Category Archives: Company

Video game companies.

Boulder Dash, ColecoVision

The ColecoVision conversion of Peter Liepa and Chris Gray‘s classic Atari 8-bit game, Boulder Dash, is really quite wonderful. It was converted by Micro Lab and published on the Micro Fun label in 1984.

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Crystals of Arborea, Amiga

Trees, trees, and more trees! That’s what you get when you explore the ancient island kingdom of Arborea. And with a name like that it is no surprise.

Crystals of Arborea is a real-time, first-person, tile-based, party-driven RPG with combat, exploration, and day/night scenes where the colours cycle to give you a nice atmospheric setting.

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Crystals of Arborea, PC

Crystals of Arborea is the predecessor to the Ishar series of games. It’s a first-person, tile-based RPG, with a character-based party system and turn-based combat.

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Ishar 3: The Seven Gates of Infinity, Atari ST

The third and final instalment in the Ishar series, Ishar 3: The Seven Gates of Infinity was released by Silmarils in 1994.

It plays similarly to the previous two games (ie. first-person, real-time RPG), but with further refinement and a somewhat different setting – at least initially.

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Ishar 2: Messengers of Doom, Atari ST

The sequel to the interesting Ishar, Ishar 2: Messengers of Doom is a French, first-person RPG with atmospheric graphics and challenging party-based gameplay. It was first released in 1993.

Thankfully, Ishar 2 rights some of the wrongs of the first game. You can actually see where you are on the map now, which is a blessed relief, and the interface has been cleaned-up a bit, making movement and combat a bit easier.

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Ishar: Legend of the Fortress, Atari ST

The first in a trilogy of French Role-Playing Games published by Silmarils, Ishar: Legend of the Fortress is an atmospheric, first-person, party-based RPG with challenging gameplay, released in 1992.

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Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, PC

Westwood Studios1993 RPG Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos is a Dungeon Master-like first-person, real-time action game with spells and combat and plenty of monsters out to end your life.

Las Vegas-based Westwood, coincidentally, were developers of the first two Eye of the Beholder games, but dropped the franchise in favour of developing Lands of Lore, their own IP.

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Sokoban, Commodore 64

Originally released in 1982 for the PC-8801, Sokoban is an ingenious overhead puzzle game about a guy pushing boxes around a warehouse.

That might sound as dull as dishwater to some people, but the fact is: Sokoban is extremely clever and very challenging, and is one of those games that really gets the brain muscles flexing in order to beat it.

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