ORBIT
LEISURE

LEISURE PRODUCTS FOR THE HOME COMPUTER · EST. 1983

No cassette required. Accounts have waived the £1.99.

THE INFORMATION SERVICE

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• 200ALL GAMES / CATALOGUE15 TITLES
• 300NEWSLETTER No. 15OCT
• 400HINTS AND TIPSS.A.E.
• 500YOUR LETTERS6 PRINTED
• 600KNOWN ISSUESONGOING
• 700SEND US YOUR TAPEFINISHED PROGRAMS
• 800THE STAFF7 NAMES
• 900THE WORKSHOPON DISCORD

Unit 11, Marsh Lane Industrial Estate, Cleethorpes. Software Division. Also suppliers of pool tables, dartboards and coach excursions. All titles on cassette; please allow 28 days.

NOTICES OF NEW TITLES, FAULTS AND APOLOGIES ARE ALSO PINNED TO THE FIRM'S BOARDS ON BLUESKY, AT @ORBITLEISURE.BSKY.SOCIAL, AND ON X, AT @ORBITLEISURE. Both are looked at more often than the post.

ENQUIRIES BY POST TO THE ABOVE, OR TO THE WORKSHOP ON PAGE 900, which is answered quicker.

ORDERED BY CATALOGUE NUMBER · BROWSER EDITIONS

All browser editions play free. Printed prices retained for Accounts.

IN PREPARATION

SENSIBLE CARAVAN · CHAMPIONSHIP RAINWEAR SELECTOR · DEAN ACKROYD'S DIVING HEADER · A GAME ABOUT HEDGES

ISSUE FIFTEEN · OCTOBER · FREE TO PURCHASERS

FROM THE OFFICE

ADVANCED WEDDING RECEPTION SIMULATOR is out, catalogue number 015, at £14.99. It is the wedding of Kevin and Denise. You are Barry, father of the bride, and you lead the conga round the dance floor until midnight, when the taxis come. The kick is on every fourth beat. Uncle Derek is on the floor in his red suit and is not part of it. Play it in your browser from catalogue number 015.

It is the firm's first cartridge. It is for the Game Boy Advance, which is a handheld, and it does not go in the cassette player. Several of the staff have tried. It costs more than a tape because there is a chip in it. Accounts have asked for this to be printed.

Mr Woods wrote ADVANCED WEDDING RECEPTION SIMULATOR in bed, in a week off with COVID and a temperature of 39. He has played it since he got up and does not know what it is. He has asked us to say that the dance floor was not meant to be those colours, that he does not remember putting in Uncle Derek, and that he cannot account for the glitterball. It has gone out as it was found. Purchasers who find it strange are asked to bear in mind that so does he.

DJ Dave would like it known that he does not take requests. He has four records and they are on the title screen: CHICKEN IN A BASKET, TOP TABLE TROMBONES, LAST BUS TO NUNEATON and UNCLE DEREK'S HIPS. Choose one with left and right.

At the end of the night the game gives a code. Bring it to the workshop on page 900 with your score and it will be considered for the table below. A score without its code will not be printed. Mr Woods can read the codes. Nobody else here can.

A note for purchasers with wireless headphones. The HEY arrives after the kick. This is the headphones. SETTINGS has an AUDIO SYNC, which finds out how late they are, and if they are very late the game leaves the HEY out. Speakers are better and always were.

— MR O J WOODS, for the founders

HIGH SCORES SENT IN

Send yours on a postcard, or through Discord. We print what arrives. We have no way of checking any of it, apart from the wedding, which comes with a code.

REVIEWED THIS MONTH

HANDHELD MONTHLY gave ADVANCED WEDDING RECEPTION SIMULATOR 88%, calling Uncle Derek the most lifelike relative yet seen on a small screen. MICRO WEEKLY did not review it, because it would not go in the cassette player.

FROM ISSUE FOURTEEN · SEPTEMBER

Last month's newsletter, kept here for purchasers who missed it.

The posting book has been retired. Letters, hints and faults now go to the workshop, which is a room on Discord (see page 900). Brian has been told.

PERRY & JUNE is out, catalogue number 014, at £1.99. It is the computer game of the television situation comedy and the firm's second television tie-in. It is one episode: the one in which the chairman comes to dinner. The studio audience is on the tape and laughs for as long as it says it does. The programme's makers have not been in touch. Side B is the same episode again.

