SwissGameDesign 80/90+ - SwissGames from the spirit of the Crackers & Demoscene of the 80s

Even before a nerd smiled from the front page of the Times around 2000, there were software, crackers and nerds. Switzerland was in the middle of it with a big active scene with swiss made cracks & demos from SCA, Amiga viruses and various games for ATARI ST and AMIGA like WAR HELI (1987), INSANITY FIGHT (1987), TRAPS AND TREASURES (1993) and STARBIRDS (1996), analog exchange networks with letters, BBSes and FTP as distribution networks.

The GameLab has been intensely involved with the cracker, demoscene and game design scene from the 80s and 90s in Switzerland for quite some time. Among other things, various talks have been organized and exhibitions with artifacts at gameZfestival 2013 and gameZfestival 2014 were created. A book publication as well as some articles are in preparation.

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SwissGameDesign 80/90+ - SwissGames aus dem Geiste der Crackers & Demoscene der 80er

Noch bevor um 2000 ein Nerd von der Frontseite der Times lächelte, gab es Software, Cracker und Nerds. Die Schweiz war mittendrin mit einer grossen aktiven Szene mit swiss made Cracks & Demos von SCA, Amiga Viren und diversen Spielen für ATARI ST und AMIGA wie WAR HELI (1987), INSANITY FIGHT (1987), TRAPS AND TREASURES (1993) und STARBIRDS (1996), analoge Tauschnetzwerke mit Briefen, BBSen und FTP als Verteilnetzwerke.

Das GameLab befasst sich seit längerem intensiv mit der Cracker, Demoscene und GameDesign-Scene aus den 80er und 90er Jahren der Schweiz. Dabei sind unter anderem diverse Talks organisiert und Ausstellungen mit Artefakten am gameZfestival 2013 wie auch gameZfestival 2014 entstanden. Eine Buch-Publikation wie auch einige Artikel sind in Vorbereitung.

Spielkultur 80er Jahre – Spielen in den Spielsalons der 1980er // Game Culture of the 80ies – Playing in the Arcades
http://www.gameZfestival.ch/2014
Ivo Vasella, Owner der Arcade- und Flippersammlung Outlane (http://www.outlane.ch), Zürich (CH)
In 1998 Ivo Vasella founded the Outlane together with two friends. The Outlane is a collection of pinball machines and video game arcade machines all still working. His "flippers" form a playable history of the entire development of pinball machines. He also collects the most important video game machines and has more than 100 game boards - all in great condition! In his presentation Ivo Vasella leads us back through the history of the arcade and into the video-arcades of the 1980s, where you were able to use some small change to play for a whole evening with or against each other. What became apparent some time ago, is now a reality: The latest official and commercial videogame arcades in Zurich are closed.

Ausstellung // Exhibition - gameZfestival 2014:
Teil der Multiplayerausstellung gameZfestial 2014 war auch das Schweizer 80er Jahre Spiel: CrackIt. // The Swiss 80s game CrackIt was also part of the multiplayer exhibition at gameZfestial 2014.
> http://www.gameZfestival.ch/2014/

Diskussion // Talks with Crackers and Game Designers – gameZfestival 2013:
http://www.gamezfestival.ch/2013/
Panel: Swiss Cracks, Viruses, Demos and Games 1987+ with René Bauer, Matthias Heubi, Dario Hardmeier, Sam Jordan, Reece Millidge (Szene 1987, Cracking, Entwicklung Interesse, Technologie-Skepsis, Spielhalle, Homecomputerszene Atari vs Amiga, Identität)

Ausstellung // Exhibition gameZfestival 2013 (Diverse Spiele 80/90er)
> http://www.gamezfestival.ch/2013/

Selected Cracks/Demos/Games

War Heli (Atari ST - 1987)

War Heli was developed in 1987 by the two Swiss crackers M. Heubi und M. Köhler for the Atari ST platform. War Heli is a vertical shoot 'em up in a war setting. The player pilots a helicopter through an area where he has to destroy all enemy tanks. He has to be careful not to hit any ambulances. If he does so, his score gets set to zero. War Heli is a challenging game with high standards in graphics and technique for its time. War Heli came with a then unique feature: you could save the game to the disk and continue later. Further artists of the Argonica team were: T. Steimle, R. Gafner and H.P. Gysel.
> SRF: http://www.srf.ch/play/tv/archivperlen/video/kap-der-digitalen-hoffnung?id=e925a0cb-6281-4777-832e-6fc276ee4e2e

Traps and Treasures (Amiga - 1993)

Traps 'n' Treasures was an action role-playing platform video game developed by Roman Werner. It was released by Starbyte Software (a Swiss game publisher!) in July 1993 for the Amiga. Roman Werner worked on his game from 1990 to 1993. He got help from Orlando Pertermann (Graphics) and Ruedi Hugentobler (Music). Traps 'n' Treasures' hero is Jeremy Flynn, a pirate around 1641 who has problems with his compass and gets in trouble with rival Redbeard who kidnaps his whole crew. The game received good reviews.
> TrapsAndTreasures (Post mortem) >
> Walk through (Youtube) >

Traps and Treasures (Amiga - 1993)

Starbirds (AMIGA - 1996)

Starbirds was a shoot 'em up game for AMIGA computers like R-Type or Wings of Death. The game was developed from 1993 to 1996 by Dario Hardmeier (graphics, animations) and Sam Jordan (programming, game design, music). The two young cracks lived in Chur and set high standards for their game. However, for programming they only had the use of a A2000/68000 with 1MB RA and no hard disk! Starbirds was originally bundled with some commercial AMIGA software, it later was released as freeware.

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Erfolgreiches Schweizer Gamedesign in der Homecomputerzeit

(Mitte 80er bis Mitte 90er Jahre)

Teil I-III

Die Links zu den drei Artikeln findet man im GameLab Blog:
> http://www.gamelab.ch/?p=7608

Ein längerer Text von Beat Suter und René Bauer beschäftigt sich mit den Anfangszeiten des Schweizer Gamedesigns auf Homecomputern. Die ersten drei Teile findet man auf dem Blog > Spiel-Kultur-Wissenschaft (spielkult.hypotheses.org) von und mit Eugen Pfister.

Bauer und Suter nehmen die Fragen der GameZFestivals von 2013 und 2014 nochmals auf: Was passierte damals in den Anfangszeiten des Schweizer Game Designs in den 1980er und frühen 1990er Jahren? Warum war diese Szene so erfolgreich, wo rekrutierte sie sich?

Die drei Artikel sind der Auftakt für ein grösseres Projekt zur wissenschaftichen Erforschung des Schweizer Game Designs und der Schweizer Game Kultur in den Jahren von 1980 - 2000.