The Bitmap Brothers are a British video game developer founded in 1987. The company entered the

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstrea ...

in 1988 with the

scrolling shooter In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the text ...

Xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

''. They quickly followed with '' Speedball''. Prior to becoming the publisher of their own games (under

Renegade Software Renegade Software was a UK-based games publisher, founded in 1991 by the Bitmap Brothers. Initially, the Bitmap Brothers used the new label to publish their own games, after they had become dissatisfied with the practices of publishing companies ...

), early Bitmap Brothers titles were

distributed Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

Image Works Image Works was a British video game publisher that served as a publishing label for Mirrorsoft between 1988 and 1992, when the parent company went bankrupt. History The first two games published under the Image Works label were '' Fernandez M ...

and

Konami , is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has casino ...

. The Bitmap Brothers released several games on the Amiga and Atari ST, and were one of the most successful companies on those platforms. They became known in particular for releasing games from a variety of different genres that usually came to be regarded as leaders in their respective fields. Their PC games have never matched the sales of their previous Amiga titles, despite garnering positive critical reviews in the press. They publicized themselves as rock stars, and were featured in the press posing in dark glasses standing next to the helicopter of

Robert Maxwell Ian Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor, member of parliament (MP), suspected spy, and fraudster. Early in his life, Maxwell escaped from ...

, the owner of Mirrorsoft, the publisher of a number of their games. After 2002, the company also released ports of several of their games for both the

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...

and Pocket PC platforms, and since then they have been licensing their old games and properties to several other companies interested in attempting re-releases for modern platforms.

History

The Bitmap Brothers were based in

Wapping Wapping () is a district in East London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Wapping's position, on the north bank of the River Thames, has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains through its riverside public houses and steps, ...

, East London and were

privately owned A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

. The company's MD was Mike Montgomery, who had founded the company together with Eric Matthews and Steve Kelly. Mike Montgomery later went on to take sole control of the business. Mark John Coleman is a computer graphics developer who frequently worked with the Bitmap Brothers, and along with Dan Malone was responsible for the visual style that became a trademark of the Bitmap Brothers' games. Other key staff included Technical Director John Phillips, Art Director John Kershaw, Business Development Director Ed Bartlett and Creative Director Jamie Barber. The Bitmap Brothers became known for the high difficulty of their games. Montgomery later remarked that "all of the Bitmap Brothers games... they're probably a bit too difficult. The reason for that was we designed games that we wanted to play - for us it was actually quite hard to think that somebody would want to play something that's easy." The development team was voted Best 16-bit Programmers of the Year at the

Golden Joystick Awards The Golden Joystick Awards, also known as the People's Gaming Awards, is a video game award ceremony; it awards the best video games of the year, as voted for originally by the British general public, but is now a global event that can be vote ...

. Speedball was also voted best 16-bit Game of the Year overall. Two former core members of the company — Mike Montgomery and John Phillips — went on to found Tower Studios (along with

Sensible Software Sensible Software was a British software company founded by Jon Hare and Chris Yates that was active from March 1986 to June 1999. It released seven number-one hit games and won numerous industry awards. The company was well known for the exa ...

founder

Jon Hare Jon "Jops" Hare (born 20 January 1966, Ilford, Essex, England) is an English computer game designer, video game artist, musician and one of many founder members of the early UK games industry as co-founder and director, along with Chris Yates, ...

), and stated their involvement with Bitmap Brothers as having ended in 2004. Business Development Director, Ed Bartlett went on to pioneer the

in-game advertising In-game advertising (IGA) is advertising in electronic games. IGA differs from advergames, which refers to games specifically made to advertise a product.Matthew Yi (2005-07-25). "Advertisers pay for video games - Product placement tradition no ...

industry, initially with Hive Partners and then with IGA Worldwide. After years of silence a news post on the official website announced '' Speedball 2 Tournament'' which was released in November 2007 by Frogster Interactive, but failed to achieve the success of previous titles in the franchise. In October 2010, it was announced that ''Speedball 2'' would be resurrected again, this time for the iPhone and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...

systems, with Vivid Games managing the conversion. Following this, a mobile version of ''Z'' was developed by Peter Harrap and TickTock Games and was published by KavCom for devices running

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

and Android, with the touch screen usually available on these devices lending itself to a game of this genre.. It was released on iPhone and iPad in 2011, with further releases on BlackBerry Playbook, Android, and Kindle in 2012. The mobile version remake by TickTock Games was also released for Mac in 2012, and then published by Kiss Ltd and KavCom for Windows PC on Steam and

GOG.com GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through it ...

on 4 July 2014, together with a Steam release of ''Z: Steel Soldiers'' the following month. On 2 July 2012, ''Speedball 2: Evolution'' was announced and released for Android in Google Play Store, and in 2013 ''The Chaos Engine'' was recreated for release on PC, Linux and Mac. Rebellion Developments acquired the Bitmap Brothers back catalog in November 2019.

Titles

In chronological order: * ''

'' (1988) * '' Speedball'' (1988) * '' Xenon II: Megablast'' (1989) * '' Cadaver'' (1990) * '' Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe'' (1990) * '' Cadaver: The Payoff'' (1991) * ''

Gods A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater ...

'' (1991) * ''Bike'' / ''Triple X'' / ''Havoc'' (cancelled) * ''

Magic Pockets ''Magic Pockets'' is a platform game developed by the Bitmap Brothers and published by Renegade in October 1991. It was released for the Atari ST, Amiga, Acorn Archimedes, and MS-DOS. The title track of the game is the instrumental version of ''" ...

'' (1991) * '' The Chaos Engine'' (''Soldiers of Fortune'') (1993, 2013) * ''

The Chaos Engine 2 ''The Chaos Engine 2'' is a top-down shooter video game, and sequel to '' The Chaos Engine'', released for the Amiga in 1996 and developed by The Bitmap Brothers. A Sega Mega Drive version was planned but never released. Plot During the original ...

'' (1996) * '' Z'' (1996) * '' Speedball 2100'' (2000) * '' Xenon 2000'' (2000) * '' Z: Steel Soldiers'' (2001) * ''Speedball Arena'' (cancelled) * ''Warbots'' (unreleased) * '' World War II: Frontline Command'' (2003) * ''Brutal Deluxe'' / ブルータルデラックス (unreleased) * ''SpeedBall 2: Evolution'' (2012)

References

External links

* via

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bitmap Brothers, The 1987 establishments in England British companies established in 1987 Companies based in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Golden Joystick Award winners Video game companies established in 1987 Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies