A Father’s Day Tribute To My Much-Missed Gaming Dad

Hugh Walker was really good at Skyrim, dentistry, and being my dad

My dad played video games before most people knew there were video games to play. I think we got our off-brand Atari 2600 in 1979. This is one of so very many details I desperately wish I could fact check, but never will. Because in 2016, my dad—Hugh Walker—unexpectedly dropped dead on the sidewalk at the age of 66. He was walking home from breakfast at a friend’s, and then he wasn’t any more. And with him went nearly seven decades of encyclopedic information on every detail of world history, and forensic knowledge of the UK game development scene of the 1980s.

My dad was like a cuddly toy in many respects, but one in particular was the metaphorical hoop on a length of string protruding from his back, that when pulled would unleash a breathless spiel of informed and entertaining knowledge. It was always a monologue, but it was generally worth listening to. It might be that you’d accidentally trigger something on the royal turbulence of the 1500s, but it could equally be the origins of film-license specialists Ocean Software, or personal anecdotes on how he became friends with the developers at Level 9, developers behind text adventures like Jewels of Darkness and Ingrid Strikes Back.

In 1981, Hugh Walker got the first ever affordable (although we could barely afford it) mass-produced home computer, the ZX-81. In 1982 he was sent a pre-release ZX Spectrum 48K to review for a magazine. In 1984 he had a game published, a “type-in” for a magazine, called Warlock. (I can make a strong argument for it being the first ever roguelite.) He regularly contributed to a popular UK fanzine called Adventure Probe (in 1990 he wrote an against-the-grain lengthy feature arguing in favor of “character interaction” being included in games). I remember helping him playtest unreleased text adventures. And he’d come back from big gaming