{"id":9132,"date":"2024-02-28T06:58:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T06:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gamelab.ch\/?p=9132"},"modified":"2024-06-03T11:29:53","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T11:29:53","slug":"linel-swiss-game-publisher-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gamelab.ch\/?p=9132","title":{"rendered":"LINEL \u2013 Swiss Game Publisher \/1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part 1: Compiling a list of LINEL’s games<\/strong> (r<\/em>evised<\/em> edition, january 2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beat Suter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LINEL was a game distribution and development company that was founded by Markus Grimmer and a dozen young Swiss developers in the 1980s. Grimmer\u2019s 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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1: Insanity Fight by Christian Haller was the first game published under LINEL’s lable<\/em> and distributed in cooperation with Microdeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Markus Grimmer as publisher of LINEL points out that the games Exolon<\/em> (1987) and Eliminator <\/em>(1987) were ported from Atari ST to Amiga by LINEL\u2019s coders. All other versions were developed and ported by the British game publishing company Hewson itself. And the original Atari ST version of Kaiser <\/em>(1988) was developed by CCD Beyelstein and ported to Amiga (1989) and to DOS by LINEL. For The Champ <\/em>(1989) and The Neverending Story II<\/em> (1991) LINEL developed all versions including ZX Spectrum by themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2: This Logo was used by LINEL from 1987 – 1993<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gnome (1991 on Amiga)
Kiro’s Quest (1992 on Amiga)
Regent v.2.0 (1992 on Amiga)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3: LINEL’s Logo for the years from 1993 – 1995<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of those 19 games, three games were ported to other platforms: Exolon<\/em>, Kaiser<\/em> and Eliminator<\/em>. Seven of the games were developed by Swiss developers and Swiss dev teams: Insanity Fight<\/em>, Crack<\/em>, Dugger<\/em>, The Champ<\/em>, Necronom<\/em>, Traders<\/em> and the Game of Life<\/em> (The Golden Gate Crew). Of which The Champ<\/em> and Necronom<\/em> had mixed crews with British and Swiss developers. Two games were developed by a small New Zealand team called Vision<\/em>: Gnome<\/em>, Kiro’s Quest<\/em>. And two by the Dutch dev crew 1001 Software Developmen<\/em>t: Baby Bug<\/em>, Skate of the Art<\/em>. 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<\/em> (Cybervision).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1989, LINEL signed a contract with two German developers, Guido Henkel and Hans-J\u00fcrgen Br\u00e4unle, to publish their game Drachen von Laas<\/em> after the two fell out with German publisher Ariolasoft.<\/em> The two developers called themselves Dragonware<\/em>. LINEL is said to have been primarily interested in marketing the text adventure Ooze<\/em> in the UK that was also developed by Henkel and Br\u00e4ndle and published first in 1988 on Atari ST with Ariolasoft.<\/em> According to Henkel, LINEL delayed the release of Drachen von Laas<\/em>, so the two German developers terminated their contract in 1990 and eventually released the game under their own new label Attic Entertainment<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From developer Guido Henkel also comes the information that he himself did the Amiga port of Kaiser<\/em> in 1989 for LINEL. Furthermore, LINEL was allowed to release the game Ooze<\/em> on the British market at the same time with a new cover by Michael Tsch\u00f6gl that impressed Henkel. All three UK-versions (DOS, Atari ST, Amiga) were published with the Dragonware<\/em> label, but were distributed by LINEL and had LINEL\u2019s and its inverstor\u2019s Merimpex AG address in Liechtenstein on the back of the box-cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ooze \u2013 Creepy Nites<\/em> (UK 1989 on Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)<\/p>\n\n\n\n