Toriyama – Mukokuseki vom Manga DragonBall 1984 ins GameDesign DragonQuest 1987

Toriyama, einer der ganz Grossen des Mukokuseki in Mangas und Games, ist Anfang März gestorben.

Parodie und Anfänge im Manga

Eines der ersten Werke von Toriyama war eine Parodie auf Star Wars. Was selbstverständlich bezeichnend ist: Es ist das, was ein Teil der japanischen Kultur sehr gut kultivierte (vom Amerikanischen Western bis zum Comic): Mukokuseki. Also die Aneignung von Kulturobjekten, indem man sie zerschnipselt und wieder zusammensetzt (ein neues Ganzes macht) und Parodie ist auch hier ein gutes Mittel. Das findet sich denn auch weiter in Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater 1983.

DragonBall 1984 – der König der Affen

DragonBall ist ein eigentliches Mukokuseki-„Spiel“, das dies noch radikalisierte auch inhaltlich. Aus europäischer Perspektive ist SonGoku eine neue Variante von Simplizissimus (Naiv in eine fremde Kultur) und so lesbar – selbstverständlich aus asiatischer Perspektive eher der Geschichte vom König der Affen (Reise nach Westen – expandierender Stab, Wolke, Name des Königs Son Goku). Und das macht Mukokuseki auch aus: eben doch beides verschmolzen aber doch nicht beides zusammen. Es ist eben vertraut und doch neu – alt und doch radikal modern. Ein Kulturtechnik sondergleichen, geboren aus der „Sonderstellung“ Japans in der Geschichte.

Dragon Ball war dann letztlich auch die Radikalisierung des Mukokuseki: Aus aller Welt kamen nun die Personen, Charakteren und aus allen Reichen, ob Tiere, Aliens – alles war nun möglich (Was natürlich schon in der Reise nach Westen mitangelegt ist). Alle Religionen – nichts war dieser Kulturtechnik mehr „heilig“ und das war auch ihre Befreiung, ihre Ermächtigung als Weltkultur. Und in DragonBall wurde dies auch noch dekonstruiert von lüsternen Meistern (Master Roshi) bis hin zu einem ultranaiven Helden SonGoku, andere Helden, die in Ohnmacht fallen, wenn sie eine Frau sehen oder einem Schwein, dessen erster Wunsch ‚Unterwäsche‘ ist und und und. Die Überraschung steckt hier auch in der Frage, welcher Bruch kommt jetzt, wohin ‚zoomt‘ die Geschichte heraus und wie rekontextualisiert sich dann wiederum das bisher gelesene – etwa wenn Piccolo zwar der Teufel ist, aber es gibt da noch mehr. Der Kampf und das Trainieren ist dabei endlos, was dann zur Absurdität von DragonBall Z führte, was dann sichtbar nicht mehr Toriyamas Werk war.

Nicht viel später hat Toriyama dann das Game „DragonQuest“ visuell verantwortet.

DragonQuest – Game 1986

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8Bit-Games – ein Medium ohne Begründungsprobleme, ohne grosse Ansprüche und sehr anpassungsfähig

Warum sind Games die ideale Software, die ideale Anwendung für Computer? Gerade in der Anfangszeit der (Home-)Computer. Eine fundamentale Frage.

Grossrechner – Teil einer Industrie

Am Anfang des Computers zu Hause geht es oft um die Frage, was soll man mit diesen Computern tun? Bei Grossrechnern ist das längst klar, sie haben Anwendungsgebiete, die erweitert wurden und jede Art von Möglichkeiten die Daten weiter zu nutzen etwa zu Drucken, Netzwerke um sie gemeinsam auszutauschen, es gibt sogar die Möglichkeit an gemeinsamen Daten zu arbeiten. Sie waren letztlich angeschlossen an ihre inudstrielle Umwelt und integriert in Arbeitsprozesse. Nicht dass diese Integration einfach war. Aber es gab sie zumindest.

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist IBM_704_mainframe.gif

Kleinrechner – Was soll man damit?

Der ZX81 und co wird per default nicht mit einem Speichermedium geschweige (man sollte den vorhandenen? Kasettenrekorder nutzen) denn mit einem Drucker geliefert. Meist auch ohne Ausgabemedium: Hier musste der Fernseher ran. Das heisst – und Guggerli macht darauf aufmerksam – es war unklar für was man diese Home-Computer nutzen sollte.

Eine Bewertung von Jim Warren kam zum Schluss, dass herkömmliche Geschäfts- und Industrieanwendungen nicht in Frage kommen. Eventuell seien mögliche Anwendungen Spiele, Gruppenspiele und „Spiele hätten ja auch einen erzieherischen Wert“ (S.163). „Zudem könnten Musik- und Radioanwendungen an Bedeutung zunehmen. Unter Umständen gebe es ein gewisses Interesse an Textverarbeitung. Aber ohne guten Drucker … “ (S.163)

https://www.gamelab.ch/?p=7015&page=2

Vor dem Basic-Prompt sitzen – was nun?

Und das ist letztlich eine wichtige Frage. Und die ist heute noch so: Startet man einen Computer der 8bit Generation auf, stellt man sich die Frage: „OK und was nun?“. Der Computer ist ein offenes System – anders als die Console – wo klar ist, wofür sie da ist. Der Computer ‚wartet‘ also auf Input, auf Tätigkeit. Der blinkende Cursor ist der Avatar und das implizite „Mach mal was!“ Aber was? Was kann man* überhaupt tun?

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist C64_startup_animiert.gif

Dann nutzt man meist das vorhandene Basic und macht das einfachste Spiel überhaupt. Man tippt „10 print ‚hello‘ 20 goto 10“ und run. Und fertig ist das einfachste Spiel. Das Motivationsdesign: Es läuft was auf dem Computer und zwar endlos und zeigt. Aha. Dann kann man weitergehen. Es ist beschäftigt. Der Computer, bekommt das wofür er entworfen wurde: Der Rechenknecht kann Dinge ausführen.

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist 1VXQcyjKSJ3-53TV-kZ43Cw.png

Verschiedene (Computer-)Systeme (und dieser Begriff bringt es auf den Punkt)

Aber mehr ist schwierig. Denn dahinter kommen die Eigentümlichkeiten jedes Homecomputer-Ökosystem als Aufschreibesystem zum Tragen. Alles ist bei jedem 8bit-Computer anders. Die Homecomputer waren damals unter sich sehr inkompatibel. Selbst die Basics waren unterschiedlich (darum tippen auch alle grundlegensts Basic ein), auch wenn viele von Microsoft kamen (und man argumentieren könnte, das war das eigentliche Betriebssystem). Die Inkompatibilität war sowohl in der Hardware (und deren Abhängigkeit) wie in der Software begründet, ganz zu schweigen von den File-Formaten, die noch unstandartisierter waren. Nutzer* lebten also buchstäblich in verschiedenen Welten/Systemen/Ökosystemen und auch Communities. Siehe etwa Grafikdateiformaten – da hatte fast jede Software ihren eigenen Standard, meist abgestimmt auf die Art der Grafik der Hardware und dessen Datenrepräsentation.

