N is for Not a Follow-up!

As a sort of [pretty tenuous] follow-up to the last post, and the mention of Crong, I'm posting something which was already in the queue, but isn't coming in the order I'd like it to, and doesn't tell all the story, but hopefully still of some use to some Loyal Readers!

 

Donated by a friend of the blog who prefers not to be named, but occasionally comes up with little treasures, Battle Knights by Feva UK, is one of the more recent iterations of a carpet 'wargame', commonly known as Crossbows and Catapults (Tomy, Base Toys, Action GT, Zatu, et al), but also having iterations as Weapons & Warriors (Pressman), and Battground (Moose), which has been around since the 1980's.

 

The originals have produced several generations of two figures, a small squat fantasy figure (Doomlords of Gulch) in a putty-coloured polymer, and a sort of Hollywood Viking/Barbarian type (the Impalers of the Clannic Shelf), in various shades of brown or ginger, which we have seen, in various mixed/plunder/donation posts over the years, but which I haven't posted-on, formally, yet as my main sample has always been in storage.

 

The Pressman version changed the dynamic slightly, with press-pads instead of loose walls, and other innovations have tried to make it more fun or keep it relevant to new generations of electronically-distracted kids, here it's spring-loading. Pressman also changed the figures, to medieval types (Castle Storm), along with a pirate version (Pirate Clash), both also seen here, in past mixed-lots/shots. 

 

This Feva version adds mounted figures, and they are the unknown figures from the Crong post (the tentative link being used here!), although this set has green bases. The foot figures are scale-downs of the Pressman set, and I now think they are all Games Workshop knock-offs?

 

 Other useful bits!

A couple of banner-flags (or pennants?) missing 

 

Could be useful, but would need work to hide the nature of the balls or discs all these sets fire at each other, the oversized culverin for instance has quite an Elastolin look to it . . . fill in the hole and give it an antiquing, with washes and dry-brushing?

These turn-up in every junk-lot on evilBay, the Supreme medieval knock-off's from several brands have versions of them, and there have been large bow-like ballistas and larger cannon, but they'd all need a lot of effort to get realistic-looking.

 

As a Brucey Bonus, these are the Moose Toys figures from the other more recent iteration, Battleground Crossbows & Catapults, and were also a donation, I think from Graham Apperley, but hidden in a PW plunder-post a few years ago.

 

Smaller at around 25mm (the Feva are 30'ish, the older sets closer to 35 (C&C) or 40mm (W&W)) and a soft PVC, against Crossbows' polyethylene/propylenes and Weapons' polystyrene. It's quite a franchise, with many US and foreign-language/foreign-market sets, and worth a proper study, which will appear here one day!

T is for Today in History! The AI History of House Martin Games!

My question to the AI results page of Google Search; 

"History of House Martin games?"

Google's Answer; 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  

There are no games made by a company called "House Martin Games." The query likely refers to Housemarque, a Finnish video game developer acquired by Sony in 2021

.

 

The history of Housemarque can be summarized by its transition from indie arcade-style games to big-budget "AAA" titles like Returnal, its deep relationship with PlayStation, and its beginnings as a pair of companies started by former demoscene developers. 

Origins in the Finnish demoscene

• Early days (1993–1995): The company was formed from the merger of two of Finland's first commercial game developers, Bloodhouse and Terramarque, which were founded in 1993. Both companies were led by veterans of the country's "demoscene" and worked on titles for Amiga and PC.
• Formation of Housemarque (1995): The two companies merged to become Housemarque in July 1995. The studio's early projects included Super Stardust (1996) and The Reap (1997).
• First million-seller (1999): The studio achieved commercial success with Supreme Snowboarding (released in North America as Boarder Zone), a title for PC and Game Boy Color that sold over 1.5 million copies. 

