Advanced Computer Entertainment magazine, September 1989, Issue 24

Psygnosis
An on the road profile of one of our top software houses

Remember when the ST was still a twinkle in most gamesplayers. eyes? 
Launched in the States, it was the starting point for a Liverpool 
company who were the first in Britain to concentrate exclusively on 
16-bit products.

They.ve come a long way since Brataccas - their first game, released 
on the ST before the machine even hit the UK, it caused a sensation 
in both the US and Britain. Their next great success was Barbarian, 
released in the summer of 1986 simultaneously on Amiga and ST.

.Those were the days,. recalls company founder Ian Hetherington. .At 
that time you could release simultaneously on the ST and the Amiga. 
The products were virtually identical apart from the 32 colours we 
had on the Amiga screen. Everyone was down-rating the Amiga, however, 
because of the situation, and saying how the machine was suffering 
from games being .written down. for ST compatibility. We took a look 
at the Amiga, liked what we saw, and decided to give it special 
attention..

The result was a series of exceptional technical achievements, 
starting with Barbarian, moving through Blood Money, and ending up 
with the soon-to-be-released Beast.

Beast represents a 100% Amiga programming effort. It comes on two 
disks with custom loading routines giving 1040K per disk. Not only 
that, but all the files are compressed by around 37%. The product 
makes full use of the 1Mbyte Amiga to reduce disk access.

Beast is a typical Psygnosis product in that the company generate 
their titles first and foremost through technical, rather than 
story-line, innovation. This gives them a big advantage over software 
houses who are tied by license agreements to both expensive royalties 
and awkward scenarios. .We.re determined to stay ahead of the market 
in programming terms,. says Ian. .By concentrating on the technical 
side we can really liberate our programmer.s imagination. Many of our 
game ideas are sparked off by technical innovation.. There.s no 
arguing with that - we.ve got exclusive previews on pages 30 and 31 
which show just how technical innovation works its way into silicon.

Shortly after their formation, bizz whiz Jonathan Ellis joined the 
company. Here again there are differences between Psygnosis and some 
of the other independents - the business side and the programming 
side are kept entirely separate - and it.s the programming boys who 
get first say. .I don.t even play the games,. moans Jonathan, .I 
never have time.. He.s too busy maintaining his reputation as a hard 
line negotiator with packaging suppliers and distributors to get his 
hands on a joystick.

One reason why Psygnosis have been around, and successful, for so 
long, is the fact that they spend very little money on themselves or 
their offices. The company only recently moved from a small suite of 
rooms hidden away upstairs in a steelworks on Liverpool.s dockside. 
Now they.re established just down the road in a new building 
overlooking the port. .We reckon we pay less for this space than most 
people in the south pay for their car parking. It means we can spend 
more on the product, and in the long run that.s the only thing that.s 
going to keep us going. As soon as you start spending tons of money 
on building a flashy image, you stop spending it on programming,. 
says Jonathan. Ian, as programming supreme, is obviously in 
agreement: .We have only one objective: technical excellence. And it 
costs a bomb..

Costs include an extremely powerful 25MHz PC network that links all 
the in-house programmers together and enables them to cross-assemble 
code for any of their target machines on the one development system.

As for the future, Ian reckons the company are reaching the point 
where they will be demanding more powerful hardware if they are to 
carry on their technical pilgrimage towards the ultimate arcade game. 
.In a way,. says Ian, .we.re already looking for the next step. We.d 
like to write games for 30MHz VGA machines, or for some of the 
higher-spec consoles, but at the moment the markets just aren.t 
there. We need machines that will allow us to take the graphical 
element much further..

The trouble is that although both Atari and Commodore are always 
announcing continual upgrades to their products, the software boys 
are also racing to stay ahead. .We need 256 colours on-screen, with a 
resolution of 640*400,. says Ian. .So far the upgrades for the 
popular machines just can.t reach that target. We.d love to write for 
the Archie but we feel better sticking with Amiga where we know there 
are enough people out there to buy the games to fund the 
development..

Meanwhile Psygnosis are facing a great period of change as they move 
towards creating more titles than ever before. You can check out some 
of these of pages 30 and 31. .The objective in each release,. says 
Ian, .is simple. It.s either got to be technically 100%, or even 
110%. Alternatively, it.s got to present an originality and 
playability that will make it an essential purchase.. Check out the 
screenshots and the reviews in forthcoming issues.

Picture Captions
[Beast] Beast of the Necropolis is due out shortly from Psygnosis. 
Apart from the astonishing parallax scrolling (which we can.t show 
here!) you also get 900K of music . more than in the After Burner and 
Thunderblade arcade machines put together!

[Aqua Ventura] The struggle for excellence: disappointed with 
hand-drawn graphics, Psygnosis actually built a model of this space 
ship and digitised it for the introduction to Aqua Ventura.