Ex-Amiga folk

[sillytuna]

Following from a post in another thread, are there many other ex-Amiga developers here? Commercial or otherwise?

[princec]

I released 2 shareware games for the Amiga. One of them, XAP, was released on the xmas 93 coverdisk of Amiga Format :) Didn't earn a bean. Went on to remake it as Alien Flux. Didn't earn a bean :D

The other game was Senseless Violence, which was a rather faster and snazzier version of my friend Si Green's game, Extreme Violence. They were split-screen deathmatch games. Might rewrite that one too. Needless to say, didn't earn a bean.

Cas :)

[Desktop Gaming]

Moi.

Released two commercial games, about 10 licenceware and literally dozens upon dozens of public domain titles.

[Emmanuel]

I owned an amiga from ~1989 to 1995 or so. I released a commercial 8-channel tracker (http://aminet.net/package/mus/edit/stonefree1) which we re-released for free after being asked (I did the editor and docs, with a friend doing the audio mixing and playback code) as well as various demos (http://www.demondownload.dk/show_prod.php?id=1169).

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Pelican]

I had one proper commerical release on the Amiga ("Erik"), and then my publisher went bust before my next one ("Og"), which I released as Licenceware.

My next game ("Smidge") had a demo on Amiga Power #34. I finished the full game (but changed the name to "Morton Strikes Back", rather foolishly) and sold it mail order - made a few hundred pounds from that. I then did AGA versions of "Og" & MSB ...

Never made my fortune, but helped pay my way through Uni.
I got onto the Amiga too late really :(

[sillytuna]

Glad to see a few Amiga folk here. I started doing Dentaku26 - a wolfenstein game - but ended up doing the lovely Xtreme Racing, a game which, like Cas, I plan on rewriting sometime. Rated in the top 5 Amiga games ever by CU Amiga and written on a budget of a packet of crisps and a few tinned sausages. Literally :)

We also did some extra bits on Worms: The Director's Cut (some assembler extras I seem to remember).

My demo scene work was so rubbish I think I'll leave it alone, lol! I was just thinking today about my first copper bar routine and wondering about reproducing it in Flash, only better!

[Desktop Gaming]

I had one proper commerical release on the Amiga ("Erik"), and then my publisher went bust before my next one ("Og"), which I released as Licenceware.

My next game ("Smidge") had a demo on Amiga Power #34. I finished the full game (but changed the name to "Morton Strikes Back", rather foolishly) and sold it mail order - made a few hundred pounds from that. I then did AGA versions of "Og" & MSB ...

Never made my fortune, but helped pay my way through Uni.
I got onto the Amiga too late really :(
Yeah, I was just finding my feet when Commodore went belly-up, too.
:(

I'm surprised to see you here. I used to hang around quite a lot with Phil from Saddletramps/5th Dimension - he lived just down the road from me. I don't know if he still does as I haven't seen him for several years now. He acquired F1 Licenceware after a couple of years but I can't remember where Og and Morton fitted into it all, but I remember Phil talking about Morton (in particular) on numerous occasions. Was a cool game.

[lakibuk]

I wrote some Amiga games,too.
Zillo which was published on some Amiga disk and made me $700.
And then a vertical scrolling shooter Slam Raid which was on some disk, too and me $200.
http://hol.abime.net/5247
Made some other games which never have been published.

[Pelican]

Yeah, I was just finding my feet when Commodore went belly-up, too.
:(

I'm surprised to see you here. I used to hang around quite a lot with Phil from Saddletramps/5th Dimension - he lived just down the road from me.

Yeah, Phil was a good guy. Never met him personally, though spoke to him on the phone, and exchanged mail (not e-mail!)

but I remember Phil talking about Morton (in particular) on numerous occasions. Was a cool game.

Thanks :) I always liked it. Which I can't say about everything I have worked on since being in "the industry" full-time.

Which, incidentally, is why I'm here ...

[Desktop Gaming]

Yeah Phil is a top bloke - I might look him up one day. Think about dropping by every time I drive past his house (which is at least a couple of times every week). I pity you if you phoned him at your own expense though - he could talk for England!

What are you doing now? Working for somebody or for yourself?

[Michael Flad]

We released one Amiga titel (Tile Move) - back in 1995 with a very indielike approach.

We obviously developed the game but in addition we created the retail box too - I used Pagestream to do all the layouting, together with a local print office we created a punchingtool (don't know if that's the right word?) for creating the boxes and ordered 1000 of those. Created a dual language booklet, again with Pagestream, bought a HP Laserjet 4 (the big one, not the cheap home version). Duplicated and labeld the discs, printed the manuals, fold the boxes and then ... sold ... well 113 of the 1000 and in the end lost a few thousand bucks on the material let alone all the work :-))

But it was an exceptional great time to create the game, to do each single production step and to hold that very first box of the final game - I never ever regretted doing it even though we financially failed miserably on that one.

[Desktop Gaming]

We released one Amiga titel (Tile Move) - back in 1995 with a very indielike approach.

We obviously developed the game but in addition we created the retail box too - I used Pagestream to do all the layouting, together with a local print office we created a punchingtool (don't know if that's the right word?) for creating the boxes and ordered 1000 of those. Created a dual language booklet, again with Pagestream, bought a HP Laserjet 4 (the big one, not the cheap home version). Duplicated and labeld the discs, printed the manuals, fold the boxes and then ... sold ... well 113 of the 1000 and in the end lost a few thousand bucks on the material let alone all the work :-))

But it was an exceptional great time to create the game, to do each single production step and to hold that very first box of the final game - I never ever regretted doing it even though we financially failed miserably on that one.

That sounds horribly familiar. I self-published a game called World Golf right at the very end of Commodore's reign and I lost out massively. I only got a reprieve at the 11th hour and more or less broke even after being ripped off by a distribution company who took my stock and never paid for it. Commodore went down, so did I, and I made damn sure I took OTM Publications and Promotions with me. They owed me hundreds for the stock they'd taken, they still hadn't paid up after four months so I sent the debt collectors in, at which point they filed for bankruptcy.

The cheeky buggers even tried charging me for shrink-wrapping boxed products - which it later transpired they'd never even done!

Ah, those were the days. :)
I never ever regretted doing it even though we financially failed miserably on that one.Damn right. Hilarious fun and it taught me a hard lesson!

[KNau]

Off topic, but I long for the days when my computer's operating system fit on a floppy disk :)

[Desktop Gaming]

Off topic, but I long for the days when my computer's operating system fit on a floppy disk :)Yeah. I could get Workbench running in under 80k of RAM if I tried really hard!

[Mike Boeh]

I made Artillerus, Charr, and Turbo Hockey. I forget which AF coverdisks they were on, but I was able to save the Amiga Power magazines that had them on the disks, a fun little reminder of simpler times! :)

[Adrian Cummings]

Glad to see a few Amiga folk here. I started doing Dentaku26 - a wolfenstein game

I recall you sending it to me (when I ran Mutation Software years back) as a demo - thought it looked good! :)

I did 7 commercial Amiga titles (some ended up on ST too) most prolific was Doodlebug and Cyberpunks published by Core Design 92/93... recently ported Tommy Gun (Amiga) to mobile phones (Java).

<- Shat, just noticed I got the badge :)

[Oaf]

What's the badge all about then?

[Adrian Cummings]

You really want to know Mr. Oaf? - there is a whole section all about on here heh so I'll leave it at that personally speaking :)

[Oaf]

There is? Couldn't find it. Ah well.

[Mark_Tempe]

Me and my team have made Heliosfera (http://hol.abime.net/3999) for Amiga . Good times … :o

[Ziggurnaut]

Here's my humble list:

- Legend of Kyrandia (helped with a few modules at the very end of the schedule)
- Dune II
- Gunship 2000 (AGA and CD32...I was the co-pilot's voice in the cinemas, too!)
- UFO Enemy Unknown/XCOM (AGA and CD32...was not involved with the horrible ECS version)

Went on to XCOM PSone after that.

[Adrian Cummings]

There is? Couldn't find it. Ah well.

