Jet Bike Simulator
A water-racing game in which riders steer jet bikes around demanding courses, released by Codemasters across home computers.
Image credits and source
Original cover / promotional artwork
Credit: Codemasters — artwork belongs to its respective rights holders
Source: The Oliver Twins archive
Game at a glance
- Status
- Classic
- Released
- 1988
- Platforms
- Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga
- Genres
- Racing, Sports
- Developer
- The Oliver Twins (original development)
- Publisher
- Codemasters
Development and publication
Development: The Oliver Twins (original development). Publication: Codemasters.
The named development credit refers to the original or specifically identified version. Other ports and later re-releases may have different development teams.
Making the game
The summer of ’87 we visited Cotswold Waterpark, near Cirencester, and learnt how to Jet Ski. Clearly, whilst doing this we thought we could make another ‘Simulator’ from this sport. It had a great image and would follow in the footsteps of our Grand Prix Simulator.
This time we decided we would do the Spectrum version too and whilst the gameplay was similar to Grand Prix Simulator we decided to recode the game rather than reskin GPS. This meant the code was a lot cleaner, more efficient and easier to tweak speeds and playability.
We created a course editor and several and then James Wilson at Codemasters produced the rest of the courses featuring Lakes, Coasts and Docks – 24 courses in all.
Codemasters were keen to increase the retail price of their games and came up with the concept of a double cassette case sold at £4.99 (rather than £1.99) called the ‘Plus’ range. This and Professional BMX Simulator launched this range.
A year later the game was modified slightly to fit onto a single cassette and was renamed Jet Ski Simulator and sold at £2.99.
Original documents
Archived Jet Bike Simulator document (PDF)
Archived Jet Bike Simulator article (PDF)