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist Bildschirmfoto-2024-03-15-um-12.18.23-761x1024.png
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GameDesign – Aufwand/Ertrag und Genre oder der Versuch abzuschätzen, in welchen Kategorien Games aus spezifischen Genres in der Entwicklung herausfordernd sind

Die häufigst benutzte Perspektive in der Medienberichterstattung ist die Konsumentenperspektive und dies trifft auch auf das Games zu. Der Markt so scheint es, ist eine Auswahlmöglichkeit für Konsumenten*. Dies ist selbstverständlich nur die halbe Wahrheit, denn der Markt shaped auch die Auswahlmöglichkeiten. Und noch viel mehr shapen Tools von Aufwand und Ertrag die Möglichkeiten Produkte überhaupt herzustellen.

Erst die Diskussion über Arbeitsbedingungen (von Sklaverei bis Industrialisierung etc) und heute die Nachhaltigkeitsdiskussion reissen den Entstehungsprozess von Produkten in ein leises Lichtchen.

Konsumenten lieben die schönen Hüllen, wir essen Gummibärchen und nicht Gelatine aus Tierabfällen. Dies ist im Gamedesign nicht anders. Wer denkt schon über die perversen Bedingungen nach unter denen die schönen Produkte wie Assassins Creed produziert werden?

Schon mal ein schlechtes Gewissen gehabt beim Spielen von Assassins Creed?

Der Aspekt der Produktion wird auch im Nachdenken über Games etwa in den Gamestudies fast einhellig vernachlässigt, der Grund dabei: Wir konsumieren halt lieber, als Gamen schon ein moralisches Problem ist. Und ! wir müssten noch etwas von Produktion verstehen und nicht nur Konsument sein am Markt.

Aufwand und Ertrag in Games Genre

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Koala-Painter&Pad (1983) oder Designen in 8Bit

Das Design in 8Bit kann vermutlich eingeteilt werden in
A) Design direkt in der Programmiersprache also das erstellen von Sprites mit 0101010 (wodurch natürlich auch eine gewisse Visualität entsteht und
B) das Nutzen von ‚Zeichnungssoftware‘, die eine Art Zeichnen simulierte in Software. Hier konnte per Cursor oder per Joystick gepixelt werden (B1). Die nächste Variante war dann sicherlich das Zeichnen mit einer Maus (B2). Die erweiterte Variante davon waren ‚Touchinterfaces‘ oder Stiftinterfaces (B3). Dies simulierte noch eher eine Art Zeichenpraxis, wenn auch In- und Output entkoppelt war. Im 8Bit Bereich waren lediglich die Lightpens (B4) in der Lage diese Funktionalität von Zeichnen auf Papier zu simulieren.

Möglichkeitsraum und Agency beim Designen

All dies ist natürlich wichtig, um zu verstehen, wie die Bilder entstanden, was für Möglichkeiten es gab. Welche Bilder waren schwierig zu kreieren, welche lagen im Medium quasi ‚drin‘. Nur so lässt sich letztlich auch ein Teil der ‚Entwicklung‘ im Bereich des Designs von Games erklären und Nachvollziehbar machen: Wie aufwändig waren gewisse Games? Welche Ressourcen benötigte es? (Aufwand/Ertrag etc). Und das nicht nur in einer rückwärts gewandten Auseinandersetzung – von Heute aufs gestern sondern synchron in jener Zeit.

KoalaPad und KoalaPainter 1983

Im Folgenden wurde kurz das KoalaPad und der KoalaPainter für C64 ausprobiert.

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LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher /2

Part 2: International Collaborations and Unreleased Games (revised edition, january/ february 2024)

Beat Suter

LINEL was a software developer and publisher based in Switzerland. The label was active from 1987 to 1995. Part 1 of this essay tried to establish a complete list of all games that were published and distributed by the Swiss company LINEL. Part 2 pieces together LINEL’s international collaborations with other publishers and developers and uncovers the games that were never released.

LINEL was founded by Markus Grimmer and a dozen young Swiss developers in the 1980s. The company had its headquarters first in St.Gallen, then in Vaduz, Liechtenstein and in Herisau, Appenzell. Its business was mainly the distribution of games, that were developed and produced by developers under contract, assigned studios and free-lancers. LINEL’s young developers focused on programming and creating games on Amiga and Atari ST but did some Commodore 64 ports, Spectrum ZX and DOS ports as well. Overall, 31 games were published with the label LINEL, and some of them received second editions in disk mags in the early 1990s. Many of the games were produced in cooperation with other developer studios and publishers mostly in the UK and in Germany.

Figure 1: Linel merchandize: a Swiss pocketknife for the publisher’s VIPs. Photo: Roman Werner

LINEL had important connections to other developers and publishers abroad from start on. A second office that Markus Grimmer set up near London in High Wycombe established LINEL among internationally operating game marketing companies and guaranteed connections to copy factories, other publishers, coders, and artists. There, Grimmer got to know many other small companies working in the same area, for example John Symez from Microdeal who distributed Insanity Fight for LINEL in the UK and USA (with the sister company MichTron Inc. in the USA) and Jane Cavannagh from Sales Curve Ltd. “At the games fair in London,” Grimmer tells, “we demonstrated Insanity Fight and met Jane Cavannagh during the event. At the time she was still employed by British Telecom as a sales director in their computer games division. However, she planned to use her connections to set up a distribution company representing smaller games labels. We were the first she took on.” (E-Mail exchange between Beat Suter and Markus Grimmer, January 23, 2024. Translation from German by author) Cavannagh went on to acquire other companies to establish herself in the global game industry with Eidos and SCI Games. Grimmer remembers the start: “While we were preparing our next products for the UK market, she founded her company Sales Curve. The amusing background story is that I was sitting with her in her living room, and we were joking about company names. In the end, we came up with Sales Curve and she drew a statistics curve with a red pencil that went upwards and said that this should become the logo and symbolize success. Back then, we would never have dreamed that it would one day become a listed company with several hundred employees and have a significant influence on the gaming world.” (Dito, january 23, 2024)

Among the young developers, it was common practice to exchange information and visit each other and show what you were working on. Early on, the young Argovian developers around Heinz Lüem had invited other developers for an exchange to the rural town of Hendschikon AG, and they came from the UK, Sweden, USA and Germany (Interview with Heinz Lüem by Larissa Wild and David Krummenacher, 2023). Likewise, from 1988 on, Markus Grimmer invited many young developers to Appenzell, where he discussed concepts with them, and they worked on several games at the same time and helped each other out (Interview with Guido Henkel (of Attic Entertainment) by Christian Schmidt und Gunnar Lott). For Grimmer, it was important to get deals with foreign publishers that could guarantee distribution of the games in countries like the UK, USA, F and D. The game markets were not as open at the time. The Atari was the dominant machine in the USA. France had their own rules for distributing games, Germany, and Italy as well. You always needed at least a manual in the local language to be able to put a game on the market (Talk between Beat Suter and Markus Grimmer on November 28, 2023). And in the UK, for a long time, the tape recorders (for C64, ZX Spectrum and Amiga) were the most widespread peripherals for computer games and not disks and cartridges like in Switzerland. This made it necessary for Grimmer to establish a local office for organizing the copy production and distribution process. So, it is not a surprise that cooperation with other studios and publishers took place almost from start on. And after a slow start, LINEL mostly worked with studios from other countries (one studio even from New Zealand) and in mixed teams with developers from England, Germany; Scandinavia and Switzerland.

