It’s A Knockout, ZX Spectrum

It’s A Knockout, also known as “Jeux sans frontières“, was a TV show where teams of contestants battled it out over various physical challenges, in order to win the most points.

The idea for the show came from French President Charles de Gaulle, whose wish was that French and German youth would meet in a series of games to reinforce the friendship between the two countries. The domestic BBC English language version of the show was called “It’s A Knockout“.

The TV show grew during the 1970s and became popular throughout Europe, with various countries getting their own local and national versions, and the winners going through to a European final where individual countries would take each other on. These finals were usually much bigger-budget, with elaborate costumes and challenges, than in the early rounds, and they were broadcast throughout Europe on a regular basis for at least a couple of decades. It’s A Knockout was a phenomenon back in the late 70s and 80s. It’s since been replaced by similar shows like Tekashi’s Castle.

You can imagine someone at Ocean one day saying: “Hey, It’s A Knockout would make a good computer game!” and Gary Bracey getting the wheels in motion to acquire the license within seconds. Then, after whipping some boys and young men into producing something for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC in less than four months, they had a brand new multi-event game on the market that might sell to fans of the TV show…

The ZX Spectrum version of It’s A Knockout was first published by Ocean Software in 1986, and was written by Keith A. Purkiss, with the load screen by Dawn Drake and game graphics by Simon Butler. The 48K version is a two-part multi-load and the 128K version is the complete version, with all events available in one load, plus extra AY-based sound.

The individual events are okay – nothing to get too excited about – and there are six of them in total. All supposedly based on real TV show events… In “Flying Flans” you’ve got to catch as many custard pies as you can, as they are ejected toward you. “Bronte Bash” is a whack-a-mole type game with dinosaur heads. In “Harlem Hoppers” you have to catch balls thrown at you, while attached to a bungie cord. You drop down a zip wire in “Titanic Drop” and must fall into floating life rings in a swimmming pool to score points. In “Diet of Worms” you and an opponent must try to pick up worms while wearing the obligatory It’s A Knockout rubber chicken suit, and “Obstacle Race” – the final event – is a rather wobbly* race through a repetitive obstacle course.

*= The animation of the two runners in the final event is hilarious. They both run like they need hip operations, and the animation stops and starts in spurts, so their running looks highly comedic.

Up to six individual players can participate in a game – each player taking a different country and participating in a league table of scores that are accumulated over turns. And thankfully you don’t have to watch the computer playing. So you play the events as they are drawn, and the Spectrum tells you how the opposition has done, and what their score is. Then calculates the league table. The ultimate aim is to win the ‘Marathon‘, with points calculated from competing in all six events.

More: It’s A Knockout on Wikipedia
More: It’s A Knockout on World of Spectrum
More: It’s A Knockout on Moby Games