Apex Computer Productions was the brothers

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

and Steve Rowlands,

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

based

game designer Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

s and programmers on the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 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 ...

in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They programmed in pure

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively 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 bet ...

and their earliest commercial release was '' Cyberdyne Warrior'', a platform shooter, for Hewson in 1989. Soon after, they entered a relationship with

Thalamus The thalamus (: thalami; from Greek language, Greek Wikt:θάλαμος, θάλαμος, "chamber") is a large mass of gray matter on the lateral wall of the third ventricle forming the wikt:dorsal, dorsal part of the diencephalon (a division of ...

, the game publishing arm of Newsfield, who published their next game, Retrograde.

Thalamus relationship

After ''Creatures'', Apex began work on the sequel '' Creatures II: Torture Trouble'', still developing on the

. In a startling coup—since Thalamus were associated with a rival magazine publisher in Newsfield, the home of ''

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 magazi ...

'' — '' 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 the critics. ''Creatures II'' focused more on the popular torture screens than on the side-scrolling platforming of ''Creatures''. Thalamus collapsed shortly after the publication of ''Creatures II'', as the Commodore 64 had started to wane in popularity. Apex then decided to publish for themselves.

Solo

'' Mayhem in Monsterland'' was their swan song. Platformers had become very popular, with ''

Sonic The Hedgehog is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese developers Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, and Hirokazu Yasuhara for Sega. The franchise follows Sonic the Hedgehog (character), Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battle ...

'' and ''

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 origi ...

'' on the consoles. ''Mayhem'' was a game fashioned after ''Sonic'', though mostly a direct descendant of ''Creatures''. ''Mayhem in Monsterland'' was given a "perfect" 100% score when reviewed by '' Commodore Format'' magazine. This proved controversial both because the game contained bugs (not all stars could be collected on all levels), and because the Rowlands brothers had close ties with the magazine, documenting the development of the game in game diary features.

Games

*'' Cyberdyne Warrior'' ( Hewson, 1989) *'' Retrograde'' ( Thalamus Ltd, 1989) *'' Creatures'' (Thalamus Ltd, 1990) *'' Creatures II: Torture Trouble'' (Thalamus Ltd, 1992) *'' Mayhem in Monsterland'' (Apex, 1993)

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web, url=http://www.itproportal.com/2011/05/09/museum-computing-launches-bedroom-coding-day/, title=Museum of Computing launches bedroom coding days, author=Staff Writer, publisher=ITProportal, date=9 May 2011, accessdate=28 January 2012 {{cite web, url=http://punto-informatico.it/2623809/PI/News/vita-oltre-morte-del-c64.aspx , title=La vita oltre la morte del C64 , date=15 May 2009 , author=Fabrizio Bartoloni , accessdate=28 January 2012 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111221074302/http://punto-informatico.it/2623809/PI/News/vita-oltre-morte-del-c64.aspx , archivedate=21 December 2011 Video game development companies Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom