen racer, with a top down viewpoint. Sort of like Rally Speedway, but with far smoother scrolling. The backgrounds are simple at this stage, but maybe more scenery was planned for the final game?
We don’t unfortunately know where this game has come from – it was cracked by a group called Horizon, so we assumed it may have been one of them that had produced the game. The title could also be made up as well, so it could be a tough one to try and get to the bottom of.
However, in April 2024 – Anonymous Contributor found a snippet in Swedish magazine Svenska Hemdatornytt (Swedish Home computer news), issue 9 1989, page 62. It had the story behind the game, and a general article on the history of Horizon as a group with the following about the game:
“The members of Horizon have also programmed games, their first game, Horror Drive, is still unsold and they have lost hope about selling it. But they hope their forthcoming game will sell better. I am taking the opportunity to do a bit of advertising for them, because these persons deserve it. If any game distributor reads this and is interested, write me a letter and I’ll forward it to the Horizon guys.”
This led to some possible credits, which we have listed above and hopefully this will help lead to more information about the title. We thought the game may have been done by Daniel Stenberg, who was Bagder / Horizon.
After getting in touch with Daniel, it was confirmed that it was he and Kjell Ericson behind the title, with Zagor behind the graphics. Kjell believes that they showed it to someone, but it was never finished. It seems this preview is as far as the game got overall, and it was missing things like sound for the high score board.
Also, Kjell had a memory that they needed to have things like oil on the road for the car to slip around, and people waving and when you run them over, you slip in their blood. Kjell also revealed that the name of the game came from the horror that occurred to the unlucky bystanders.
So this unfortunately is all that exists of the game, but at least you can see for yourself the promise of the title. It also means that we can close the case on the title, thanks to the contribution from the Anonymous Contributor, Daniel and Kjell.
Case closed!
Contributions: Anonymous Contributor, Archive.org
Supporting content
Available downloads
Gallery
Update history
16/04/24 – New information about the game.