Here you go Oaf:

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=11721

[Oaf]

Thanks Adrian - PM sent. Probably couldn't see it last night for the beer :D

Private forum eh? It'll never catch on ;)

[sillytuna]

Hey Bob, I forgot you handled some great games!

An interview candidate we had yesterday wanted to remake Dune 2 as a flash game. He thought it was superb.

[dma]

I got my Amiga 1000 back in 1985, back when Computerland was still alive and selling them. I was like a kid back then, going in at least once a week to play with the demo machine they had, (all the while turning my nose up at the PC Jrs, black & white Macs, and other inferior machines they were selling), until finally, the Amiga was released and I could take mine home.

Anyway, I created a number of games which found their way on a couple of Amiga World Game Disks, and another more "indie" Game Disk I can't seem to remember any more. I also was working on (but never finished) a game that went through 4 publishers... Brown-Wagh Publishing, Actionware, Cinemaware, and MicroIllusions. Unfortunately they all went out of business about a month or so after being interested in publishing the game. I'm not sure if it was my game that cursed them or what, but it was rather curious.

Fun times. :)

[Pelican]

Yeah Phil is a top bloke - I might look him up one day. ....
What are you doing now? Working for somebody or for yourself?
If you do, say Hello from me!

I've been working in the biz since moving on from the Amiga ... am now contracting in-house, and trying to get some independent work done.


An interview candidate we had yesterday wanted to remake Dune 2 as a flash game. He thought it was superb.


Dune 2 was awesome. I played it far too much :) I had no idea the author was still in the games scene!
A few years later when the opportunity came up for me to work on Dune 2000 on the PC, I jumped at it!

[kevryan]

I spent most of 1985 working on an Amiga game. Every so often we'd receive a new version of the OS from the Amiga guys and then have to modify our code to get up and running again. There early docs weren't correct so I ended up having to write values to memory locations on the custom chips and then see what showed up on the screen to figure out how they work. It was a very powerful computer for its time.

[techbear]

1987-89, I worked as an Amiga coder at SunRize Industries. We made early sound digitizers, and the City Desk publishing software.

I also made a few little games and tools that went straight to the user group disks.

It was a fun box to code for, but Commodore SUXXX.

[Adrian Cummings]

I still have my vintage 1985 A1000 and it still works fine although the 1081 monitor long since died and went in the bin... I bought mine from GB Microland in Waterlooville, Hampshire, UK - I think I had the first one in Hampshire outside of the shop that is (I was told).

Before the euro badged model hit the UK, I actually took £1500 cash to the Which Computer show in '85 and tried to buy one of the US demo machines on display there :) ...they 'almost' went for it!, but in the end my mate who ran a glossy Amiga magazine at the time (Enigma) got the sales guy's commodore logo tie instead :)

Great days those.

[Sharpfish]

I released a handful of games on the Amiga (freeware/public domain mostly) and two that was amos licenceware (in 1993) which I had money for until they went bust and I missed out on my final payment ;).

Also released some PD music disks and some highway code learning software. And had a 'freescape construction kit' game on the cover disc of an amiga mag (the One for amiga games IIRC).

Those old releases were under the names 'top secret software' and 'scrambled thought software'.

Nothing 'really' commercial though. I was about 18 at the time and in to too much stuff to fully concentrate on the coding (still am I suppose) ;)

Great Days :D

[John Cutter]

Ah, the Amiga. Those were the good old days...

As the first employee at Cinemaware I Designed and/or Produced:


Defender of the Crown
Rocket Ranger
TV Sports: Football
SDI
Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcoln
The Three Stooges
Wings
TV Sports: Basketball
The King of Chicago
Lords of the Rising Sun


I'm not a coder, though, just more of a Writer and Director.

[Sharpfish]

Ah, the Amiga. Those were the good old days...

As the first employee at Cinemaware I Designed and/or Produced:


Defender of the Crown
Rocket Ranger
TV Sports: Football
SDI
Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcoln
The Three Stooges
Wings
TV Sports: Basketball
The King of Chicago
Lords of the Rising Sun



ahh... but not 'it came from the desert'? I remember that had tons of atmosphere (though can't remember much about gameplay). I also had the 3 stooges, saving an orphanage IIRC.