PlayStation partnership and the "arcade is dead" era

• Sony collaboration: Beginning in 2007, Housemarque developed a close relationship with Sony Interactive Entertainment, creating a series of well-received downloadable games, most of which were PlayStation exclusives.
• Arcade-style hits: These exclusive titles included:
  • Super Stardust HD (2007)
  • Dead Nation (2010)
  • Resogun (2013), a PlayStation 4 launch title
  • Alienation (2016)
  • Nex Machina (2017)
• Struggles and a new direction (2017–2020): Despite critical acclaim, these arcade-style games were not commercially successful enough for the studio to remain financially stable. Following the release of Nex Machina, Housemarque announced that it was abandoning the arcade genre to focus on a larger, more ambitious "AAA" project. 

• 
  

Returnal and acquisition by Sony

• Returnal development (2020): After three years in pre-production, Housemarque's new project was revealed as Returnal, a third-person, story-driven roguelike. It was created specifically for the PlayStation 5, allowing the studio to utilize the console's unique features, such as the DualSense controller.
• Critical and commercial success (2021): Returnal launched in April 2021 to glowing reviews and strong sales. It demonstrated the studio's ability to transition from smaller-scale titles to a cinematic "AAA" experience while retaining its signature focus on tight, arcade-inspired gameplay.
• Acquired by Sony (2021): The success of Returnal led Sony to acquire Housemarque in June 2021, making the developer part of PlayStation Studios.
• Future projects (2026): Housemarque announced its next title, Saros, during a February 2025 State of Play event. It is scheduled for release in 2026 and is described as a spiritual successor to Returnal. 

• 
  

AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more

• Housemarque - Wikipedia

  Housemarque. ... Housemarque Oy (or Housemarque Inc.) is a Finnish video game developer based in Helsinki. The company was founded...

  

  Wikipedia

• 

Show all

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

 

My supplementary;

 

"Do you realise how incredibly false and inaccurate your answer is? House Martin were probably Britain's third largest games issuer at one point after Waddington's and Spears, and their products are listed all over eBay and Etsy."

 

Google's response;

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  

 

Thinking...

 

Kicking off 5 searches

Looking at 45 sites

Getting info from

Shopping

 

Putting it all together

You are correct. The previous response was inaccurate and confused two different companies: the British board game manufacturer House-Martin, and the Finnish video game developer Housemarque

. My apologies for this error. 

 

House-Martin was a genuine, but far smaller, UK-based board game manufacturer known for its vintage editions of classic parlour games and wooden sets, not a major game issuer on the scale of Waddingtons or Spears. They have been defunct since at least the 1990s, and the availability of their games on sites like eBay and Etsy reflects their status as vintage and collectible items. 

 

Here is an accurate history of House-Martin:

Focus on classic games

• House-Martin specialized in manufacturing and issuing traditional board and parlour games, particularly chess, backgammon, and draughts.
• Their games are often distinguished by their high-quality wooden pieces and presentation, which makes them popular with vintage collectors today

 

•  The History of Housemarque – from the Finnish Demoscene to ...
• 27 Mar 2022 — The History of Housemarque – from the Finnish Demoscene to PlayStation Studios. ... How Finland's longest-running game .

•  

PlayStation.Blog

Company - Housemarque

COMPANY. Founded in 1995, Housemarque is an award winning game development studio with the goal of creating memorable game experie...

 

 

Housemarque

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's utter determination to return to Housemarque, even after correcting itself and apologising, probably has more to do with Millions (in Yen, possibly billions with a 'B') of advertising revenue from Sony Corp.

AI is dismantling human civilisation, with a drip-drip-drip feed of monetised bollocks!

B is for Blow Job!

No! You can't even begin to pretend, you don't think it wasn't going to happen one day, because you know it was, Blow Job has been inevitable, from the founding of the blog! I found this rather interesting item at Sandown Park a month ago, and here it is for Loyal Readers to enjoy!

 

House Martin's eponymous blow-football game, 'Blow Football', our draughs set was by House Martin, when we were kids, and I seem to recall them providing games for newsagents or corner-shops, more than the dedicated toys shops or department stores (who's toy departments were always small, outside the 4th quarter), but that might be a personal memory/conclusion, rather than the truth of the situation.

