Bit Managers, formerly known as New Frontier, was a

video game developer A video game developer is 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 business with em ...

based in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

). It was co-founded by Alberto Jose González, who composed the music for all of their games except ''Bang!'', a coin-operated arcade machine.

History

The company was founded in 1988 as "New Frontier", initially programming games for

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for "Colour Personal Computer") is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spec ...

and

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, the director at ASCII Corpo ...

computer systems. The company at first met with only modest success. In 1992, the company changed its name to Bit Managers and began to make games for

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

consoles (especially for

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

). It focused on creating innovative games based on Franco-Belgian comics such as ''

Asterix ''Asterix'' ( or , "Asterix the Gauls, Gaul"; also known as ''Asterix and Obelix'' in some adaptations or ''The Adventures of Asterix'') is a Franco-Belgian comics, French comic album book series, series about a Gaulish village which, thanks ...

'', ''

The Smurfs ''The Smurfs'' (; ) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, humanoid creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. ''The Smurfs'' was created and introduced as a series of comic characters by ...

'' or ''

The Adventures of Tintin ''The Adventures of Tintin'' ( ) is a series of 24 comic albums created by Belgians, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. By 2007, a c ...

'' for a client company,

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA ()), also known as Atari Group, is a French holding company headquartered in Paris that owns mainly video gaming-related interactive entertainment properties. Atari SA's core subsidiaries include ...

. In 1997, Bit Managers was chosen by

Acclaim Entertainment Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher based in Glen Cove, New York. Originally founded by Greg Fischbach, Robert Holmes, and Jim Scoroposki from a storefront in Oyster Bay in 1987, the company built a global develop ...

to develop some games of the ''

Turok Turok () is a fictional character who first appeared in American comic books published by Western Publishing through licensee Dell Comics. He first appeared in ''Four Color Comics'' #596 (October/November 1954). After a second ''Four Color'' app ...

'' series for Game Boy. In 1998, the year of the launch of

Game Boy Color The (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console developed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. Compared to the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT scre ...

, Bit Managers was the first third-party developer to finish two Game Boy Color titles ('' Turok 2'' and ''Sylvester & Tweety''). That same year, the company was bought by a Spanish arcade video gaming company Gaelco. Bit Managers also ported the Gaelco arcade game '' Radikal Bikers'' to

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

shortly afterward. In 2001, the former principals of Bit Managers re-purchased the company. Bit Managers continued their relationship with

, developing several games for

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

. In 2005, the Spanish video game company Virtual Toys, bought Bit Managers. That business relationship continues and Bit Managers is a subsidiary of Virtual Toys Barcelona.

Games

Bang!

''Bang!'' is a

wild west The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain typ ...

game created for the Gaelco GG-1v machine, and released by Gaelco in 1998. It featured cartoon graphics;

single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in add ...

and 2-player modes, and offered the use of a

light gun A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games, typically shaped to resemble a pistol. Early history The first light guns were produced in the 1930s, following the development of light-sensi ...

and control button inputs.''Bang!''
a
Arcade History
retrieved .

References

External links

Bit Managers website

Virtual Toys website
{{Authority control Defunct video game companies of Spain Video game companies established in 1988 Video game companies disestablished in 2005 Video game development companies