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Apex Computer Productions
Apex Computer Productions was the brothers John Rowlands (programmer), John and Steve Rowlands, United Kingdom, British based game designers and programmers on the Commodore 64 in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They programmed in pure assembly language and their earliest commercial release was ''Cyberdyne Warrior'', a platform shooter, for Hewson Consultants, Hewson in 1989. Soon after, they entered a relationship with Thalamus Ltd, Thalamus, the game publishing arm of Newsfield, who published their next game, Thalamus Ltd, Retrograde. Thalamus relationship After ''Creatures'', Apex began work on the sequel ''Creatures II: Torture Trouble'', still developing on the Commodore 64. In a startling coup—since Thalamus were associated with a rival magazine publisher in Newsfield, the home of ''ZZAP!64'' — ''Commodore Format'' (Future Publishing) secured the rights to serialise the development of the game, which again proved very popular. ''Creatures II'' was received favorably by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of List of islands of the United Kingdom, the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering . Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. It maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The UK had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London. The cities o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newsfield
Newsfield Publications Ltd (also known as Newsfield) was a British magazine publisher during the 1980s and early 1990s. Newsfield Publications Ltd was founded by Roger Kean, Franco Frey and Oliver Frey in 1983. Based in Ludlow, Shropshire, Newsfield published a number of popular computer game magazines from the mid-1980s to early 1990s. This line-up was later supplemented by a number of less successful magazines covering role-playing games, film, horror and youth culture. Faced with financial difficulties, the company went bankrupt towards the end of 1991. This didn't spell the immediate end for some of their magazines though. Another magazine publisher, Europress, continued to publish Newsfield's flagship publications, Zzap!64 and Crash, for a further six months before the former was relaunched as Commodore Force and the latter sold to rival publisher EMAP and merged with Sinclair User. Thalamus Ltd, Newsfield's sister company, was set up in 1985 to publish a number of compu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creatures (Commodore 64 Game)
''Creatures'' is a platform game for the Commodore 64 computer developed by Apex Computer Productions and released in 1990. The game was made by two brothers who were founders of the company, John Rowlands (programming) and Steve Rowlands (music and visual design). It was later ported by WJS Design for Atari ST and released in 1992 and to the Amiga in 1993. The backronym "Clyde Radcliffe Exterminates All The Unfriendly Repulsive Earth-ridden Slime" is used as a subtitle for the game. The game was followed by '' Creatures II: Torture Trouble'' in 1992. Plot The game takes place on a fictional planet called Blot. This planet was previously an inhabitable place for a race of creatures called Blotians, but they were in great danger and had to build a spaceship and search for another suitable planet. The creatures were renamed the Fuzzy Wuzzies. The spaceship they built had to land due to a collision with an asteroid, and the only planet near them was Earth. Fuzzy Wuzzies landed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Super Mario Bros
is a 1985 Platformer, platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is the successor to the 1983 arcade game ''Mario Bros.'' and the first game in the ''Super Mario'' series. It was originally released in September 1985 in Japan for the Family Computer; following a US test market release for the NES, it was converted to international arcade game, arcades on the Nintendo VS. System in early 1986. The NES version received a wide release in North America that year and in PAL regions in 1987. Players control Mario, or his brother Luigi in the multiplayer mode, to traverse the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Peach, Princess Toadstool from King Koopa (later named Bowser). They traverse side-scrolling video game, side-scrolling stages while avoiding hazards such as enemies and pits with the aid of power-ups such as the Super Mushroom, Fire Flower and Starman (Mario), Starman. The game was designed by Shigeru Miyamot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonic The Hedgehog (1991 Video Game)
is a 1991 platform game developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis. It was released in PAL regions on June 21, North America two days later on June 23 and in Japan the following month. Players control Sonic the Hedgehog, who can run at supersonic speeds. Sonic sets out on a quest to defeat Dr. Robotnik, a scientist who has imprisoned animals in robots and seeks the powerful Chaos Emeralds. The gameplay involves collecting rings as a form of health, and a simple control scheme, with jumping and attacking controlled by a single button. Development began in 1990 when Sega ordered its developers to create a game featuring a mascot for the company. The developers chose a blue hedgehog designed by Naoto Ohshima after he won an internal character design contest, and named themselves Sonic Team to match their character. It uses a novel technique that allows Sonic's sprite to roll along curved scenery which was based on a concept by Oshima from 1989. ''Sonic the Hedgeho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mayhem In Monsterland
''Mayhem in Monsterland'' is a 1993 platform game for the Commodore 64. Its titular hero, "Mayhem", is a yellow triceratops blessed with the gift of speed. His goal is to return his world from sad to happy, ridding the world of monsters along the way. Plot An apprentice magician dinosaur living in Monsterland, Theo Saurus, made a mistake while practising a spell one day. He turned the lands Jellyland, Pipeland, Spottyland, Cherryland, and Rockland into sad places, void of color or life. Theo began living in a hidden cave to avoid the wrath of the other monsters until discovered one day by the hero of the story, Mayhem. Mayhem promised to bring Theo the necessary magic dust to transform Monsterland to its previous happy state. Gameplay At the beginning of each stage the goals are displayed to the player. There are two types of quota to be met. The first is magic dust quota where enemies must be defeated to gain magic dust. Enemies may be killed in two ways. Enemies may be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore Format
