[HN Gopher] Psygnosis (Wipeout, Lemmings etc.) co-founder Ian He...
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Psygnosis (Wipeout, Lemmings etc.) co-founder Ian Hetherington has
died
Author : haunter
Score : 147 points
Date : 2021-12-16 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (metro.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (metro.co.uk)
| zepto wrote:
| I remember Brattacas on the Atari ST, best played on the
| monochrome monitor!
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| Lemmings was such a great and innovative game, I still have the
| original box and floppy and will have to play it again soon.
|
| Does anyone know of a web emulator that would save me some time?
| krylon wrote:
| I do not, but there is an open source clone called Pingus that
| stays close to the spirit of the original:
| https://pingus.seul.org/
| PickledHotdog wrote:
| Web based DOS emulators are plentiful - something like "Play
| lemmings online" will give you a few options if varying
| shadiness.
|
| Someone wrote a version using JavaScript that seems pretty
| straightforward (and no ads!)
|
| https://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/
| dash2 wrote:
| It has plenty of ads now.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| I'm sure someone would love to turn the game into a
| freemium-game where if you wish to use bricks you've got to
| have LemmingCoins.
| playworker wrote:
| Archive.org has a bunch of MS-DOS games playable in your
| browser, Lemmings is one:
| https://archive.org/details/lemmings_original_ms-dos_201705
| snvzz wrote:
| While that'd work, keep in mind Lemmings is an Amiga game.
|
| MS-DOS is just one of many ports.
| _joel wrote:
| You'd need a amiga floppy compatible reader for the PC[1]
| and then use an emulator
|
| [1] https://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-118
| snvzz wrote:
| You'd need a floppy image. It's easier to just download
| one.
|
| Amigaforever's KB is missing recent developments that
| make this very easy, e.g. GreaseWeazle.
| [deleted]
| Thaxll wrote:
| Psygnosis and England in general was a big player in the video
| game industry in the 90s, a bit sad that it went away since mid
| 00s.
| toyg wrote:
| Europe in general seems to have largely lost edge in gaming at
| the end of the '90s, probably as a result of the death of
| 8-16bit. Then there was a bit of a renaissance once we
| adjusted, with the rise of Rockstar North, Ubisoft, and
| CDProjektRed.
|
| Maybe if the various English companies had converged, instead
| of selling to foreign interests, they could have survived.
| pjerem wrote:
| Yeah, I want to live in the alternate universe where Nintendo
| still owns Rareware
| bennysomething wrote:
| Main reason the GameCube was a disappointment to me :(
| matmann2001 wrote:
| There's always StarFox Adventures T-T
| bennysomething wrote:
| That could have been Dino planet! Rare were perfect fit
| for Nintendo consoles, not Xbox!
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| The US sold itself to foreign interests and aside from the
| anti China sentiment removed from superhero movies, and Apple
| kowtowing to Chinese interests it's still the same.
| a-dub wrote:
| > Europe in general seems to have largely lost edge in gaming
| at the end of the '90s, probably as a result of the death of
| 8-16bit.
|
| it seems true. the europeans were a force to be reckoned with
| in terms of gaming during the atari st/amiga/early pc era. i
| suspect a lot of that talent went to one of two places: 1)
| they jumped ship for the crazy financial opportunities abroad
| 2) they stayed put, but started throwing more and more energy
| at the nascent and newly internet enabled open source scene
|
| i've never seen any official numbers, but have always gotten
| the sense that the europeans these days are the real power
| players in the oss world. (much like they were in games
| before!). it also makes sense, i think that pre-
| industrialized gaming attracted creative coders, much like
| oss does today.
| woliveirajr wrote:
| Lemmings. I can see those little no-brained creatures everytime I
| (wrongly) do something in my computer 'cause I didn't thought of
| all consequences.
| nolok wrote:
| Their run on the PSX was great. The formula one games, g-police,
| rollcage, wipeout, the colony wars games, ...
|
| But my favorite of their oldies is Barbarian, I'm not sure how I
| like this more than lemmings, probably because I used to watch my
| dad playing back then.
| bhouston wrote:
| Fun fact, the original developer (not publisher) of Lemmings is
| also the original developer of the Grand Theft Auto series -
| David Jones.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| That is some amazing multi-decade/generational spanning.
| bhouston wrote:
| Well to be fair GTA 1 was released in the late 1990s, where
| as Lemmings was released in the early 1990s. So his two
| largest hits were in the same decade.
