Sooty and Sweep 2 (C64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Atari)

1992 Alternative Software

Platforms: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari, Amstrad CPC

Back in the day, my Commodore Format magazine used to have an ‘Early Warning Scanner’ with games that were coming soon for the C64. On there for a while was Sooty and Sweep 2, but it never really moved and nothing more was shown in magazines. I assumed it was vapourware.

Roughly around 2009, Dean Hickingbottom got in touch to reveal that Clockwize were the team working on both Sooty 2 and Thomas 2 for Alternative. Neither got released due to a dispute with Alternative, even though bizarrely they were both finished for C64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad and Atari. Inlays were even produced too.

“The games were written in 1990 when Clockwize had moved to an ‘office’ in the town.” explained Dean. “It was really just one big long room that had once been a dance studio. The Alternative budget titles that we did were usually just based around a title that was given to us such as ‘Punch And Judy’ and the design was up to us. Sooty 2, I think was one of those and David Bradley came up with the design.”

In addition, it was the first time the team were asked to create Atari versions of both games, with Clockwize producing a special PDS-to-Atari interface so that they could develop for it.

“David Bradley designed Sooty 2.” continued Dean. “Jeremy Fowler worked on the ZX version which he then converted to the CPC. The graphics are re-coloured ZX graphics, which I created. I can’t remember exactly who started coding the CBM version – it might have been Keith and maybe he also originally ported it to the Atari, but certainly Dave finished both versions off.

At some point, probably during early testing, the game deviated from Dave’s spec because when we were playing it, we’d realised that one character was doing most of the work so we decided to swap the water pistol from one character to another – to try to even it out. We supplied Alternative with demo versions of both games. However, they didn’t agree with the changes made to Sooty 2.”

At the time, Clockwize was struggling and hitting cash flow issues (as well as other problems). Eventually, everything just ground to a halt and Keith went off into business on his own according to Dean. Alternative however still wanted the games, so Dave, Jeremy and Dean setup the hardware back at home to do all the modifications and Alternative wanted.

“With Sooty 2, Jeremy and I worked on the CPC and ZX changes and Dave on the CBM and Atari.” explained Dean. “Dave fixed and improved the CBM version but the Atari proved to be tricky as we had no source code – it had gone with Keith. So Dave disassembled a binary of the Atari code that we did have, somehow matched it up with the CBM source and essentially rebuilt the game so we could carry on with the job. I reworked the player graphics which were actually created on the Spectrum.”

By sometime in 1992, the final master makers were created for Sooty 2, but some dispute still remained with Alternative over something relating to the game (which cannot now be recalled), and so none of the conversions would ever see the light of day.

After many years, thankfully Dean still had final versions of the game and backed the C64 and Spectrum editions up – however, neither TZX Vault (ZX Spectrum) or Games That Weren’t (C64) were able to release anything of them. However, that today all changes. We have finally been given permission by Alternative to put out the games across all platforms – but the lack of a CPC and Atari version of both games meant there was still work to be done.

Games That Weren’t was given a large box of Alternative materials in late 2025, and within was the Amstrad CPC master build makers on 3″ disks. These have been preserved, and a proper tape image created. Dean also dug out the Atari editions of Sooty 2 and kindly backed these up as well, and finally passed over the ZX Spectrum builds that he had created way back in 2009.

And as a result, here we are – the complete version of Sooty and Sweep 2 for all platforms! But the bonus is that there is not just 1 version, but two quite different builds. An earlier C64 edition by Keith was not quite good enough, so it was redone by Dave and Dean, and both versions are here for you to check out. There were also character changes with who carried the water pistol etc.

We hope you enjoy going through them all and checking out titles that children should have been buying and enjoying back in 1991/92!

With a huge thank you to Dean Hickingbottom, Andy Barker, Darren Melbourne and Steve Brown (TZX Vault) for all their help and input.