1991 Kenneth Eriksson, Per Lindgren
Platform: Amiga 500
Fallout by Interplay may be a world hit these days, but already in 1991 a game by that name was created for the Amiga. The game was written in AMOS, and was the winner of an AMOS programming contest in Swedish magazine Datormagazin.
Issue 16 1991, page 36, presents the results. Apart from a screenshot of the game, its creator Kenneth Eriksson is briefly interviewed:
“Kenneth Eriksson was the winner with an original 3D game, where you steer a robot through a nuclear power plant having run amok.”
“The winning entry, Fallout, was created in a week together with [Kenneth’s] friend Per Lindgren.”
Kenneth was awarded a week in London, visiting the offices of Mandarin Software. So what happened to the game? Was it ever released?
20 years later, a Swedish journalist started following the trail. His article focuses mainly on the fact that the name Fallout was used long before Interplay adopted it (actually, the same name was used for a DOS game, also from 1991), but contains snippets about Kenneth’s work and writing the game.
According to the article, the game was never available for purchase, but was distributed in a small number of copies, presumably to friends and such. At the time of writing (2012) Kenneth Eriksson was working as a programmer in California. He no longer owned a copy of the game, having sold his Amiga years ago. Neither was there anything left of the magazine copy of the game, the publisher having thrown everything away in the 90s.
Still, someone out there, perhaps Per Lindgren – whoever that may be (fairly common Swedish name) – may have a copy. Fallout is after all a prize winner.
Gallery
Sources:
- Datormagazin, page 36, “Massor av vinnare! Kenneth vann London-resan” (Lots of winners! Kenneth won the London trip)
- Spelpappan (Game daddy) writing about the game 20 years later. (In Swedish, but translates well with machine translation.)
- Fallout for DOS
- Other people looking for this game
