F1 Licenceware was a company who offered Full Versions of Games at a Small Cost
You could ring them up and ask for a Catalogue Disk, which would have included the Full List of Games they offered, along with prices, so you could browse through, pick a Game, phone them up, Buy it and have it delivered to your door
Starting in April 2024, I will slowly be releasing F1 Licenceware Titles onto the Games Collection and Amiga Forever RP9 Files, with Andy Kellett’s Blessing, and also Phil Ruston’s Blessing, Thankyou so much to both of you, for allowing me to distribute these Games, Much appreciated
As a bonus, I shall also include the F1 Licenceware Catalogue Disk from August 1996, so you too can browse what F1 Licenceware had in their catalogue, and what prices they charged for them, Very interesting to see, and I have included it for completeness and nostalgia purposes
This was a Great way of buying cheaper Games back in the day, The disks came with the above right Graphic attached (or variations of that image)
They are no longer in operation, since Andy Kellett who took over could not contact anyone regarding the Games, so the company was closed down
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2023-02-25: Phil Ruston created 5 Amiga Games, namely Violator(Commercial), Operation Firestorm(F1), Wibble World Giddy(PD), Giddy 2(F1) and Aquanaut(F1) – I have full permission from Phil to release the Games he created, so that is Great News (except for Violator which was a Commercial Game and he does not know the licence terms for it) – Thanks for permission Phil 🙂
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I wish to reach out publicly to everyone who is reading this, that might know any of the Game Developers Contact Details who released their Games under F1 Licenceware, as I would like to contact them to ask them about releasing the Full Versions of their Games on my Games Collection and Amiga Forever RP9 Files so everyone can enjoy them for years and decades to come!
There is also a website I found which shows a conversation between Andy and Richie B (Source) in which Andy states: “When I took over the company, there wasn’t much of a contact list, and email wasn’t big back at the time so was never able to find any of these guys.” and also “As for the ones you haven’t been able to find to get permission from, I don’t have a problem with you releasing them, though I would much prefer it if you had permission from each one first.”
Note that archive.org has basically a 1:1 Copy of all F1 Licenceware Titles which anyone can basically download instantly, and I checked on April 2024 and they are still available so I assume they must be “OK” to be distributed, perhaps due to the passage of time, or certainly as of yet, No Game Developer has taken them down, so could I assume by that, That the Game Developers concerned have no problems with distribution perhaps?
So please, if you can help me in any way whatsoever, Please Get In Touch, or if the Game Developers themselves come by this page and can give me permission, please let me know via the Feedback Button on the right
I will be featuring F1 Licenceware Games, First batch, namely Phil Ruston Games (Thanks Phil) will be released in April 2024, and I will be planning more “F1 Licenceware” Months going forward, where I will release more F1 Licenceware Games onto the Games Collection and Amiga Forever RP9 Files
Thankyou
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2022-08-16: Emailed Andy Kellett (2022-08-09) who originally ran F1 Licenceware, Got a positive reply back, and in short has allowed me to distribute them – “I don’t have any issues with you distributing the original games for non-profit if you have not been successful in reaching out to the original authors. Thanks”
But I still would like any Original Developers to contact me please if they can, as I would love permission directly, But failing this, I will aim for late 2023 or early 2024 before releasing them, so I can leave plenty of time while trying to search and find the Original Game Developers, Failing this, I shall then release them with Andy’s blessing, and will allow them to be taken down if any Game Developer wishes me to do so, although after such a long time, I cannot see any real problem, since they are clearly in Public Domain on archive.org and have never been taken down, for example F1 Volume 1 was uploaded at 2015-02-15 which has now been online for over 7 years (as of 2022) so realistically I cannot see any problems going ahead with releasing them
Please feel free to let me know your favourite F1 Licenceware Games in the Comments section below, as I will prioritise the releases based on User Feedback
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