 

 

The interest being these two, not only are they better-quality sculpts of the commonly Hong Kong sports set, with the 'five-ring' circus logo of the Olympic movement, but the better quality suggests a better quality set of all of them, somewhere, were they premiums at one point, before Hong Kong got their hands on them?

 

There's a tube missing if each player is to have one, and it won't be easy to replace, exactly, without a second set of the same game, but you never know, and maybe it's already in the loose odd's Blow Football section, of the stash?

 

The obvious difference between this set and others with figures (not all Blow Football games have figures), is that there is no handle or means /instructions for affixing them to such, so either you hold and move 'the goalkeepers' with the other hand, or just place them in from of the goal, and hope they stop some shots? 

My memories are that after a while, saliva tended to come out of the end of the tubes, and I'd imagine Blow Football has become a bit persona non grata, in these post-covid times? I should add, that I thought I'd posted more of these, back in the early days of the Blog, I certainly have several, so we will have to have a better look another day, as I can't find them on the blog now? There should be a couple of Merit versions, a Gibson and/or Spears, and a couple of more modern/generic ones?

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

E is for Emergence Event

One of those many, many board-games, aimed at the adult members of sites like Boardgamegeek, I saw it going cheap, as many of these games do end-up, once the hype has settled, back in 2021, shot it, shoved the pictures in Picasa and forgot all about it!

 

I'll almost certainly never play it, and don't know anything about it, and in the grand scheme of things, it represents the straight-to-landfill waste of human endeavour, ingenuity and resources, which is one of many facets of the end of humanity event, we're currently living in! So . . . not much blurb! But it does have nice micro-spaceships, in plastic! Megacon Games - Emergence Event.

 

 Box art, half Jean Giraud (Moebius), half Frank Frazetta.

 

Half blokade-runner, far-far-away;

half Weyland-Yutani mining vessel, silently screaming.

 

Firefly 'Reaver' vessel,

or Harlock cruiser?

 

Babylon 5!

 

Romulan Warbird / Klingon Bird of Pray

 

Box full of bits!

 

By the time you've learnt the rules, you're bored with the game, and you've painted-up the playing pieces to go with your micro spacefleet stuff! Box ticked!

 

If you need more;

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/154857/emergence-event 

Thursday, September 11, 2025

E is for Eye Candy - Accoutrements, et al, 'Colorform' Aliens

Here's a daft thing . . . I posted these about a year and a half ago, while living in the previous flat, and it was cobbled together from Internet images and a couple of catalogue scans, when I had this image in Picasa all along, of my set, which I took in 2021!

So, to be viewed in context, here's the post to which they should have been included;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/04/c-is-for-colorforms-not.html

Saturday, September 6, 2025

S is for Shot at the Show

As I prepare for today's toy fair at Sandown Park, one of those dozen-odd dates which help the collecting year click over, here's a nice game I shot at last May's show, Spear's Games 'Targets in Space', a clockwork automated shooting game, which is almost a miniaturised fairground sideshow booth!

 

It's all about the artwork with these old things, isn't it?!

 

Reproduced on the inside with the far-distant sky, cut out for the target-wheel.

 

A large clock mainspring, behind the metal plate, is wound via the butterfly-nut.

 

 

Eight targets with variable scoring, not exactly random as you would learn the sequence!

But you could change the cards around occasionally.

 

Not the best image, but an old auction shot shows the rather futuristic, and robust sidearm, with pretty lethal-looking metal-shafted darts, used to achieve the task of blowing alien critter transports off the ring, or at least, folding them behind it, on their spring-clips! 

 

I love the spaceman, he's that classic Ajax/Archer type with the rubber ducting for stretchy knees and elbows! Cheers to Adrian Little for letting me shoot the other shots.

Thursday, March 13, 2025

F is for the Falcon Steam Pencil Works!

Not often we have a piece of Victoriana on here, so twice in one day, and another board game, is a bit special! I shot these on Adrian's table at one of the autumn shows, and it's a very unusual thing, as its primary purpose seems to be the promotion of pencils, despite being plaster figures.