Collaborations

Mostly for publishing and distributing purposes, there were collaborations with the following companies (incomplete lists). Some of them were partners just for one localized game (like Micro Deal), others were partners for releasing and distributing several games on different platforms (like GENIAS and Merit Studios).

Figure 2: Logo used by Hewson Consultants from 1984 on

Figure 3: Merit Software’s Logo from 1992-96

Frequent publisher collaborators:

  • Micro Deal Ltd. (UK) – Insanity Fight (1987)
  • Hewson Consultants Ltd. (UK) – Exolon (1987), Eliminator (1987)
  • Players Software (UK) – Eliminator (1987)
  • Codemasters Software Company Ltd. – Maze Patrol (1987)
  • Logico Software (CH) – Crack (1988), Dugger (1988), The Champ (1988), …
  • Software Success Marketing (UK) – Crack (1988), Dugger (1988), The Champ (1988)
  • The Sales Curve Ltd. (UK) – Crack (1988), Dugger (1988), The Champ (1988)
  • Pantheon Software (USA) – The Champ (1988)
  • SYSTEM 4 de Espana S.A. (E) – The Champ (1988), La Storia Interminable II (1991)
  • Pactronics (AUS) – The Champ (1988)
  • CCD (D) – Kaiser (1988)
  • Genias (I) – World Cup 90 (1990), Dragon’s Kingdom (1990), Over the Net (1990), La Storia Infinita II (1991), Medieval Warriors (1991), Tilt (1991), Warm-Up (1991), Catalypse (1992), Top Wrestling (1992), Sky-Tech (1992)
  • Rushware (D) – distributed most of GENIAS’ games in cooperation with LINEL
  • Merit Software (USA) – Traders: The Intergalactic Trading Game (1991), The Neverending Story II: The Arcade Game (1991), Medieval Warriors (1991)
  • Clockwork Games Ltd. (UK) – Necronom (1991)
  • Flair Software (UK) ­ Reach out for Gold (1992/1993)
  • Software 2000 (D) – Der Schatz im Silbersee (1993)
  • Softgold Computerspiele GmbH (D) – Kaiser Deluxe (1995)
  • Dynasty International (Taiwan) – Legends of the Swordmaster (1993), Heroes of China (1993), Battle Commander (1993)
  • Computec Media (D) – disk mag editions in Amiga Fun, Amigo!, Amiga Games CD ROM and PC Action
  • CP Verlag (D) – disk mag editions in Golden Disk 64

Figure 4: Logo of Italian Publisher and developer GENIAS as used for their C64 games

Frequent developer collaborators:

Dragonware Games (D) – Exolon (1987), Ooze (1988)
Nightrider Software (CH) – Dugger (1988)
1001 Software Developments (NL) – Baby Bug (1989), Skate of the Art (1989)
Lunatic Software (UK) – Necronom (1991)
Vision Software (NZ) – Gnome (1991), Kiro’s Quest (1992)
Cybervision (D) – Der Schatz im Silbersee (1993), Durch die Wüste (1994)

In french speaking Switzerland, LINEL worked together with Logico Software in Lausanne. Markus Grimmer remembers that Madame Chris Chauffat was first distributing the game Crack (1988) and reached impressively high sales figures for Switzerland. Chris Chauffat had founded her software distribution company in 1986 in Lausanne together with her husband Oliver Chauffat. From 1988 on the company distributed games from Sega, Microprose and Electronic Arts exclusively in Switzerland. And in 1991 it took the first steps in hardware distribution with the exclusive representation of Creative Labs products in Switzerland. Grimmer liked to cooperate with Chauffat, but for later games it got increasingly difiicult as the companies that wanted to take over products in various countries such as Italy and France always wanted to license the distribution in Switzerland in the same language in order to avoid grey imports. Logico Software S.A. was bought by Guillemot Corporation S.A. in 1998 which five years later was renamed Guillemot Suisse S.A. and integrated into Ubisoft. This company seized to exist in 2010.  Chris and Oliver Chauffat worked with Guillemot until 2003 and are still working in software distribution today with their own Ceto S.A. in Pully.

Figure 5: Logo for the Lausanne based software and game distributor Logico Software S.A. by Madame Chris Chauffat (1986 – 1998). Source: Suter

Unreleased Games

Some of the numerous cooperation with other publishers and other dev teams didn’t work out. While we know of 31 games that were published with the label LINEL (See part 1) on many platforms or mediated by LINEL (in case of GENIAS), there were some games and projects that didn’t make it in the stores, nor on disk magazines.

Is it already difficult to find and get information on some of LINEL’s published games that were done in collaboration with foreign publishers or international developer teams, it seems to be even harder to get enough information on abandoned game projects. But there are some announcements in game magazines and in odd cases previews of prototype versions of planned releases that present enough information to list the games as unreleased LINEL projects.

An incomplete list:

Maze Patrol (1987)
Dragonslayer (1988)
Ice & Fire (1989)
Crown (1989)
Solaria (1989)
Drachen von Laas (1989)
Dugger 2 (1989)
Neverending Story II: Das Adventure (1991)
Reach out for Gold (1992)
Astar – Land in Flames (1992)
Der Schatz im Silbersee (1994) Amiga version
Durch die Wüste (1994)

Maze Patrol (1987) was a Commodore 64 game, that was due to be released by LINEL in 1987. Markus Grimmer commissioned the prolific Austrian Listing games designer Roland Mayer with a game that is said to be somewhat like his own Hungry Hoodlum (1987) game that was published by Tronic Verlag GmbH in Compute mit for C64 earlier in 1987. Mayer says that he received a call from Switzerland and was promised that his game would be published by LINEL for a good fee. He developed the game in Assembler, completed it and painted a title cover for Maze Patrol. It was a rather elaborate work that took him several weeks. But the game was never released by LINEL, nor was it released by Codemasters, a well-known English C64 publisher, LINEL tried to cooperate with. Meyer does not know why the game wasn’t released. And he did not get any money either for his extensive work. Musician Helmut Melcher confirmed to researcher Lenny Bronstein (Games that weren’t: 64) in 2020 that they did a composition for Maze Patrol. “In the years 1987 – 1989, I did a few programming and games music jobs for LinEl. In April 4th 1987, I sent the music and music coding to Ronald. I still have a copy of the letter, and a printout of code and data. So: The music and its coding for MazePatrol on C64 stems from me.” (Melcher 2020) A copy of the game has not been found so far.

