MicroIllusions, based in Granada Hills, California was a

computer game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

and publisher of the home computer era (late 1980s to early 1990s). MicroIllusions, as a company, was a strong supporter of the

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 ...

and typically released titles on that platform before porting it to others. Activision cancelled them as an affiliated publisher after a year of signing them up. The company went out of business in or about 1990.

General

The company impact has been summed up as, "During MicroIllusion’s brief existence they produced some visionary software that, like so much else that came out of the Amiga scene, gave the world an imperfect glimpse of its multimedia future. That’s as true of Photon Paint, the progenitor of photographic-quality visual editors like

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...

, as it is of Music-X, a forerunner of easy-to-use music packages like

GarageBand GarageBand is a line of digital audio workstations developed by Apple Inc. for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices that allows users to create music or podcasts. GarageBand is developed by Apple for macOS, and was once part of the iLife software s ...

Founding

According to ''The Digital Antiquarian'', "The seeds of MicroIllusions were planted during one day’s idle conversation when Steinert complained to

David Joiner David "Talin" Joiner is an American game programmer, who created games such as ''The Faery Tale Adventure'' and ''Inherit the Earth'', contributed audio to '' Defender of the Crown II'' (1993), engineering for '' SimCity 4: Rush Hour'' (2003), and ...

that, while the Amiga supposedly had speech synthesis built into its operating system, he had never actually heard his machines talk; .. He proved as good as his word within a few hours. Impressed, Steinert asked if he could sell the new program ' talk to me' in his store for a straight 50/50 split. Given his circumstances, Joiner was hardly in a position to quibble. When the program sold well, Steinert decided to get into Amiga software development in earnest with the help of his wunderkind."

Applications

*'' Photon Paint 1.0'' (2D painting with 3D generation) (1987)

*''Photon Video: Cel Animator'' (animation) (1988) Amiga *''Transport Controller'' (animation) (1988) Amiga *''Photon Paint 2.0'' (2D painting with 3D generation) (1989) Amiga / Mac *''Edit Decision List Processor'' (film/video production) (1989) Amiga *''Genesis: The Third Day'' (3D landscape generation) (1991) Amiga *Music-X (1989) David Joiner (Talin) *Music-X Jr *Dynamic CAD 2.3 *Dynamic Word *The Planetarium *Micro Midi *Dynamic Publisher

Games

* Discovery (1986), Amiga, DOS,

C64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness Wo ...

, Megadrive (Genesis) created by David Joiner (Talin). Various addons were released ( language, Math, Science, Social Studies, Spell, Trivia 1) *

Faery Tale Adventure ''The Faery Tale Adventure'' is a 1987 action role-playing video game designed by David Joiner and published by MicroIllusions for the Amiga, and later ported to the Commodore 64, MS-DOS, and Sega Genesis. The MS-DOS version is titled ''The Faery ...

, (1986)

, created by David Joiner (Talin) * Blackjack Academy (1987),

, DOS, Apple IIGS created by Westwood * ''

Ebonstar ''Ebonstar'' is a computer game developed by MicroIllusions in 1988 for the Amiga. The player character commands a fleet of spacecraft around an ever-moving, extremely dangerous black hole in this space-based competition set in the 31st century. T ...

'' (1988), Amiga, created by the Dreamers Guild * '' Romantic Encounters at the Dome'' (1988)

, DOS, Macintosh * ''

'' (1987)

and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

(C64), DOS, Sega Mega DriveList of MicroIllusions games
from GameSpot * Galactic Invasion (1987)

. Developed by Silent Software. * Tracers (1988) Developed by Hacker Corp.

* '' Fire Power'' (1988)

, Apple IIGS, DOS * Mainframe (1988)

*''

Craps Academy Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other (playing "street craps") or against a bank ("casino craps"). Because it requires little equipment, "street c ...

'' (1988) Europe-only release,

Developed by Silent Software. *'' Questmaster 1: Prism of Heheutotol'' (a.k.a. Dondra: A New Beginning) (1988)

, DOS (

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

version by Spectrum Holobyte) * Turbo (1989) Developed by Silent Software.

*''

Laser Squad ''Laser Squad'' is a turn-based tactics video game, originally released for the ZX Spectrum and later for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Amiga, Sharp MZ-800 and Atari ST and PC computers between 1988 and 1992. It was designed by Julian Gollo ...

'' (published, 1989) Developed by Blade (Teque)

, Amstrad CPC,

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 ...

, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, MSX 1/2, NEC PC-98 * ''

Dr. Plummet's House of Flux ''Dr. Plummet's House of Flux'' is a video game developed by MicroIllusions in 1989 for the Amiga. Plot ''Dr. Plummet's House of Flux'' is a game in which the unusual Dr. Plummet has invited the player character to come to his House of Flux fo ...

'' (1989) * Jetsons George Jetson and the Legend of Robotopia (1989),

, Apple Mac. Developed by

The Dreamers Guild The Dreamers Guild was a publisher and developer of video games that operated from 1988 until 1997. History Authors Bryan Kritzell and David C. Logan reported that The Dreamers Guild was founded on an "open, consensus-driven" business model, i ...

* Land Of Legends, Unreleased, Developed by Parsec Soft Systems. '' Faery Tale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead'' (1997), sometimes credited to MicroIllusions, was completed by

, Inc. for various platforms.''Faery Tale II'' entry
from MobyGames

References

{{reflist

External links

MicroIllusions profile
from

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 ...

Defunct companies based in California Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game publishers