1988 Palace Software
Platform: Amstrad CPC
Rimrunner was an action game released by Palace Software in 1988 for the Commodore 64 and Atari ST. However, Palace were also working on a version for the Amstrad CPC. The game was massively hyped in Amstrad Computer User, featuring on the cover of the July 1988 issue with a massive 2 1/2 page article. The CPC screenshots in the article are similar in style to the C64 version, but are not from that version.
In the article, coder Pete Green spoke about the challenges of bringing Rimrunner to the CPC. He had come up with some routines to separate background layers, making one a foreground layer from which sprites could hide behind. The demo made from these routines were shown to Pete Stone (Managing Director/Founder of Palace) and Richard Leinfellner (Palace Technical Manager), who told him about Rimrunner, which originally was intended to be C64 only and which used similar routines.
According to the article, the C64 version was being rewritten concurrently with the CPC version (due to issues with the former). The overall design of the game was done by Steve “Barbarian” Brown, and Pete Green spoke of his attention to detail with the animations and pondered if he got them so perfect by studying video of himself (Pete Green also jokingly pondered if Steve Brown needed help for the decapitation sequence in the forthcoming Barbarian 2).
Code for the graphics, maps and related material were ported from a C64 to the CPC using RS232, a null modem cable and specialist code on the CPC to retrieve certain data. Pete got the graphics working but with corruption on certain sprites and discovered that somehow, part of the Commodore 64 BASIC ROM also got copies over to the CPC.
The articles goes into a lot of technical detail including the fact two routines published in ACU helped provide inspiration for fast software scrolling.
As the article was being written, Rimrunner was virtually complete, but Pete Green was having problems with making the most of the remaining, very limited memory. He finishes the article by saying as the CPC couldn’t fit in three levels at once (on 64k machines), however they would get a bonus exclusive level – two on each side for the tape.
A preview in Amstrad Action mentions that the disc version would have different backgrounds like with Barbarian.
By the sounds of things, Pete Green was using the Amstrad itself to code the game (although at this time, people were moving to the PDS on PCs) so is it possible he has a 3″ disc of the complete game? Or even preview versions?
A look on CPC Power reveals no other credits for him so is it possible that after Rimrunner never came out, he never did any further CPC work again. If you know anything more, please do get in touch.
With thanks to Archive.org and Stephen Stuttard for the scans.
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