An interesting title for our next entry, which was part of what seemed to be a popular time for horse themed games that appeared in the early to mid 1980’s.
Show Jumping was advertised by Alligata Software in 1986, but it seems only very briefly before it completely disappeared. The Spectrum edition did however surface.
The reason the game has come mainly to our attention, is that the music that Rob Hubbard produced (now known as Mozart in HVSC) – originally thought to be the original tune for the Harvey Smith Showjumper game, but was in fact intended for the Alligata Show Jumping game. So it was not canned due to the licence issue it seems, especially when you see that the ZX Spectrum version does feature Rob’s music.
Stadium 64 has a page on the game, which indicates that it was actually a re-release of the 1984 CRL game potentially, but this doesn’t contain any of Rob’s music. There is a possibility that maybe the CRL was brought out instead due to an issue with the newly developed game perhaps? The CRL game doesn’t seem to look anything like what Code Monkeys produced on the Spectrum, so we’re not 100% certain the games are linked
When speaking to David Palmer back in 2007, he had this to say …
“Yes, Mike Mahoney was developing a Show Jumping game in 1986, I was just about to leave at the time and start Alternative Software. One of the reasons I left Alligata was because games such as this were very Niche market aimed at girls (who did not play video games, not in sufficient quantity to be financially worth while at least). Mike had all daughters and this was to me NOT a good reason to develop a game. I do know a tremendous amount of effort was put into the horse animations.”
Was Mike overseeing a new development, or was he coding? Very likely the former. Interestingly in 2007, Steven Green popped up and suggested that he had composed music for the game. Already Steven’s music for Commando (which was tightly packed for memory constraints) was dropped in favour of Rob Hubbard’s music and dropping some levels. Did the same happen for Show Jumping?
Seems like there are plenty of mysteries to try and solve with this game – hopefully time will tell what really happened! For now, check out Rob’s music intended for the game!
Contributions: Steppe/HVSC, Chris Abbott
Supporting content
Available downloads
Gallery
Update history
14/12/23 – Overhaul of page and fixed credits and date.