DragonSlayer (1988)by Christian A. Weber was a LINEL project that was announced for January 1989. French previews saw it as an extremely promising title by LINEL. Presentations were delayed and its first screens were finally revealed in November 1989. While gamers‘ expectations were high, the game’s incessant postponements put them to the test. The project was very ambitious. Again in 1990 french media announced the immediate release of  DragonSlayer on Amiga, Atari ST and C64, but after that there was silence. It appears that some Dragon sequences have been used in a C64 demo of Rings of Medusa (1989). A few parts from the unreleased game were later used in the follow-up Rings of Medusa Gold. After LINEL had abandoned the project, Starbyte took over, assigned Chris Haller and Roland Petermann to the task and intended to make a Barbarian clone with the title Warrior of Darkness out of the DragonSlayer idea. But Warrior of Darkness faced the same fate at Starbyte and remained unreleased as well. However, Christian A. Weber managed to put a playable demo together on Amiga in 1991. And finally, Starbyte integrated a lot of material into its Rings of Medusa Gold (1994) Amiga version.

Figure 6: Dragonslayer sequence, that has been shared on English Amiga Board (2005). Screenshot: DamienD

Ice & Fire (1989) was also announced in the Dugger booklet together with DragoSlayer as soon to follow release. The French magazine Generation 4 knows in its issue No.6 that the game is expected on Amiga and Atari ST. It had been announced as an adventure game with many original features such as offering several good endings.

Crown (1989) had been announced by the same French magazine Generation 4 as a strategy game reminiscent of Seven Cities Of Gold. “With almost 58 colors, the game, due for release on ST and Amiga in February 89, promises to be excellent.” The magazine prints one screen with an isometric map view of a city called Dead City showing the LINEL Logo as well as the title Crown. The British magazine The Games Machine 10/1988 points out the graphics as well: “Crown (for the ST) is the first strategy game to provide players with a detailed graphic landscape spread over 16 screens, utilising 56 colours on screen.” Further, the gameplay for the strategy game is described as very flexible and user-friendly: “You can conquer cities, rule lands, and fight off invading armies. Feeling aggressive? You can also invade other territories or even get pushy and establish trade routes. Alternatively, a life of crime can be pursued, looting and raiding caravans as they cross the landscape – though be prepared to pay the penalties.” Versions for PC, Amiga and Atari ST were planned.

Solaria (1989) was intended for release in March 1989. Again, the French magazine Generation 4 knows that it is a game that is based on an Aztec sport. The British magazine The Game Machine is more specific, calls it an arcade game and writes the following in its issue 10/1988 on page 15: “Based on a Mayan legend (another true story?), the game is an ancient Aztec sport where two opponents maneuver floating spheres past each other until all the spheres have landed behind one. Acrobatic leaps are the key to success and so energy has to be husbanded carefully to maintain control of the spheres and the attack. It was supposed to be out for ST and Amiga. Information on Solaria, Crown and Ice & Fire are rather sparse.

Drachen von Laas (not released in 1989) was a text adventure. The game was completed by the two German developers Guido Henkel and Hans-Jürgen Brändle, prior to signing a contract with Markus Grimmer, manager of LINEL. But the Swiss publisher favored the development of other games and delayed the release of Drachen von Laas over a year amidst money problems. After working on other projects, Henkel had enough in mid 1990 and annulated the contract with Grimmer. Although times were over for selling text adventures well and gamers wanted point’n’click adventures with visuals instead. The text adventure was eventually published by Henkel’s and Brändle’s newly founded Attic Entertainment in 1991 for DOS, Amiga and Atari ST. Today, it is a sought-after collector’s item.

Figure 7: Dragonslayer was finally released by Attic Software in 1991. This is the small box version of the PC edition. Source: Ebay

Dugger 2 (1989) was probably the planned third game in the series of the Herbie Stone games. The booklets for Crack (1988) and Dugger (1988) mention a third game with cartoon character Herbie Stone, but there is no mention of a name for the game. Developer Christian Haller mentions the game in the interview with David Krummenacher and Larissa Wild (2023). He says, there was a prototype of a Dugger 2 game, but it might not have been released. Furthermore, Haller says, that Christian Weber worked on Dugger 2, possibly with the help of graphic artist Ronald Petermann.

Reach out for Gold (1992) was planned as an Amiga release by LINEL for the end of 1992. The project was first mentioned under the name Olympix (ASM 11/92). In its November 1992 issue Amiga Joker wrote a preview and pointed out its quirky comic style and funny gameplay ideas for an Olympic sports game.

“Was die Eidgenossen von Linel hier an einzelnen Wettbewerben zusammengetragen haben, kennt man zwar prinzipiell schon aus der Reihe anderer Sportspiele, allerdings kaum in einer derart humoristischen Verpackung.” (Amiga Joker Nov. 1992:16)

„The individual competitions that the Swiss team at Linel have put together here are familiar from other sports games, but hardly in such a humorous package.“ (translated by author)

The tested prerelease gets a rather good score from the magazine with overall 75%, a silver medal. The price is indicated with DM 89.- Unfortunately, for unknown reasons the Amiga version was never released by LINEL. But at the end of 1993, the British publisher Flair Software released a DOS version. And in 1994, Flair Software released an Amiga CD32 version with the new title Summer Olympix.

Astar – Land in Flames (1992) was announced in a news snippet in Amiga Joker 11/92 as new LINEL product: “Ein Strategie-Epos nach Atlantis Überlieferungen (Amiga mit 1MB)”. An epic story based on Atlantis lore as strategy game. Surprisingly, we find a review of Astar at the same time in Amiga Games 11/92 on page 45. However, there is no mention of LINEL as distributor, but MCS is mentioned as producer. The game is described as strategy game, a mixture between Powermonger and Kaiser. The magazine editor (MK) must have had a demo to play since he elaborately talks about the strategic and fighting gameplay and the many cutscenes that he seemed to like. He states that Astar is interspersed with interactive movie scenes which report on events in and around the land of Astar and force the player to make certain decisions. The strategy game for one or two player shows some affinity to role play games. Graphics and cutscenes seemed to be the highlights. Unfortunately, there is no prototype or demo available until today.

Figure 8: Astar, Land in Flames, unreleased game from 1992. An epic Story based on Atlantis lore. Source: Amiga Games 11/92, p.46

The release of Neverending Story II: the Arcade Game (1991) in early 1991 in German on Commodore 64 was followed by Amiga, Atari ST and PC versions in Italian, Spanish and English. But the LINEL crew also worked on a a second installment, that was called Neverending Story II – the Adventure. This should have been the start of a classic adventure series. The development of this second game was going to be based on the new MACS engine (Modular Adventure Control System) that Arndt Hasch had developed for LINEL as an answer to Lucas Arts SCUM engine. Unfortunately, there was only a demo version, that made it to PC Joker and was previewed in their 6/91 issue. The reviewers were quite impressed by graphics and especially sound, but the game with the interface that looked rather similar to the classis Scum point’n’click adventures was never finished. Later, the MACS-engine was used for the game Der Schatz im Silbersee (1993).

Der Schatz im Silbersee (Amiga version, not released in 1993/94). The PC-Version was released in 1993 with Software 2000 as publisher. LINEL and Cybervision were the two developer teams, Markus Grimmer was the producer. Michael Tschögl did the animations. According to Mobygames, an Amiga version was developed, but never released. There is a demo version available in the internet. The German magazine Amiga Joker received a test-version and wrote a preview in its 3/94 issue and gave it a good rating of 74%. A first progess report was already written by Hans Ippisch in Amiga Joker 8/93. He visited LINEL and knew that the Amiga version will be similar to the PC-version, and it will come in 256 color graphics (for Amiga 1200). Ippisch’s progress report is worth reading since he describes in detail how script, storyboard and visuals were made. And he also gives some insights about contract negotiations at the Nürnberg book fair of 1992 between the head of the  Karl-May-Verlag (books) and LINEL. Der Schatz im Silbersee was the first game by the German publisher Software 2000 of a planned Karl May Edition, a series of Karl May adventures that should have been developed with LINEL.