''Commodore Format'' was a British magazine for users of the Commodore 64 home computer. It was published on the third Thursday of every month. All 61 issues were produced by Future plc. These came towards the end of the machine's commercial life - from October 1990 until October 1995. Launch The launch editorial staff was dominated by journalists who had worked on ''Zzap!64'', including editor Steve Jarratt. Sean Masterson was Steve's deputy. Contributions came from Gordon Houghton and Kati Hamza. There was one fresh face - staff writer, Andy Dyer. The first issue previewed the new cartridge-based C64 GS (Games System). The magazine had 98 pages and came with a games tape known as the "Power Pack". Issue one's tape included a playable preview of upcoming arcade conversion Iron Man, and the full version of Tau Ceti. It retailed for £1.95. Magazine format The magazine's content was varied, but heavily biased towards gaming. Each issue usually kicked off with a news section ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ZZAP!64
''Zzap!64'' is a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact. The magazine launched in April, with the cover date May 1985, as the sister magazine to '' CRASH''. It focused on the C64 for much of its shelf life, but later incorporated Amiga game news and reviews. Like ''CRASH'' for the ZX Spectrum, it had a dedicated cult following amongst C64 owners and was well known for its irreverent sense of humour as well as its extensive, detailed coverage of the C64 scene. The magazine adopted an innovative review system that involved the use of the reviewers' faces, artistically rendered by in-house artists Oli Frey and Mark Kendrick, to express their reaction to the games. These eventually evolved into static cartoons as the magazine began catering for a younger market. High-quality games were indicated in reviews vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torture Trouble
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions restrict torture to acts carried out by the state, while others include non-state organizations. Most victims of torture are poor and marginalized people suspected of crimes, although torture against political prisoners, or during armed conflict, has received disproportionate attention. Judicial corporal punishment and capital punishment are sometimes seen as forms of torture, but this label is internationally controversial. A variety of methods of torture are used, often in combination; the most common form of physical torture is beatings. Beginning in the twentieth century, many torturers have preferred non-scarring or psychological methods to maintain deniability. Torturers more commonly act out of fear, or due to limited resources, rather than sadism. Alt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thalamus Ltd
Thalamus Ltd (also known as Thalamus) was a British computer game developer that published titles for a number of 8-bit and 16-bit platforms during the late 1980s and early 1990s. History Genesis ''Thalamus Ltd'' was created in 1986 as an in-house software publishing label of British magazine publisher Newsfield Publications Ltd, to take advantage of their leading position publishing computer game magazines, such as '' Crash'' and ''Zzap!64'', during the mid-1980s. Ex-Activision PR Manager Andrew Wright was assigned the position of Company Director and Newsfield staff writer Gary Liddon was appointed Technical Executive. The company was initially based in Canonbury, North London, in an office shared with staff of Newsfield's newly launched lifestyle magazine ''LM''. First titles Thalamus capitalised on the success of the Commodore 64 gaming scene by releasing their first batch of titles on this platform. Having established numerous contacts within the C64 development scene throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video Game Industry
The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, video game monetization, monetization, and customer satisfaction research, consumer feedback of video games. The industry (economics), industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niche to mainstream. , video games generated annually in global sales. In the US, the industry earned about in 2007, in 2008, and 2010, according to the Entertainment Software Association, ESA annual report. Research from Ampere Analysis indicated three points: the sector has consistently grown since at least 2015 and expanded 26% COVID-19 pandemic, from 2019 to 2021, to a record ; the global games and services market is forecast to shrink 1.2% annually to in 2022. The industry has i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hewson Consultants
Hewson Consultants were one of the smaller software companies which produced video games for home computers in the mid-1980s. They had a reputation for high-quality games which continually pushed the boundaries of what the computers were capable of and can be compared favourably with other ground-breaking software houses like Ultimate Play the Game and Beyond Software, Beyond. Fourteen of their games were awarded "Megagame" by ''Your Sinclair''. Hewson was founded by Andrew Hewson in the early 1980s. He became interested in computers while working at the British Museum when their first machine arrived. After learning to computer programming, program, Andrew wrote the programming guide book ''Hints and Tips for the ZX80''. Following the publication, bedroom coders began to send Andrew the games they had programmed on cassette tape, giving him the idea to publish the games. Hewson Consultants was born, and initially released games via mail order advertisements in computing magazin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
