Stonkers

Stonkers was one of the first war strategy games for the ZX Spectrum and also one of the commercially most successful titles from Imagine Software in 1983. The player commands an army divided into infantry, tanks, and other units, moving them across a map divided into sectors, with the goal of capturing enemy positions and destroying the opponent's army. The game combined simple controls with a fairly clear graphical depiction of the battlefield, which was unusual for its time — many contemporary strategy games made do with just text listings and maps made of simple symbols.

It was precisely this graphical treatment of the battlefield, where the player could see unit deployment on the map and move them directly using keyboard commands, that made Stonkers one of the more accessible strategy games of the era. The sound design was modest given eight-bit capabilities, but the game relied mainly on pace and clarity, which won it players who otherwise avoided the war strategy genre. Imagine Software also backed the game with a strong marketing campaign and imaginative box art, which was standard practice for the company at the time as it built its reputation on the British market.

Stonkers became one of the best-selling titles on the Spectrum in its year of release and helped Imagine Software build a reputation as a studio capable of delivering ambitious games to a wide audience. It's also historically interesting for having appeared shortly before Imagine's collapse, which is still remembered as one of the symbolic moments of the early British games industry, when small garage companies could quickly become — and just as quickly vanish as — major brands. For those who remember it and today's players alike, it's a title that shows how rapidly the strategy genre evolved on eight-bit computers and how quickly it found its own audience beyond action games and platformers.

Why play it: For those who remember the era and curious players interested in how quickly the strategy genre evolved on eight-bit computers — one of the Spectrum's best-selling titles, released in the shadow of Imagine Software's collapse.