| pjerem wrote:
| Thank you mister for all the joyful hours as a kid enjoying
| Destruction Derby.
| neom wrote:
| I'm an amiga kid who grew up in Scotland, when I was young I
| always thought these guys were The. Coolest. Lemmings is such an
| amazing game. I remember the first time I saw someone play it, I
| had no idea how it could be fun, but as soon as I tried it, I
| couldn't stop till it was "done" - The only other game I've ever
| found as enjoyable is TIM, The Incredible Machine.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| From my limited view of the world in the East German
| hinterlands right around the reunification, the UK simply was
| _the_ pop culture hot spot of the 80 's and early 90's (at
| least for music and video games). Almost all of the cool stuff
| came out of the UK. It was only with Doom that the US entered
| the stage :)
| detritus wrote:
| As an Amiga-owning Brit living in the South of Europe back
| then, as much as my eye was cast homeward culturally, it was
| also eyeing Germany quite a lot. You guys made great games
| too (never mind the demo scene, which Germany and the Nordics
| kicked British ass at) and I used to tune in to some German
| radio station on Saturday nights on Satellite radio and hook
| it up to a tape recorder so that I had electronic/dance music
| no one else in my school even knew about :)
|
| - belated edit
|
| I realise now, reading back, that you said East Germany. I
| forgot that was A Thing, for shame.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| East Germany actually had a tiny game development community
| of its own ;)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7xndvitLa8
|
| The computers just weren't exactly "game friendly", because
| custom chips like in the Western home computers weren't a
| thing. Think "ZX Spectrum" without ULA and half the
| performance.
| teddyh wrote:
| While Psygnosis did develop many games, they did not develop
| Lemmings, they merely published it.
| gpderetta wrote:
| yes, Lemmings was from DMA Design, which later became Rockstar
| North.
| jl6 wrote:
| Lemmings, Shadow of the Beast, Awesome, Hired Guns... psygnosis
| games had quite some musical talent behind them.
| icedchai wrote:
| Psygnosis games were amazing! I still remember the day I got
| Shadow of the Beast, Agony, Bloody Money, and, of course,
| Lemmings. These were all iconic, 1990's Amiga games.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Shadow of the beast; Lemmings; etc. Amazing games that I played
| during my childhood on an Amiga 500.
| ItsBob wrote:
| OMG, the mere mention of G-Police and I was catapulted back to
| the 90s... I loved that game!
|
| So much so, that I tried to find a copy of it earlier this year
| but couldn't get one (bootleg or otherwise) that would run :(
|
| Great memories! Sad news though.
| password4321 wrote:
| I didn't look too closely, this demo might be a step in the
| right direction:
|
| https://archive.org/details/GPOLICE
| rjsw wrote:
| He worked for Imagine Software before founding Psygnosis. I went
| to the auction of the Imagine computers but everything went for
| much more than it was really worth.
| donorman wrote:
| I did actually play Shadow of the beast on my beloved Amiga the
| other day, not that fun but a great technical show off.
|
| Lemmings is real fun though, can't believe the first Xmas
| Lemmings was released 30 years ago :-)
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I just switch it on for the music; not the same without the
| game graphics for the atmosphere. These 3.5 disks are robust;
| my disks are really old by now. They seem to hols better than
| cds.
| Erwin wrote:
| I just started playing the Shadow of the Beast soundtrack on
| Spotify -- Allister Brimble was quite prolific with several
| hundred games scored.
|
| It's interesting to compare the Amiga 500 with its 640x256
| resolution and 4096 colors driven by a 68K processor with 68k
| transistors (coincidence?) and my current 4K screen driven by
| a 3080ti card and 28.3 billion transistors. Certainly the
| computing and graphics power has increased greatly, but not
| so the music output.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| There is a sculpture honouring the Lemmings in Dundee, Scotland:
|
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lemmings-statue
|
| OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2762662126
| moepstar wrote:
| iirc, somewhere around Shoreditch/London there was a wall with
| their logo - i was pretty psyched seeing the owl i haven't seen
| in quite a while :(
|
| Edit: just stitched 10 photos i've taken of that wall
| (09/2018), resized to ~iMac 5k x3 resolution and cut in 3 parts
| (i've got 3 virtual desktops) and set each as a desktop
| background.
|
| Link: https://imgur.com/a/V6LjRDN
|
| Sorry for the lame stitching tho :(
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Lemmings! The wonder years.
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(page generated 2021-12-16 23:01 UTC)