Figure 9: Back of box of the published PC version of Der Schatz am Silbersee (1993) with LINEL’s impressum. Photo: Eugen Pfister

Durch die Wüste (announced but not released in 1994), would have been the second game in a series of three (or four) adventure games about Karl May. The magazine ASM received a sample version for PC, tested it and wrote a preview for its 6/94 issue. It mentions LINEL as developer and announces an Amiga version as well. The sample was from publisher Software 2000. The magazine knows that Durch die Wüste was structured in four episodes, in which the player as Kara Ben Nemsis together with his servant Ben Hadschi has to survive four different adventures. ASM also says that the graphics that it had seen so far leave it hoping for the best. It prints two screenshots from the game and praises the great scenery of which the game contains around 80, says that both characters can be controlled individually as player avatars. And the game contains many full-screen video sequences. Finally, it hopefully announces the release of a PC and an Amiga version for summer 1994. Sound programmer Matthias Steinwachs composed the music for the game. He got his assignment from LINEL-boss Markus Grimmer, who told him, the music for Durch die Wüste should sound oriental, but still oriented to western listening habits. Steinwachs worked on it for several weeks and was quite happy with his part. He was waiting for the video sequences to finish his project. Unfortunately, they didn’t come – and the game was never released, and the series was abandoned.

Figure 10: The German Magazine Aktueller Software Markt (ASM) announces the expected second installment of a Karl May game series by LINEL in its 6/94 issue. Screen: Kultboy

In the booklet for the game Necronom (1991), together with Traders (1991) and The Neverending Story II (1991), there was another LINEL product announced that seems somewhat mysterious, since there was no announcement to be found in magazines. Its title is “Lords of the sea (1000 B.C.)”. According to the brief description, it was supposed to be “a very complex strategy game based upon the rivalry of the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean area.” The player “must trade with other towns for over two dozen products, search for mines, build factories, recruit soldiers and build war fleets.” The complex game of trading, strategical management of troops and fighting should even have allowed two players connected via modems to battle it out. The PC version was planned first, then an Atari ST and an Amiga version. Unfortunately, there is no mention of this colossal project anywhere else. The game may be added to the list of 11 unreleased LINEL games, if we find a confirmation.

Unconfirmed project:

Lords of the sea (1000 B.C.) (1991)

There was more cooperation announced in game magazines by Markus Grimmer. In ASM 11/92, the magazine’s editors reported on new information from LINEL and announced a new cooperation by the Swiss publisher with Dynasty International Information Co. Ltd. from Taiwan. Dynasty International may have sold the licenses for three games to LINEL. These were the role-playing game Legend of the Swordmaster, the adventure strategy game Heroes of China and the strategy game Battle Commander, all in DOS Format for PC. As there is not more information to find, it is not clear, how far this deal went and which of Dynasty’s games these were. We may assume, that the Legend of Swordmaster could have been a localization of the role-playing game Tian Wai Jian Sheng Lu (1993), and the Heroes of China strategy game could have been a localization of Heroes of Legend (1994). Both these games appeared in Chinese but were not translated or localized for other markets. The game Battle Commander (1993) is announced in the booklet of the published Game of Life (1992) by LINEL. It is expected shortly to be available for Amiga and PC. The short description (in German) says: “The challenging strategy game from Taiwan. This extensive strategy game (50 levels) was created in collaboration with Dynasty International. The aim is to coordinate troop movements and lead armies through battles as safely as possible.”

Unconfirmed projects:

Legend of Swordmaster (1993)
Heroes of China (1993)
Battle Commander (1993)

Besides the 31 games, that Swiss publisher LINEL with temporary headquarters in St.Gallen, Vaduz and Herisau had published under its own label in the years 1987 – 1995 and at least 13 diskmag editions (part 1), we learned in part 2 of this essay that there were at least eleven, possibly even 16 more games or projects that had been completed but not released. Or they were in progress at some point and could be tested as prototypes but did not make it further than being demo versions for the gaming mags to write previews. These games did not find their way onto the Software market.

The scale of international cooperation by the Swiss publisher LINEL is quite amazing at a time where international cooperation with a small business was not so easy. We must take in relation that communication was a lot more difficult over long distance and across borders in the 1980s and early 1990s than today, where we have the internet and an abundance of means and tools to communicate digitally in real time. There were expensive phone calls and fax machines and the good old postal service, but mostly, businessmen like Markus Grimmer had to rely on personal contacts, set themselves up with like-minded people, travel abroad to special events like game exhibitions and computer fairs to establish good business links, find the right place to duplicate and print the games and the right partners to distribute them. And they had to keep in touch with the developers as well, maybe round them up from time to time, invite them and offer them a temporary working area where they were able to work together and learn from each other. And where it was possible to have some more control over the production process of a game.

The upcoming part 3 will focus on the people that founded and made LINEL. It will take up the international connections laid out in part 2 and have a closer look at producing and developing these games with Swiss participation in an increasingly dynamic international context. Sources and literature follow after part 3.

LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher /

Part 1: Compiling a list of LINEL’s games

— Part 2: International Collaborations and Unreleased Games

— Part 3: People and Work at LINEL (in work)

Veröffentlicht unter game, gamedesign, gamekultur, Science, Swiss, Uncategorized | Verschlagwortet mit , , | Kommentare deaktiviert für LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher /2

LINEL – Swiss Game Publisher /1

Part 1: Compiling a list of LINEL’s games (revised edition, january 2024)

Beat Suter

LINEL was a software developer and publisher based in Switzerland. The label was active from 1987 to 1995. Part 1 of this essay tries to establish a complete list of all games that were published and distributed by the Swiss company LINEL.

LINEL was a game distribution and development company that was founded by Markus Grimmer and a dozen young Swiss developers in the 1980s. Grimmer’s company sold lighting design and software before it went into the game business. As distributor Grimmer searched for young game developers and found them in Christian Haller, Christian Weber and others. From then on LINEL focused on programming and porting games for Amiga and Atari ST. They also did some C64 ports, ZX Spectrum and DOS ports. And their latest games were elaborate adventures, done for PC (DOS and Windows).

Figure 1: Insanity Fight by Christian Haller was the first game published under LINEL’s lable and distributed in cooperation with Microdeal.

