Nigel Alderton’s classic platformer started off life on the Spectrum but I’ve always associated it with the BBC Micro. Back at school we’d regularly use the computer for technology classes, getting to grips with graphs or Granny’s Garden if our teacher was in a really good mood.

We also had a computer club that was designed to teach us rudimentary BASIC, giving us an insight into the exciting world of home computing. Being the eager student that I was, this after-school time wasn’t a doorway into bedroom coding, but a simple excuse to play as many new games (our teacher, Mr Holland, liked to keep up to date with the latest trends) as possible. It was here that I first came into contact with Nigel Alderton’s insanely energetic platform game.

Coding class soon became a ‘beat the high score on Chuckie Egg’ class and I soon started to get really good at it. So good in fact that when I visited a friend’s house I was only too keen to show off my ‘skills’ as we liked to say back then.

The keyboard was my weapon of choice, and Tim Foster wouldn’t stand a chance. Or so I thought. No matter how many hours I had clocked up while I should have been studying, I couldn’t compete with someone who actually owned the game. Tim taught me an important lesson that day and in future I kept my ‘skills’ to myself. Unless of course I was really bloody good at the game in question…