THE DES TRICKETT MAGIC SHOW is out, catalogue number 013, at £1.99. It is the firm's first television tie-in. Mr Trickett has approved it over the telephone and asked that it be described as "a faithful record of the act", which it is. Five tricks, including the card trick, which takes as long on the machine as it does on the television. The lovely Denise appears by arrangement with her agent.

MIND THE DRAINS is now on Spectrum Next. Jumping boots, spreading reveals, an animated title screen and music. Play it in your browser from catalogue number 012. Nine staff induction lessons are provided. The goat has received no additional training.

CHAMPIONSHIP SNOOKER '84 is out at last, catalogue number 004, at £2.99. It replaces DAVE STEVIS'S SENSIBLE SNOOKER, which was never finished and will not be mentioned again. You are the pocket. In about two frames out of three a moth lands on the table. It is not part of the game and the referee has asked it to leave.

TUPPENNY FALLS is out on the budget line at £1.99. It is the shortest thing we have done and one or two people here have asked whether it is a game at all. It is. You put the coins in and then there are no coins.

A good month. GROUNDSMAN went out on the 4th and has already sold into double figures, which is ahead of where SENSIBLE ANGLING was at the same stage. Thank you to everyone who wrote in about the marker wheel. It is meant to do that.

NALDO II has slipped again. We had said August. It will now be later than August. The back nine is written but the trees are not behaving and we would rather it was right.

The firm now has a noticeboard on BLUESKY, at @ORBITLEISURE.BSKY.SOCIAL. New titles, faults and apologies will go up there first and in the newsletter afterwards, when we remember. It is a noticeboard. Please do not send it tapes.

A second noticeboard has since gone up on X, at @ORBITLEISURE. The same notices go on both. Mr Woods has asked that nobody write in to ask which one is the proper one.

— MR O J WOODS, for the founders

MICRO WEEKLY gave THICK NALDO'S SENSIBLE GOLF 91% and a SENSIBLE CLASSIC flash, calling the lake on hole 12 the finest water yet committed to text. YOUR COMPUTER MONTHLY gave it 46% and asked what it was for.

A SERVICE TO PURCHASERS

THIS MONTH'S FREE CLUES

NALDO, HOLE 3. The bunker is not the problem. The rake is the problem.

WOCKEY, LEG 4. Derek is on a double. There is nothing you can do about Derek. Attend to your own score.

CHAMPIONSHIP SNOOKER. After a red, any colour will do. Take the black. The chalk will not help, and nobody here has ever said that it would.

ANGLING. Do not talk to the man. There is no version of talking to the man that ends well.

GROUNDSMAN. Check the wheel at the start. We have said this before.

WEDDING RECEPTION. The kick is on the bell, not the drum. Listen for the bell. If it still feels late, see SETTINGS, AUDIO SYNC. Do not follow Uncle Derek. He is not going anywhere.

PERRY & JUNE. The audience laughs once at each thing on its list. The list was settled before the recording. Nobody at the office knows what is on it, apart from the tie.

MAGIC SHOW, TRICK 1. Des will go through the whole pack if he has to. You may say Y at any time. He will believe you.

MIND THE DRAINS. A square with no number has no drains round it. Walk on those. The foreman will not change his mind.

TUPPENNY FALLS. There is no way to come out ahead. Several purchasers have written to ask what the trick is. There is no trick. The nearest thing to winning is typing LEAVE while you still have coins, and the program will not thank you for it.

WE READ ALL OF THEM

Write to the address on page 100, or through Discord. Letters may be shortened. Nothing is invented.