LINEL closed its game publishing business in 1995 and was officially dissolved a few years later. There was never a website nor is there a reliable list available that records all LINEL games. But some of the classic games collection websites provide information about those games. One of the best resources to find older games is the website Mobygames whose community is very active and holds a high standard of information. MobyGames focuses on documenting most aspects of information related to electronic games. It credits LINEL for 16 games. These are the following:

Insanity Fight (1987 on Amiga, Atari ST)
Exolon (1987 on Amiga), (Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum by Hewson)
Crack (1988 on Amiga)
Dugger (1988 on Amiga, Atari ST)
Eliminator (1988 on Amiga), (Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum by Hewson)
Kaiser (1988 on DOS, Amiga), (Atari ST by CCD Beyelstein)
The Champ (1989 on Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum)
Baby Bug (1989 on Amiga)
Skate of the Art (1989 on Amiga)
The Neverending Story II: The Arcade Game (1990 on C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)
Necronom (1991 on Amiga)
Traders: The Intergalactic Trading Game (1991 on DOS, Amiga, Atari ST)
The Game of Life (1992 on DOS, Amiga)
Der Schatz im Silbersee (1993 on DOS)
Regent Deluxe (1994 on DOS)
Kaiser Deluxe (1995 on DOS)

Markus Grimmer as publisher of LINEL points out that the games Exolon (1987) and Eliminator (1987) were ported from Atari ST to Amiga by LINEL’s coders. All other versions were developed and ported by the British game publishing company Hewson itself. And the original Atari ST version of Kaiser (1988) was developed by CCD Beyelstein and ported to Amiga (1989) and to DOS by LINEL. For The Champ (1989) and The Neverending Story II (1991) LINEL developed all versions including ZX Spectrum by themselves.

Figure 2: This Logo was used by LINEL from 1987 – 1993

The Website LemonAmiga credits LINEL with 14 games. Cross-referencing shows that three more LINEL games were published for Amiga. For the first two games, there is only little public information available.

Gnome (1991 on Amiga)
Kiro’s Quest (1992 on Amiga)
Regent v.2.0 (1992 on Amiga)

Most likely the two different releases Regent v2.0 on Amiga and Regent Deluxe on DOS were similar versions of the same game, but the releases were three years apart and Regent Deluxe came as a remake with much better graphics and was completely done in German.

At this point, after consulting Mobygames and LemonAmiga, we know of 19 games published by LINEL Trading GmbH over a period of 9 years from 1987 to 1995. But there are more.

Figure 3: LINEL’s Logo for the years from 1993 – 1995

Of those 19 games, three games were ported to other platforms: Exolon, Kaiser and Eliminator. Seven of the games were developed by Swiss developers and Swiss dev teams: Insanity Fight, Crack, Dugger, The Champ, Necronom, Traders and the Game of Life (The Golden Gate Crew). Of which The Champ and Necronom had mixed crews with British and Swiss developers. Two games were developed by a small New Zealand team called Vision: Gnome, Kiro’s Quest. And two by the Dutch dev crew 1001 Software Development: Baby Bug, Skate of the Art. This leaves four games that were developed in mixed crews with German, Swiss and other developers, whereas some teams were bigger and had mostly German developers as for the adventure game Der Schatz im Silbersee (Cybervision).

In 1989, LINEL signed a contract with two German developers, Guido Henkel and Hans-Jürgen Bräunle, to publish their game Drachen von Laas after the two fell out with German publisher Ariolasoft. The two developers called themselves Dragonware. LINEL is said to have been primarily interested in marketing the text adventure Ooze in the UK that was also developed by Henkel and Brändle and published first in 1988 on Atari ST with Ariolasoft. According to Henkel, LINEL delayed the release of Drachen von Laas, so the two German developers terminated their contract in 1990 and eventually released the game under their own new label Attic Entertainment.

From developer Guido Henkel also comes the information that he himself did the Amiga port of Kaiser in 1989 for LINEL. Furthermore, LINEL was allowed to release the game Ooze on the British market at the same time with a new cover by Michael Tschögl that impressed Henkel. All three UK-versions (DOS, Atari ST, Amiga) were published with the Dragonware label, but were distributed by LINEL and had LINEL’s and its inverstor’s Merimpex AG address in Liechtenstein on the back of the box-cover.

Ooze – Creepy Nites (UK 1989 on Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)

With the English releases of Ooze – Creepy Nites (1989), we now know of 20 games by LINEL. But besides the cooperation with British publishers, Grimmer had another cooperation going that was widely overlooked. The cooperation with the Italian developers of GENIAS. This cooperation was mostly about distributing each other’s existing games in the other language area. LINEL games like The Champ (1988) were distributed by GENIAS in Italy while GENIAS games like Dragon’s Kingdom (1990) were distributed by LINEL in the UK as cassette tapes. Information about this specific C64 version can be found on the Website of LemonC64. It indicates Alberto Frabetti as programmer and author. GENIAS is mentioned as publisher and LINEL as Copyright Holder. This may have been the other way around, since LINEL shows up as publisher in many reviews of GENIAS games in the UK and functioned as distributor for GENIAS out of an office in High Wycombe, northwest of London.

Figure 4: The Champ (1988) was produced by LINEL in the UK and distributed on several platforms in the UK, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

LemonC64 also has information for Catalypse (1992). This R-Type-like or Armalyte-like game came out very late in the C64’s commercial golden age. The community considers it a rather good and high-quality shooter, unfortunately one review by Zzap magazine gave it a very low rating. It was made by Andrea Pompili of GENIAS. LINEL’s Michael Tschögl made the music for the stylish C64 shooter.[1] And at least the first part sounds a bit like the music Tschögl composed for the The Neverending Story II: The Arcade Game (1990) which was done for C64 and other platforms in several languages by LINEL.


[1] Comment on: LemonC64, (https://www.lemon64.com/game/catalypse), (26.12.2023) by Belshazzar 2005-06-11: “Did you know Michael Tschogl used the same musics for Never Ending Story II? Andrea Pompili (Catalypse’s programmer) wrote on a website he had to rewrite some catalypse music ‚cause the disc containing them arrived to him broken… Well, I think that at least the first song was unscathed, ‚cause it is absolutely identical to Never ending story II
However good game… What a pity Italians begun to write C64 games only at the end of its commercial life.”

The cooperation between LINEL and GENIAS started with the World Cup 90 game that needed immediate distribution outside of Italy. LINEL is not mentioned on the boxes or on any of the preservation websites. But Markus Grimmer distributed the football game for the Italians out of his office in England that is printed on all boxes of the GENIAS game: “24A WHITE PIT LANE, FLACKWELL HEATH, NR HIGH WYCOMBE, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE HP10 9HR, TEL. 06285 31 244, FAX. 06285 30 875”. Other games from GENIAS’ developers in Bologna that were distributed by LINEL in the UK were the beach volleyball game Over the Net (1990), the puzzle game Tilt (1991), the racing game Warm up (1991) and Top Wrestling (1992). In Germany, Rushware did take over the distribution of GENIAS games, but this was mediated by LINEL. Some of the boxes and commercial magazine ads state the address of the publisher as “GENIAS SOFTWARE c/o LINEL Guetlistrasse 9050 Appenzell, Schweiz”, while as the distributor is identified with “IM VERTRIEB VON RUSHWARE, Bruchweg 128-132, 4044 Kaarst 2.” Among those games were the already mentioned World Cup 90 (1990), Over the Net (1990), Dragons Kingdom (1990), Tilt (1991) and Warm up (1991). This means that overall, eight games from GENIAS were distributed by LINEL in the UK and by RUSHWARE c/o LINEL in Germany.

