The first cricket video game created was back in 1985 when Audiogenic created Graham Gooch’s Test Cricket. It was played in dual mode: either simulation (where a user made a decision and the cricket was simulated) or in play mode (where a user actually played the game). The game was released on Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, C64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC & Amstrad PCW.
Two years later, the same company launched Graham Gooch’s All Star Cricket, which was released on both the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 systems.
The cricket video game industry continued to grow in the early 1990s as the world was drawn in by the switch to day-night cricket and coloured clothing in global tournaments, such as the 1992 World Cup.
Next came International Cricket in 1992, developed by Beam Software and published by Laser Beam Entertainment. It also had a multi-player format, which allowed up to two users to play simultaneously. It was developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Without access to licensing, particularly for player names, the cricket video game included placeholder names similar to a player’s real name. For example, Ian Healy was replaced by I Hilly in the actual game.
Not long after, Beam Software released sequels improving upon their original cricket video game, putting out the Super NES and Super International Cricket in 1994.
Next up in the series of blog posts is the set of cricket video games that initiated the move of the genre to mainstream development even without the ability to push these products to massive gaming markets in North America, Japan and Europe with baseball far more popular over cricket in these regions.