 

Burglar & Bobbies, a lovely litho-print label which conjures-up Sherlock Holmes or James McLevy running about in the dark while some villain from the slums fires wildly into the night hoping to stop the chase!

 

Slush-cast from plaster of Paris, or possibly blank-de-moudon (it's quite hard) suitably painted, and not that big, maybe 55-mil for the Bobby and 60-odd for the burglar, I didn't measure them, but sort of standard chess-piece size!

 

The dimples in the centre were probably caused by a wooden dowel 'dibber', being used to push the material into the corners, such as there are, while the air-bubbles were being knocked or vibrated out?

 

There were five Bobbies and one burglar, so I think it's best described as a variation of Fox & Geese (or Pig and Mooses, as I believe they play in North America!), or Hare/Fox and Hounds, as far as the game-playing mechanism goes, but with a smaller playing area, vis-à-vis number of squares?

 

Given the age of the game - it's obviously older than 1952 - the 'Her Majesty,' must be Victoria? And I was clearly born decades after 'The Bank of England' pencils ceased to be a thing! E Wolff & Son, being the actual maker, or issuer?

 

Given the amount of mentions of pencils on both the box - outer and inner, and the paperwork, the feeling is that this was a promotional item, like the Seagram's Whisky game, and like that, might have been bought in, or at least the playing pieces would have been? Although, I think Falcon pencils were still around, when I was a kid?

 

I forgot to shoot the other side, which must have had the movement instructions! I have two good shots of this side, so I suspect I was distracted, and thought I'd tuned-it over when I went back to shoot the other side! Many thanks to Adrian for letting me shoot this.

Sunday, February 23, 2025

P is for Popup Games

Another new name encountered at the Toy Fair in Kensington back in January was Popup Games, a clever use of paper folding to produce games which can be taken with the players, mid-action, and carried on with at the other end [of the journey] by the simple expedient of opening the game up again, and finding the previous state of play popping-up, as it was left!

 

Ludus latrunculorum, latrunculi, or simply latrones ("the game of brigands", or "the game of soldiers" from latrunculus, diminutive of latro, mercenary or highwayman) was a two-player strategy board game played throughout the Roman Empire. It is said to resemble chess or draughts, as it is generally accepted to be a game of military tactics. Because of the scarcity of sources, reconstruction of the game's rules and basic structure is difficult, and therefore there are multiple interpretations of the available evidence.

 

- Wikipedia

Five Lines (Greek: πέντε γραμμαί, Romanized: pente grammai) is the modern name of an ancient Greek tables game. Two players each move five counters on a board with five lines, with moves likely determined by the roll of a die. The winner may have been the first one to place their pieces on the central "sacred line". No complete description of the game exists, but there have been several scholarly reconstructions, including Schädler's and Kidd's.

 

- Wikipedia

 

Tafl games, also known as Hnefatafl games, are a family of ancient Northern European strategy board games played on a chequered or latticed game board with two armies of uneven numbers.

 

- Wikipedia

As you can see from the Wiki' quotes, there is a pattern here, as well as being fold-away games, they are specialising in games which, while maybe not familiar to the man in the street, have been known to mankind for centuries, or millennia! I didn't see the Game of Ur, but it may only be a matter of time?

 

A more traditional game, instead of the playing pieces (which you will note were all figural), slotting down into a box-like structure, with the chess set, players get pieces with three-dimensional box-bases, where, provided one player keeps the boxes toward him and the other away, all will fold neatly, and tightly into the playing surface, at any point the game needs pausing.

 

Quite apart from the idea of folding games, and the plethora of ancient games re-imagined, there is also the ecological aspect of a 100% paper/card product, so I hope Popup Games do very well, and a couple of them rather reminded me of all those inter-war/post-war games like Tri-Tacktics and Dover Patrol.

 

Some pop-up retailers took the Popup URL a year earlier, so they can be found under the owners name, here;

https://www.hawcockbooks.co.uk/pop-up-games