Dragon’s Kingdom (1990 on C64)
World Cup 90 (1990 on C64, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)
Over the Net (1990 on Amiga)
Medieval Warriors (1991 on Amiga)
Tilt (1991 on Amiga, C64, DOS)
Warm up (1991 on Amiga, C64)
Top Wrestling (1992 on Amiga)
Catalypse (1992 on C64)

The game Medieval Warriors (1991) seems sort of an exception since it was designed by game developer Scott Lamb and first published in the USA by Merit Software. In a commercial magazine ad, LINEL advertises it in ASM (Germany), Issue 01/1992 together with its games Traders and The Neverending Story II for the German market. Medieval Warriors is a turn-based fantasy strategy game with an isometric view that looks like an early prototype of the RTS genre (real-time strategy game). It was itself an updated version of Scott Lamb’s famous two-player strategy game TeleEpic (1988), now updated with an enemy AI which allowed a player to play it alone.

There is one more thing to clarify. The websites Mobygames and Lemonamiga only list the English version of The Neverending Story II: The Arcade Game (1990) which was turned out in the UK and in the USA for C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, and DOS by LINEL in cooperation with Merit Studios Inc. But LINEL also released localized versions of the game for the German, the Italian, and the Spanish market. The preservation website Hall of Light has some information on all four versions. The German version Die unendliche Geschichte II – Das Arcade Adventure (1990) and the Italian version La Storia Infinita II (1990) have LINEL’s and its investor’s address in Vaduz on the back of the box: LINEL Products/MERIMPEX AG, Am Schrägen Weg 2, 9490 Vaduz, Principality of Liechtenstein, but they must have been manufactured in the UK as indicated on the back of the box. All four versions were licensed by Warner Brothers and Cinevox. The German version was distributed by Rushware, the Italian version by Sofitel. The Spanish version La Historia Interminable II – Arcade (1991) was published by LINEL a year later in cooperation with the company S4 System de Espana S.A. from Madrid for DOS, C64 (cassette) and Amiga. This version is the only one that does not have LINEL’s address on the back of the box, but the address of S4 System. According to Markus Grimmer, the Spanish version was the most popular of all four versions.

Figure 5: The Neverending Story II was publihsed by LINEL in four separate language versions in 1991, here the box and disk of the German version.

A year later, the disk mag Amiga Fun released an Amiga and a C64 version in German again in their issue 6/92. To complete our list, all four versions must be counted. As the disk mag release is a second edition, it should not appear in the list below but in a separate list of disk mag editions.

LINEL’s released games – a complete list

NameYearDeveloperModePublisherPlatforms
Insanity Fight1987LINEL (CH)OLINEL/MicrodealAmiga
Exolon1987LINEL (CH,UK)PHewsonAmiga
Crack1988LINEL (CH)OLINELAmiga
Dugger1988LINEL (CH)OLINELAmiga
Eliminator1988LINEL (CH)PLINELAmiga
Kaiser1988LINEL (CH)PLINELAmiga
The Champ1989LINEL (CH)OLINELACZ
Baby Bug19891001 Software Development (NL)OLINELAmiga
Skate of the Art19891001 Software Development (NL)OLINELAmiga
Ooze – Creepy Nites1989Dragonware (D)PLINELAmiga
Neverending Story II1990LINEL (CH, D)OLINEL/ Merit StudioACDZ
Unendliche Geschichte II1990LINEL (CH, D)O, LLINEL/ RUSHACD
Infinita Storia II1990LINEL (CH, D)O, LLINEL/ SOFTELACDZ
Dragon’s Kingdom1990GENIAS (I)O, DLINEL/GENIAS/RUSHC64
World Cup1990GENIAS (I)DGENIAS/LINEL/RUSHAACD
Over the Net1990GENIAS (I)DGENIAS/LINEL/RUSHAmiga
Medieval Warriors1991Merit Software (USA)DLINEL/GENIAS/RUSHAD
Storia Inter–minable II1991LINEL (CH, D)O, LLINEL/ S4 SYSTEMADC
Tilt1991GENIAS (I)DGENIAS/LINEL/RUSHACD
Warm up1991GENIAS (I)DGENIAS/LINEL/RUSHAC
Gnome1991Vision (NZ)OLINELAmiga
Necronom1991Lunatic (UK,CH)OLINELAmiga
Traders1991LINEL (CH)OLINELAAD
Top Wrestling1992GENIAS (I)DGENIAS/LINEL/RUSHAmiga
Catalypse1992GENIAS (I)O, DGENIAS/LINEL/RUSHAmiga
Kiro’s Quest1992Vision (NZ)OLINELAmiga
Regent vs. 2.01992LINEL (CH, D)PLINELAmiga
The Game of Life1992LINEL (CH)OLINELAD
Der Schatz im Silbersee1993LINEL (CH, D)OLINELDOS
Regent Deluxe1994LINEL (CH, D)OLINELDOS
Kaiser Deluxe1995LINEL (CH, D)OLINELDOS, Atari
[O = Original, P= Port, D= Distribution, L= Localization; RUSH = RUSHWARE; AACDZ = Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum]

Table 1: Overview of LINEL’s published games between 1987 and 1995.

This now makes 31 games that were either published by Swiss publisher LINEL itself or released in close cooperation with other publishers and distributors under LINEL’s own label in the years 1987 – 1995. In those years, LINEL had its temporary headquarters first in Arbon and St.Gallen, then in Vaduz, Liechtenstein and finally in Herisau Appenzell, but crucial for many international cooperative productions was the second office in England that solely focused on distributing games from LINEL and its partners in the UK (and USA). The UK market was the most lucrative at the time, but copy production was more diverse with cassette tapes, and floppy disks still in use while in Switzerland the same games were mostly sold on disks and cartridges. The Swiss developers themselves were involved in early conversions and releases for the UK and did their own games like Christian Haller’s Insanity Fight but they were not involved in the games by Italian developer GENIAS with the one exception of Michael Tschögl.

We noted that LINEL turned out a disk mag version of Die unendliche Geschichte II – Das Arcade Adventure (1990) in Amiga Fun 6/92. In a talk with the author, Markus Grimmer explained that from 1992 on LINEL had stopped working with disk duplication factories. Instead, they made conversions and sold licenses to magazines that were interested in publishing new editions of their games in disk mags. Grimmer cooperated with Marquard’s Computec GmbH and their distributor Gong Verlag. Grimmer points out that at that time the Gong Verlag was the mother company, and not Computec as later on. The German company had a wide portfolio of game magazines and started turning out special disk magazines for their customers. Between 1990 and 1996, eventually, nine of LINEL’s games received a second edition in one of the special magazines – overall there were (at least) 13 disk mag editions of LINEL games.