Yes, simpler... carefree days :)

[princec]

Things still are simpler and carefree here in Puppygames land :)

Cas :)

[Jack Norton]

That surely brings back LOT of memories, J.Cutter. I remember playing almost all of those games when was a teenager, together with my friends.

Great times :) and great games of course!

[Desktop Gaming]

It Came From the Desert was most memorable (for me) for the bit where you end up in hospital and have to escape by hiding in beds and commandeering a wheelchair. :)

Interestingly, the plot is almost identical to a 1950's b-movie called "Them!".

[sillytuna]

John, those were fantastic games! What happened to the guys who worked on that stuff, and what bits did you do?

[Firespirit]

I loved Defender of The Crown. Recently I found a lot of old game magazines in the basement. I think there was one about this new medieval game coming to the new Amiga computer ;-)

[Desktop Gaming]

I loved Defender of The Crown. Recently I found a lot of old game magazines in the basement. I think there was one about this new medieval game coming to the new Amiga computer ;-)
I could be mistaken but I seem to have a hazy memory of Cinemaware doing a remake of Defender of the Crown only a couple of years ago. I don't ever remember seeing it finished, though...

[edit] Oh, also, I had Defender of the Crown for my C64. Unfortunately it was the cassette version, which was verging on being a joke to play. Spent most of the time fast-forwarding/rewinding/swapping cassettes with about 10 seconds of actually playing it in between. My mate had the 5.25" disk version, which was infinitely better.

[Adrian Cummings]

Defender of the Crown (Amiga) sold Amiga's I would say! it kicked butt real hard in it's time.

I also liked 'It Came From The Desert' another great game (deffo a 'Them' B-movie take yes, but superb!).

Brilliant stuff!

[Desktop Gaming]

Defender of the Crown (Amiga) sold Amiga's I would say!I was quite disappointed with the Amiga version. It was infinitely better on C64, imho.

A game called Wings of Fury 'sold' my Amiga to me. :)

[Jamie W]

I loved Defender of the Crown too, very nice game. My fave stratagey game ever for the Amiga, had to be Colonization though, which was simply excellent.

[Adrian Cummings]

A game called Wings of Fury 'sold' my Amiga to me. :)

Marble Madness did it for me and I went out and bought the A1000 just to play it at home along with Deluxe Paint! - again, all superb stuff for it's time.

[Cartman]

Lemmings did it for me. And anything from Psygnosis. That was some amazing stuff for it's time.

[Desktop Gaming]

Lemmings did it for me. And anything from Psygnosis. That was some amazing stuff for it's time.I think I'm the only person in the world who thought Shadow of the Beast was complete horse filth. :confused:

[Artinum]

I never saw the first SOTB - but I played the second. If you use the cheat code to make you invincible it is insanely difficult. If you don't, it is downright ridiculous. I only completed it several months ago with the aid of a walkthrough and the "save state" ability of WinUAE - and the cheat. And it really wasn't worth the effort.

Lemmings, however, is the big reason for my Amiga all those years ago. And Alien Breed. And Zak McKracken.

Out of the list above, the only game I played (and loved!) was Wings.

[Jamie W]

I think I'm the only person in the world who thought Shadow of the Beast was complete horse filth. :confused:

Yeah, I thought it was a bit cack too, little more than a demo to show off the Amiga's hardware capabilities. Killing Game Show was maybe one of the best Psygnosis games ever (apart from Nitro of course).

[Maupin]

Ah, the Amiga. Those were the good old days...

As the first employee at Cinemaware I Designed and/or Produced:


Defender of the Crown
Rocket Ranger
TV Sports: Football
SDI
Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcoln
The Three Stooges
Wings
TV Sports: Basketball
The King of Chicago
Lords of the Rising Sun


I'm not a coder, though, just more of a Writer and Director.

Those are some great games! Thank you! I spent hours playing Defender of the Crown and The Three Stooges. I especially liked the pie fight in the latter.

