- This topic has 23 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 9 months ago by
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Thanks for that, really enjoyed the article, I had no idea those US Gold gems were produced locally.
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Yes really really cool !
Vigilante and The Deep done here… amazing !
There is a mention to a company named Martec. Is this a mistype of “Martech” which was a developer on 8/16bits gems or is it a totally different stuff ?
Great article anyway, way too short !
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I liked the article too, well done to Pavel. Remember those games as the golden greats – if I’d known they were being made in Ireland I might’ve thought twice about taping them :)
It’s come up that some people are experiencing errors in the features – square characters appearing where punctuation marks should be and the like. Can anyone confirm this problem as I can’t reproduce it on my own PC?
any help would be appreciated.
John.
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yeah on my pc the strange square punctuation is appearing in internet explorer but not firefox
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Ok, grand, I see it now myself. Another mystery, I’ll have to fix it at some stage tomorrow. Thanks, Keyo.
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In Internet Explorer, goto View, then Encoding, then select Western European (Windows).
Nice article too, by the way!!!!
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Thanks Lynchman, but I think I’ve spotted a problem – going to make the CMS swap ” for the ascii code – it should solve the problem and save people the hassle. Will gt it done in the next 24hrs.
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The retro article was a very enjoyable read!
Some other older games companies to check out include Taintech from Dundalk ( they developed a couple of prototype 3D games for PS1 and PC ), and Phantom Games ( in Dublin, they were making some Sega Megadrive games I think… ).
Does anyone know of other Irish game development companies from years ago?
Mal
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and Pixel Magic too..
glad you all liked the article..
these articles take a bit of time to get together since everyone has moved on, usually abroad. But I am sure we can get a couple more together..if people have contacts for people who worked in Phantom or PixelMagic let me know by PM. I know a few of the bods from Taintech are still around ..
Aphra..
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I don’t know much of Irish companies at that time, but at least Stephen Collins coded games on the Commodore 64, which was then the King. And yes, he is the Stephen Collins, CEO of Havok !
He wrote at least three games in the late 80s, which were:
– Badlands: a conversion of the Atari coinop game. It was a kind of Super Sprint in a post apocalyptic future (I love those car games: top down view, small cars, … the ancestors of the Micro Machines licence).
– Herobotik: an original shoot’em up which was published by Hewson.
– TRAN: another shoot’em up, only music was missing, which did never get published by Hewson because they had a similar game in their boxes. Stephen released this game to the C64 community a few months ago.Also, there were two guys from Northern Ireland (Belfast), Jonathan Temples (graphics) and Dave Clarke (coding) which had loads of excellent games published by Codemasters mainly in the late 80s/early 90s:
– CJ In The USA
– Nobby The Aardvark
– Spike The Viking
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the list is long !
They were known as “Genesis Software” or “Genesis Development”, depending on the game.My two cents !
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Does anyone know of other Irish game development companies from years ago?[/quote:29a7692f0b] personally, i’d like to more about Funcom – I know they’re Norwegian and still going strong (at least in Norway, if not in Ireland!), but I wouldn’t mind knowing the inside scoop, as it were
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Tony,
well I just happened to come across this presentation by a guy from Funcom..
not quite a feature but hey..
there are other presentations here on online games too..
cheers.
Aphra.
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More info on the games Genesis did…
http://www.lemon64.com/games/list.php?type=developer&name=Genesis%20Software
http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=2417
And an interview with Jonathan…
http://www.lemon64.com/interviews/jonathan_temples.php
And some of Steve Collins games…
http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=197
http://www.c64.com/detail.php?gameid=2006
TRAN
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/frank.gasking/Pages/Review_Tran.htm
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/frank.gasking/Pages/Creator_Tran.htmMal
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Wow!, I remember Nobby the Aarvark on the C64 published by Thalamus I think…
good times. back when a penny sweet cost a penny etc…
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Sorry Mal, I was lazy, next time I’ll put the links :)
Kyoto you’re right, Nobby was published by Thalamus.
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It’s Herobotix, not Herobotik.
…and for completeness (or complete nerdness): I also developed a prototype game for C64 called “Plazmatak” which I tried to sell to Thalamus, round the time they were working on Armalyte. But they were just looking for coders and not games at that time.
At the time Thalamus were based out of a few prefabs on the grounds of a military base in Shropshire (I think). You had to walk 4 miles from the nearst bus stop. Figured I didn’t want the commute so took a job in Pizzaland instead, and thus ended my game dev career.
:-)
Steve
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Pizzaland?! What other secrets lurk in your(apparently) murky past, Steve?!!
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I played paintball with the Zzap64 team once. Does that count?
…more namedropping than murky I guess.
Steve
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Well all I have to say is “Up Waterford!” :D
…oh & great article!
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As the saying goes “It was the best of times & the worst of times”
I had the ‘pleasure’ of working for Emerald on the C64, developing such classics as ‘The Deep’ LOL
Abiding memories are all night shifts to meet deadlines (The worst of times) and a great bunch of people to work and drink with (The best of times)
Sean Rogers
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Welcome to the site Sean! :D
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Hey Sean, welcome !!!
Which games did you work on the C64 ? :D
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