Additional disk mag editions of LINEL games

NameYearDeveloperModePublisher/ MagazinePlatforms
World Cup 901990GENIAS (I)DAmiga Fun 7/90, PC Action 7/90, Golden Disk 64 10/90ACD
Crack1991LINEL (CH)DAmigo! 3/91Amiga
Dugger1991LINEL (CH)DAmigo! 4/91Amiga
Gnome1992LINEL (CH,NZ)DAmiga Fun 1/92Amiga
Unendliche Geschichte II1992LINEL (CH, D)D, PAmiga Fun 6/92, Golden Disk 64 04/92AC
Kiro’s Quest1995LINEL (CH, NZ)DAmigo! 3/95Amiga
Necronom1995LINEL (CH,UK)DAmiga Fun 5/95, Amiga Games CD-ROM 1/96Amiga
Traders1996LINEL (CH)DBestseller Games Special 5, 13DOS, Win
Kaiser Deluxe1996LINEL (CH, D)DBestseller Games Special 13DOS, Win
Same abbreviations as in Table 1

Table 2: Overview of LINEL’s additional game editions in disk mags between 1990 and 1996.

Figure 6: LINEL’s Dugger had a second release as disk mag in Amigo! 4/1991.

As the first part of this essay on LINEL tried to compile a complete list of all LINEL’s released games, the second part will focus on LINEL’s international cooperation and its unreleased games and try to uncover on one side as many connections as possible, and on the other side, as many canceled and failed projects as may possibly be traced.

The final third part of this essay will take a closer look at the people that worked with and for LINEL and their working and career situations during those busy years. Sources and Literature will follow at the end of part 3 of this essay.

LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher /

Part 1: Compiling a list of LINEL’s games

Part 2: International Collaborations and Unreleased Games

Part 3: People and Work at LINEL (in work)

Veröffentlicht unter gamedesign, gamekultur, Swiss, Uncategorized | Verschlagwortet mit , , | Kommentare deaktiviert für LINEL – Swiss Game Publisher /1

PacMan wieder neu im Trend oder es darf wieder gefressen werden – Games als Promotoren

Games sind alt geworden, das merkt man unter anderem bei Werbungen etwa für neue Tramfahrer* in Zürich: Es werden Tramschauffeure* gesucht, die Tetris noch auf dem Gameboy gespielt haben.

Oder eben wenn PacMan ins sein Millieu abtaucht: Es geht ums fressen. Oder anders gesagt eine Interpretation stattfindet: Bei PacMan geht es um einen Kecks der frisst.

Und das Ganze ist offiziell wie man oben an den zwei Logos schnell erkennt.

Es heisst also: Scannen und Spielen

Weiterlesen
Veröffentlicht unter Uncategorized | Kommentare deaktiviert für PacMan wieder neu im Trend oder es darf wieder gefressen werden – Games als Promotoren

Tetris in 542 bytes Lua code in Pico-8 (Sizecoding)

After a fully featured C64 Tetris in assembler, the question arose, how far can you get with Lua and Pico8 with a sizecoded Tetris?

Here is an approach. The following features are supported:

_ Random new Tiles
_ 7 original Tiles
_ Controlling Tiles (not moving into the Border)
_ Rotating Tiles (not rotating into the Border)
_ Falling Tiles
_ Tile Background Collision
_ Testing full line
_ Score
_ Faster with the time
_ Minimal Graphics

Weiterlesen
Veröffentlicht unter Uncategorized | Kommentare deaktiviert für Tetris in 542 bytes Lua code in Pico-8 (Sizecoding)

Sizecoding & ein neues Highlight: C64-Tetris in 256 bytes !

Gamedesign-Sizecoding ist eigentlich ein Genre (Untergenre von Sizecoding) für sich: Es geht darum in möglichst wenig Bytes möglichst viel zu verpacken und dies war selbstverständlich ein Muss in den Zeiten des 8Bit-Homecomputings. Da wurden Basics abgeändert, dass sie in 8Kb-Cartridges passten und dafür noch ein paar Grafik-Routinen reinpassten (Atari), da wurde in Games ROM-Code als Sound gespielt, weil der ROM-Speicher für den Sound fehlte und und…. Selbstverständlich war Sizecoding mit möglichst viel Effekten auch wichtig in der Crackerszene aus der sich die Demoszene entwickelte.

Eine Ausstellung zu diesem Thema findet sich online here >

Size-Coding-Revival im Gamebereich: Nanogames

Eigentlich ist Size-Coding nicht mehr nötig und gerade deswegen erlebt es als Challenge / Metaspiel in der Demoscene ein weiteres ungeahntes Revival. Besonders interessant sind dabei Nanogames. Diese meist 256 byte grossen Games sind eine wirkliche Herausforderung. Dabei spielt auch eine Rolle, welche Programmiersprache/Framework/Platform verwendet werden. BASIC etwa macht es schwierig grössere Projekte zu machen (zu viel Code), Assembler ist schwierig im Handling (viel Knowhow nötig, schwieriges Debuggen) und Fantasy-Consolen helfen teilweise mit Packern weiter sind aber bei weitem nicht so kompakt wie Assembler (ein Byte kann ein Befehle sein, dafür viele Befehle). Alles in allem ist die Challenge aber enorm. Games sind leider auch auch eine Verwaltungsaufgabe von Objekten, Inputhandling (Interaktivität), Darstellen – ein Haufen Loops und If-Bedingungen. Gamedesgin halt. Und damit – so zumindest die Ansicht von Gamedesignern* – noch einen Tick schwieriger als „nur“ Demos mit Effekten (auch wenn gerade geraytraced wird in wenigen Bytes.

Lovebyte – ein auf Sizecoding ausgerichtetes Online Festival – hat eine eigene Kategorie, die Nanogames mit ihren 256 Bytes. Dabei gibt es alte Platformen und neue.

Die Resultate 2024 finden sich hier: Nanogames Result Lovebyte 2024 >

Nanogames 256 Bytes Getrickse

Dabei können die Entwickler* verschieden vorgehen:

A. Sie versuchen ein existierendes Game umzusetzen. Dabei stellt sich die Frage, was ist die minimalste Gamemechanik und welchen Tricks setzt man sie um, was stellt die Platform zur Verfügung oder
B. sie suchen eine Spielmechanik, die genau in diese 256 bytes passt.

Tetris

Nun ist es einem Team(?) gelungen, soweit ersichtlich ein fullfeatured Tetris in Assembler zu entwickeln in 256 Bytes auf dem C64 (Zeichensatzgrafik). Eine Leistung, die nicht zu erwarten war. Die nächste Frage wird sein, ob das auch möglich ist in den Fantasy Consolen.

Das weiteres Spiel mit offenem Ausgang hat begonnen: 8Bit gegen Highend.

Veröffentlicht unter Uncategorized | Kommentare deaktiviert für Sizecoding & ein neues Highlight: C64-Tetris in 256 bytes !

KunstDebug – Kunstform aller angeschalteter Debug-Routinen – Das Unbewusste heutiger Software

Eine moderne Kunstform wäre bestehende Software oder Games mit allen eingebauten Debugroutinen der Entwickler* eingschaltet laufen zu lassen bzw. zu spielen. Entwickler* sollten dann auch die Debugroutinen aktivieren selbstverständlich. Eine einfache Sache wäre etwa nur schon die Konsolendebugs im Hintergrund auszuprinten .-) Was da alles so lauert im technischen Unbewussten.

Veröffentlicht unter Uncategorized | Kommentare deaktiviert für KunstDebug – Kunstform aller angeschalteter Debug-Routinen – Das Unbewusste heutiger Software