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#ZACCARIA PINBALL BEST TABLES SERIES#
It was a very early example of episodic publishing of game content, what today is becoming the norm if you look at series like Life is Strange. These all came both on Amiga and on MS-DOS (early issue contained floppies of both versions). Diabolik, again Dylan Dog and Tex, and also a few Spider-Man games due to Bonelli being the licensee for Italy) as well as original franchises (Simulman, Time Runners). Between 19, approximately 85 titles were published in this form, including comic adaptations (e.g. They all followed the style of side-view action adventures with multiple-choice interfaces and dialogue. Some of these studios begin to work with different publishers (also international, see Holodream with Team-17, Trecision with Cryo etc.) Episodic game productionĪfter the first few game adaptations of Dylan Dog and Tex, Simulmondo teams up with comic book publisher Bonelli to create several series of video games from comic books and available as monthly publications to be purchased at newsagents. Examples include Holodream, Trecision (later also a publisher), Dynabyte (also a publisher) and Lightshock. Distinctions between publisher and developer were rarely to be found then.Īround 1991-92 the tide starts to change and the identity of development studios begins to stand out.
#ZACCARIA PINBALL BEST TABLES SOFTWARE#
These publishers originally operated in a similar fashion as British software houses like Ocean, mainly developing games in-house and hiring young, passionate programmers and graphic artists as contractors, sometimes as young as 14. Sadly, I am not aware of any flight simulators ever produced in Italy for the Amiga. However, it was not uncommon for these software houses to experiment in other genres: for example, Idea made Swords and Galleons (their own Sid Meier’s Pirates!) and Bomber Bob, a v-scroller a la Xevious Simulmondo made Italian Night 1999, an investigational adventure game and Genias published puzzle game Tilt, h-shooter Catalypse (on the C64) and choose-your-own-adventure Profezia. I even ended up knowing some games not by their actual titles, but by the ones given to them on these bootleg disks! Some of the comics that received this treatment include Nathan Never, Sturmtruppen, Cattivik, Lupo Alberto, Dylan Dog and Tex.Īt the same time, the circulation of bootlegs extended to the C64 and Amiga and made its way to compilation/shovelware disks published at newsagents at a time where there was no regulation in Italy. Sometimes they were relatively niche sports, such as bowls, billiard and fishing! All of them also produced licensed adaptations of comic books, usually coming in the form of side-scrolling action platformers or action adventures.

All of them were hands deep into sports and racing games, especially Simulmondo, whose name hinted at their stated intent to produce sports simulations.

What these publishers all had in common, besides being all based in Nothern Italy (Bologna, Varese), was the scope of their production. Other home computers like the Spectrum and Amstrad CPC had very little market penetration in the country and game development for them never took off. Between 1988 and the early 90’s, game development for home computers was in the hands of three software houses, who quickly made the move to the Amiga, and in some cases the Atari ST.
#ZACCARIA PINBALL BEST TABLES PC#
The pinball tables were so renowned that a PC game exists today, devoted to re-creating those tables in 3D.Ĭommodore machines, starting with the C64, effectively enabled active game development in the country. Zaccaria produced a set of pinball machines between 19, eventually developing a handful of arcade games (e.g. We talk about the scene in Italy before and during Commodore’s reign.
