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From: awrc@cs.ed.ac.uk (Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit,rec.games.video
Subject: Re: SYNAPSE, DROPZONE, and 4096 colors on 8-bit?
Message-ID: <7807@skye.cs.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Mar 91 11:57:38 GMT
References: <91071.172859DEEJ@MAINE.BITNET> <1991Mar15.182741.1322@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu>
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Reply-To: Al_Crawford@edinburgh.ac.uk (Al Crawford)
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Organization: Edinburgh University Computer Science Department
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In article <1991Mar15.182741.1322@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu> walshm@clutx.clarkson.edu writes:
>
>RE: Dropzone anyone remember this game? it was basically a Defender-clone,
>except with a big spaceman as your ship.  Some incredible multicolored
>sprites, smooth as silk animation/scrolling, a title page which was incredible
>and a sound effect for your exploision which was downright INCREDIBLE! the
>best sound effect ever on the 8-bit and one that holds up against anything
>
>I have heard today anywhere!  
>
>Anyone know what happened to the company and/or programmers? this was one game
>WAY ahead of its time!

Yes, I loved this, one of the first games I ever bought for my XE. It was
written by a guy called Archer Maclean who, if my ailing memory serves me
correctly, was an American living in the UK. He did write some other stuff
afterwards but I don't have a clue what he's doing these days.

>RE: SYNAPSE
>
>along the same lines, the graphuics and games put out by this company were
>downright amazing...blue max, fort apocalypse, encounter, rainbow walker,
>drelbs, necromancer! any of these programmers go on to games today still?

I don't think Encounter was actually a Synapse product - it was produced by
a UK firm called Novagen which, initially at least, was a guy called Paul
Woakes. It was licensed to Synapse in the US. He went on to write the game
Mercenary, which was released on the 8-bit and almost every other machine
under the sun. After that he wrote Damocles (Mercenary II) which is only
available for bigger machines, like the ST and the Amiga. Damocles was the
most recent product - it was released sometime last year. Quite impressive
(solid 3D etc).

--
                   Al Crawford - Al_Crawford@edinburgh.ac.uk
         "Breakdown. Splinter. A thousand fragments disperse and die."