Micro Forté Pty Ltd is an Australian electronic entertainment company with development studios in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

and

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. Founded in 1985 by

John De Margheriti John De Margheriti (born July 1962) is an Italian Australian, Italian-born Australian Electrical engineering, electrical engineer, software developer and entrepreneur. De Margheriti is widely seen as a founding 'father' of Australia's video games i ...

at a time when there was little game development presence in Australia, Micro Forté has been closely linked to the growth of the Australian game development industry, with CEO De Margheriti initiating events such as the

Australian Game Developers Conference __NOTOC__ The Australian Game Developers Conference (AGDC) was an annual conference held from 1999 to 2005 that brought together Australian and overseas game developers, publishers, programmers, artists, production staff, computer graphics com ...

(AGDC) and founding the

Academy of Interactive Entertainment The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) is an Australian video games and computer animation school. Founded in 1996, it was one of the world's first institutions to offer qualifications in these industries. The AIE provides courses cover ...

(AIE). Micro Forté is primarily a developer of

massively multiplayer online game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, alt ...

s and

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

content.

History

Micro Forté's first title developed for

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 ...

and released in 1986 was the ''

Americas Cup The America's Cup, informally known as the Auld Mug, is a trophy awarded in the sailing (sport), sport of sailing. It is the oldest International sport, international competition still operating in any sport. America's Cup match racing, match ...

Sailing Simulation'' for the

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 ...

platform. Their second title also developed for Electronic Arts, '' Demon Stalkers'' was well received following its release in 1987. The sequel ''Fire King'' was published by SSG

Strategic Studies Group Strategic Studies Group (SSG) is an Australian software development company that makes primarily strategy wargames. The company was founded by strategy game enthusiasts Ian Trout and Roger Keating. Trout was proprietor of a military books store ...

in 1989. For a number of years the company pursued other activities outside the arena of game development, returning in 1994 to game development creating two children's titles ''Nordice'' and ''Bombs Away''. Micro Forté then developed titles for other international publishers including ''Enemy Infestation'' (Panasonic/Ripcord), ''HotWheels Bash Arena'' (THQ), and ''Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel'' (Interplay). Their most widely known title, ''

Fallout Tactics ''Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel'' is a turn-based tactics, turn-based real-time tactics, real-time tactical role-playing game set in the post-apocalyptic ''Fallout (series), Fallout'' universe. Developed by Micro Forté and published by 1 ...

: Brotherhood of Steel'' was published by Interplay and was a squad based tactical game based on the

Fallout (video game) ''Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game'' is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. In a mid-22nd century post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic world, decades after a global nuclear war, ''Fall ...

universe, and achieved scores between 80 and 90 from reviewers and fans alike.

Development of BigWorld Technology

In 1994 when Micro Forté returned to game development, the company began work on Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) technology. The research and development work was supported with a grant from the Australian Government and venture capital received through Allen & Buckeridge. Micro Forté spent a number of years concentrating their efforts on developing a technology capable of supporting multiple platforms with more players able to participate in limitless worlds and in the same space. The culmination of years of research and development resulted in BigWorld Technology, which is now a separate commercial company. The

BigWorld BigWorld Technology was an Australian software company. It was the developer of BigWorld, a middleware development tool suite for creating massively multiplayer online games (MMO) and virtual worlds. It was formed in 2002 by John De Margheriti ...

company was formed in 1999 and the BigWorld Technology Suite was commercialised and launched in 2002.

List of works

* '' America's Cup Challenge'' (C-64, Amstrad, Electronic Arts) * '' Demon Stalkers'' (C-64, PC, Electronic Arts) * '' Fire King'' (C-64, PC, SSG) * ''Nordice'' (PC game, Emu Multimedia) * ''Bombs Away'' (PC game, Emu Multimedia) * '' Enemy Infestation'' (PC game, Panasonic/Ripcord) * '' Kwari'' (PC game) * '' Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel'' (PC game, Interplay) * ''Hotwheels: Bash Arena'' (PC game, THQ) * ''Citizen Zero'' (Xbox MMO for Microsoft, unpublished) * ''Super Spy Online'' (PC MMO prototype)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Micro Forte Video game companies of Australia Video game companies established in 1985 Video game development companies Companies based in Canberra Australian companies established in 1985

History

Development of BigWorld Technology

List of works

See also

References