Graftgold was originally ST Software starting in 1983 when Steve Turner quit his day job as a commercial programmer to concentrate on develop computer games for the Spectrum.

[6] Hewson was not happy to see their most successful development partner leave, particularly because Graftgold was due to deliver two keenly anticipated titles—Magnetron (by Steve Turner for the ZX Spectrum) and Morpheus (by Andrew Braybrook for the C64).

However, the sale of Telecomsoft to MicroProse in 1989[7] resulted in their critically acclaimed conversion of Rainbow Islands being eventually released by Ocean Software.

Royalties from their impressive catalogue of titles allowed Graftgold to make this transition with ease, hiring 30 additional people to work on a large number of products.

While the game sold an average number of copies on the Amiga and Atari ST, a PC Engine version that had been in development was shelved.

[9] To make matters worse, Graftgold had also been developing Realms, an expensive real-time strategy game, for Activision when it was announced that the publishing giant was in severe financial difficulty and had begun closing down many of its international operations.

Graftgold would only develop one title apiece for the Mega Drive and Super NES (Ottifants and Empire Soccer 94, respectively, although the latter would remain unpublished).

By the time it was finally released, it had made enough profit to cover the large advances afforded to Graftgold, but very little extra income beyond that.

An eleventh-hour rescue bid from another developer, Perfect 10 Productions (responsible for the highly successful Discworld adventure games), helped finance Graftgold long enough to seek out an alternative publishing deal for Hardcorps with Psygnosis, but this fell through after numerous delays.

Turner's solo projects for Graftgold included 3D Space Wars, Astroclone, Quazatron, Ranarama and Magnetron for the ZX Spectrum.

After a brief stint programming games for the Dragon home computer, Braybrooks chief success was the publication of Gribbly's Day Out by Hewson in 1985.

Regarded by many C64 gamers as one of the greatest games ever made, Paradroid was a shoot-'em up that featured exceptionally intelligent enemies, unique gameplay and fast-scrolling bas relief graphics that were quickly emulated by many other developers.

Uridium was a horizontally scrolling shoot-'em up that required the player to navigate the hazardous surface of a number of colossal dreadnaughts, strafing targets whilst simultaneously avoiding waves of fighters that screamed past at blistering speeds.

Balanced somewhere between a vertically scrolling racer and a shoot-'em up, the game (while technically impressive) proved to be exceptionally difficult and disappointed a significant percentage of Braybrook's fan base.

After leaving Hewson, he joined Graftgold to work on the Spectrum conversion of Flying Shark, as well as the Amiga and Atari ST versions of Simulcra and Rainbow Islands.