The Amiga games I played most were Megaball, Scorched Tanks, a freeware Boulder Dash clone I've forgotten the name of, Top Hat Willy (I am one of only a handful of people to have completed it - and I did it twice), and Moria. Still, I played quite a few commercial games. I still have the Shadow of the Beast 2 T-shirt around here somewhere. The gameplay wasn't stellar, but the graphics and music in that game were unbelievable. I also liked Nuclear War, Lemmings, and others I can't quite recall at the moment.

My kick has been reprogramming the games I designed as a kid with updated graphics. A few years ago I did a Windows version of Fluffies, a simple eco-sim I made in high school, for example. Back on the Amiga I attempted to do an updated version of my C128 game Gerbil Wars (MS BASIC RPG) but never finished. As soon as I can recover the source from the 5 1/4 disk I'll try to make it in Python or Flash.

Of course all these new ideas for games keep getting in the way, too...:rolleyes:

[Desktop Gaming]

Top Hat Willy (I am one of only a handful of people to have completed it - and I did it twice)Was that the licenceware version of Jet Set Willy?

I had JSW for my Amstrad CPC464 - AND I completed it. :D All that happened was I went into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, and he ran to the bathroom and stuck his head down the toilet. :rolleyes:

[Maupin]

No, Top Hat Willy was an Amiga remake of Jet Set Willy by Tero Heikkinen, with 100 rooms and 160 pieces of trash that needed picking up. It's much harder than the original (at least the versions of the original that are possible to beat - the C64 version had a bug that made it unwinnable).

Long ago I actually made a web page devoted to Top Hat Willy: http://www.pastrytech.com/willy/

Lots of outdated info there, but you can see a map of the game I painstakingly made, and download a PC version that Tero's brother programmed.

[Desktop Gaming]

No, Top Hat Willy was an Amiga remake of Jet Set Willy by Tero Heikkinen, with 100 rooms and 160 pieces of trash that needed picking up. It's much harder than the original (at least the versions of the original that are possible to beat - the C64 version had a bug that made it unwinnable).

Long ago I actually made a web page devoted to Top Hat Willy: http://www.pastrytech.com/willy/

Lots of outdated info there, but you can see a map of the game I painstakingly made, and download a PC version that Tero's brother programmed.
Ah right. After a bit of Googling, this (http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php%3Fid%3D2621) is the one I was thinking of.

[Sharpfish]

My Amiga 500 was the uk 'Batman Pack' so I suppose Ocean's Batman was the one that I first started playing. However as an eye candy lover it WAS the first shadow of the beast that made me want an Amiga (even though I new the gameplay was... lacking?).. I used to go in the local games shop (way before there were game chain stores) and stare at the parrallax scrolling ... and think 'one day Paul'.

SOB2 wasn't so bad, I finished ok.. probably with my action replay I can't remember now.

[KNau]

I was a Commodore fanboy since the Vic 20, so the Amiga was already "sold" for me.

It's so sad how companies like Psygnosis have fallen off the radar (even if you consider their output as Sony Liverpool). Even Cinemaware is disappointing with their "updated" Defender of the Crown and GBA ports of Wings and The 3 Stooges.

These are companies that pushed out new, original games constantly back in the day and now they're stuck rehashing old product or fading from existence. What are the Bitmap Brothers doing now? Why a super eXtreme 3D whizbang update of Speedball 2. They can't even be bothered to call it Speedball 3!

Did these people forget how to make exciting original games? Although I have to say Cinemaware did a good job with the Darwinia retail box - so at least they're distributing other people's exciting original games.

[Emmanuel]

There's still some Amiga diehards..

Check out this demo from The Black Lotus:
starstruck (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUv0jSYRBZo) (Assembly 2006 combined demo winner).

This runs in real-time on the amiga equivalent of a 486 DX2/66, obviously with no 3d hardware acceleration, and with some handicaps compared to a pc (chunky to planar pixel conversion for instance). Quite amazing for 1994-ish hardware (the demos takes off around 2').

Best regards,
Emmanuel