By Chris Skeldon 
The story of the first Brazilian games became the subject of a film. documentary Loading… Our first PC game It tells how the first games developed in Brazil emerged in the early 1980s in a very amateurish fashion and mainly to lower the stifling grip on the industry created by the military government.
The film is directed by duo Marcus Garrett and Carlos Bigetti and was crowdfunded online from a campaign that began in 2019. After some delays caused by the pandemic, the feature has been released and is available for online purchase.
The big attraction is to save the history of the national market, which shows how the country’s creative sector has always been very strong, even in a period when computers were very limited and access to these devices was more complex. For this, the documentary begins with the arrival of the first equipment here and the emergence of a highly interactive community.
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One of the main points the directors made was how the market reserve policy adopted by the military government in 1984 forced these early Brazilian developers to create their own games.
Dubbed the National Information Technology Policy, the federal action banned the import of many products, including parts, components and computer products, in an attempt to promote the national market, but only caused a bottleneck in the sector, increased smuggling and the emergence of copies of foreign systems, such as the national TK-90X and CP 500.
With the gaming sector, it was no different. Without access to the international versions of Atari, MSX, and Commodores Amiga, the Brazilian gamer community had to resort to creating their own games running on the computers available at the time. That’s when the major national titles started to appear.
So, Loading… Our first PC game Little tells of this entire period, listening carefully to those who took part in the process. Names like Maurício Bussab (Paulista Street), Renato DiGiovanni (Amazon: Adventures in the Jungle), Luiz F. de Moraes (The legend of Javiaand the duo Manuel Fratoras and Luiz Cabanemaexciting game) are just some of the people interviewed who helped explain how the gaming industry was born here.
From the difficulties to the programming and distribution challenges, it is very rich material to learn about a part of Brazilian computer history that not everyone knows and deserves more attention – not least because some of the games created at the time were able to be superior to that of Atari or Odyssey. .
This documentary covers the entire decade, from the arrival of the first computers in the early 1980s to the end of the market reserve, in 1992, and the promotion of computers in the country.
Loading… Our first PC game Available in Bitnamic Store – and still collect some of these classic games.