CURRENT AT TIME OF PRESSING

• ORB 001. The verb PUTT is not recognised on hole 9. Use HIT BALL GENTLY. This is intentional.
• ORB 002. Scoring a 26 is reported by Derek as "twenty six" in a tone we have been unable to soften.
• ORB 003. Shaking the machine twice ends the program. This is not a fault and we will not be changing it.
• ORB 004. There is no brown on this machine. The brown is shown as a darker yellow and the commentator will say so once. Purchasers who require a proper brown are referred to the leaflet, which was omitted from the first pressing.
• ORB 005. On some machines the six hours pass in four. We are aware. Affected purchasers may consider themselves fortunate.
• ORB 007. The wheel.
• ORB 012. The field stops for a moment each time you walk north. The machine is working out the next yard. Pressing Q again does not help it.
• ORB 012. Reported by several purchasers to be good. We are aware. It was not intended and we have taken steps to see that it does not happen again. See the newsletter, page 300.
• ORB 013. On some televisions a wire can be seen during THE FLOATING LADY. There is no wire. Turning the colour down will not help.
• ORB 013. After THE LADY SAWN IN HALF, the lower half of the lovely Denise is returned in red. This is the colour of the box. It does not come off and she has asked us not to keep mentioning it.
• ORB 014. The audience laughs at the tea towel. We have listened to the tape several times and cannot find anything funny about the tea towel.
• ORB 014. The episode lasts twenty-nine minutes whether or not anybody has finished. Purchasers who finish early are shown a potter's wheel. This is not a fault in the tape.
• ORB 015. Uncle Derek cannot be collected. Several purchasers have steered the conga into him on purpose to find out. He is not in the conga. He is near it.
• ORB 015. The taxis come at midnight whether or not the conga has finished. They were booked in advance and cannot be moved.
• ALL TITLES. Typing XYZZY does nothing. We are told this is traditional. We have left it in as a courtesy and it still does nothing.

Faults not listed here may be reported through Discord. Please state the title, the catalogue number, and what you were typing at the time.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR FINISHED PROGRAMS

We would rather have a finished tape than a good idea. Ideas are welcome and we print the best of them on page 500, but we cannot make them, and most of them go no further than the letters page.

If you have written something that would sit on our shelf, send it. We will play it. If it is right for the catalogue we will give it a number, put it on page 200 and put your name on page 800 as a programmer, which you will have earned properly rather than by post.

WHAT TO SEND

Send it through Discord with a link to where it can be fetched from. Please introduce it as A FINISHED TAPE.

HOUSE STANDARD

A title must be finishable in a quarter of an hour. It must keep a status line at the top of the screen. It must never acknowledge that it is a game, or that text adventures exist, or that any of this is funny. It must concern an activity that no reasonable person would attempt to render in prose. Opponents and celebrities must be invented. Swearing is permitted up to and including "bloody". It must work on a telephone, because most of our customers are on one.

WHAT WE TURN DOWN

Anything that winks at the reader. Parodies of this firm. Anything that needs forty minutes, or an account, or somebody else's computer to stay switched on. Characters belonging to other people. Anything cruel about a real person. Anything where the joke is the swearing.

TERMS, SUCH AS THEY ARE

Your program stays yours. We ask only to put it in the catalogue and keep it there, and we will take it down the day you ask us to. We do not pay. We set the price, which will be £1.99, because everything is.

We are two people and we play everything ourselves, so a reply may take a while. We may come back and ask for changes. This is not a rejection; it is how the ones on the shelf got there.

UNIT 11, MARSH LANE INDUSTRIAL ESTATE

The firm was founded by MR O J WOODS and MIKE DX, who between them write the programs, answer the post, and decide what goes on the shelf. Everyone else listed here does one thing.

* Credited for an accepted idea. Has not programmed anything and is under no obligation to.

ORIGINAL CONCEPT

The whole of it — the company, the catalogue and the notion that any of this ought to be typed — is the founders' idea, and they are credited on every inlay whether they worked on that title or not.

Copyright © 2026 Mr O J Woods and Mike DX. All rights reserved.
Programs remain the property of their authors. Unauthorised copying, hiring or lending strictly prohibited.

The Software Division is the back half of the unit. Duplication is done there on four decks. If your tape has a hum on side two it is one of the early ones and we will replace it.

SUBTITLES

Subtitles are not available on this service.

Nothing here is spoken aloud. It is all already writing.

QUESTIONS, FAULT REPORTS AND UNSOLICITED OPINIONS

The workshop is a room on Discord, a service on the computer. Mr Woods and Mike DX are in it most evenings. Hints are given, scores are recorded and faults are written down. Suggestions for new titles are read out. Some of them are made.

It is a new room and there are not many people in it yet. There is no form to fill in. Accounts are delighted.

ENTER THE WORKSHOP (DISCORD) →

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