Game:

Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior (1987)

Duration: 4:05

540 views

38

Series with focus on releases from the 80s software houses: Palace Software was founded in January 1984 by Peter Stone and Richard Leinfellner. In the early 1980s, Stone was the director and Leinfellner clerk of The Video Palace, the Palace Group's major home video store in Kensington High Street, London. The store also began selling computer video games, and later young people began to show up offering to sell the games they developed (Leinfellner recalls that Jeff Minter's mother also used to deliver her son's games). In time, professional developers were also contacted, until in 1983 Stone and Leinfellner decided to make the games themselves. They proposed it to the head of the Palace group, Nik Powell, who agreed to finance the new company as a subsidiary, while also providing him with offices in a group property above the Scala Cinema in London.

Palace Home Video had the rental rights to The Evil Dead, but it was banned by the UK under the Video Recordings Act 1984, which made the film more famous. Stone and Leinfellner then thought of acquiring the rights to make a video game out of it, which was initially developed for the Commodore 64. The Evil Dead was Leinfellner's first game, with graphics by Stone. Leinfellner himself admits that the game was poor, but the two learned from their mistakes. However, The Evil Dead sold quite well, despite some unfavorable reviews, probably due to the film's fame.

Developers Steve Brown (artist and designer) and Stanley Schembri (assistant programmer) were hired for the next game. The rights were acquired to make a video game out of the Halloween film saga, but according to Brown, the project wasn't coming out of great. However, the pumpkins he made were impressive, and from there he came up with the idea of creating a very different game. So in 1985 Cauldron was made, initially for the Commodore 64, and it was an immediate success. Leinfellner later became more of a producer, leaving the bulk of the programming to Schembri. Richard Joseph was hired to work on sound and music. More than a year passed without the release of new titles, but Palace Software amassed significant sales abroad, especially in France and Germany. In 1986 came another big hit with The Sacred Armour of Antiriad, which benefited greatly from the work of newly hired artist Dan Malone.

Meanwhile, after the success of Cauldron and Cauldron II, Steve Brown was given a free hand in designing any game. Passionate about Frank Frazetta, Brown wanted to make a sword-fighting game that was as brutal and realistic as possible. He also made videos with fake swords as a reference for animations. Thus was born Barbarian, Palace's biggest hit ever. Combat was surprisingly complex for its time and notable for its violence. Barbarian is also remembered for the advertising campaign with the scantily clad model Maria Whittaker, which caused some criticism because it was too racy, but gave excellent results.

In 1988, internal development continued with Barbarian II and Rimrunner, but the company wanted to strengthen itself as a publisher of externally produced titles. Over the next three years, he published games for Sensible Software, Denton Designs, Delphine, and others. It was also considered to found a new brand, Outlaw Productions, to be dedicated to externally developed titles; Outlaw's first product was the Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit game development environment for the Commodore 64.

The company grew, but several wrong choices were made; according to Leinfellner, as the horizons broadened, the quality worsened. Leinfellner himself, discouraged, left the company to found IDS. In 1991 the Palace group, which was increasingly entering the big business of film production, wanted to sell several of its subsidiaries, including Palace Software. It was acquired by the French Titus Software and became its de facto British subsidiary. The several games that were in development were all abandoned, including Barbarian III which already had a basic design. In retrospect, according to Stone, Palace Software's main mistake was not expanding a strong in-house team, and Leinfellner said they were unable to convert Cauldron and Barbarian to the SNES console.

Stone and Leinfellner went on to have important careers in the British games industry: in 2006 Stone was general manager of Konami UK and Leinfellner was vice president and executive producer at Electronic Arts.

List of releases for the ZX Spectrum:

0:05 The Evil Dead (1984)
0:35 Cauldron (1985)
1:05 Cauldron II - The Pumpkin Strikes Back (1986)
1:35 The Sacred Armour of Antiriad (1986)
2:05 Barbarian - The Ultimate Warrior (1987)
2:35 Stifflip & Co. (1987)
3:05 Barbarian II - The Dungeon of Drax (1988)
3:35 International 3D Tennis (1990)