''Fusion'' is a 1988

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...

video game developed by

Bullfrog Productions Bullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England. Founded in 1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, the company gained recognition in 1989 for their third release, ''Populous (video game), Populous'', ...

and published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

for the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

and

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Gameplay

It is a multi-directional scrolling

game (with

parallax scrolling Parallax scrolling is a technique in computer graphics where background images move past the camera more slowly than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D scene of distance. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera tec ...

). The action is viewed from the top. The player controls either a ground-based crawler or a spacecraft. There are thirteen levels.

Development

''Fusion'' was created by

, a development studio founded by game designer

Peter Molyneux Peter Douglas Molyneux (; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games '' Populous'', ''Dungeon Keeper'', and '' Black & White'', as well as ''Theme Park'', the ''Fable'' series, '' Curiosity: W ...

. It was the company's first original product and second game overall, after a

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

of the shoot 'em up '' Druid II: Enlightenment''. As with ''Druid II'' and the later '' Populous'', artist Glenn Corpes created most of the graphics and animation for ''Fusion'', while Molyneux handled the majority of its programming and design. The game was coded in

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

, and the

version was developed using

HiSoft Systems HiSoft Systems is a software company based in the UK, creators of a range of programming tools for microcomputers in 1980s and 1990s. Their first products were Pascal and Assembler implementations for the NASCOM 1 and 2 kit-based computers, follo ...

' Devpac II assembler. Its soundtrack, available on the

double-sided disk {{unreferenced, date=April 2019 In computer science, a double-sided disk is a disk of which both sides are used to store data. Early floppy disks only used one surface for recording. The term ''single-sided disk'' was not common until the introdu ...

release, was composed by David Hanlon. ''Fusion'' was released in 1988.

Reception

Matt Fox, author of ''The Video Games Guide'', summarized ''Fusion'' as a "run-of-the-mill shoot 'em up

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

caused few ripples on release". According to Corpes, ''Fusion'' was not a commercial success and, together with ''Druid II'', "only brought in a fraction of the money needed to pay the wage bill." A UK magazine gave the ST version of ''Fusion'' a score of 9 out of 10, saying that despite being "yet another vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up" it has "sufficient variation". Bullfrog went on to develop '' Populous'', ''

Magic Carpet A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its users to their destination. In literature One o ...

'' and other well-received titles.

References

External links

''Fusion''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

{{Bullfrog Productions 1988 video games Amiga games Atari ST games Bullfrog Productions games Electronic Arts games Europe-exclusive video games Scrolling shooters Video games developed in the United Kingdom