Note: This page is about the indy shooter for the Atari ST. There is also an open-sourced puzzle game in the style of Chip's Challenge and Adventures of Lolo named Escape, and the RPG Richard & Alan's Escape from Hell.
Firesoft
On the defunct Firesoft (or Fire-Soft) homepage you could read the following account of the making of Escape:
- Firesoft
- Adrian Pflugshaupt (Atrax) Code, Music *1975?
Simon Müller (NrD) Gfx, Music, html *1976?
Thomas Stadelmann (io) Gfx
Markus Zuelli Gfx- Firesoft?
- It was a long time ago, in any case, the founding of Fire-Soft. We were about ten years old and Simon (NrD) had this cool RC-Car, the Fire-Fox. Thus came the name Fire-Soft. Adrian's (Atrax) brother then owned one of the first Atari 520ST+, while Simon was still busy with his father's C64 (Armalyte…).
- The Start
- An important next step was that Simon's family bought an ST after all and Adrian got a color monitor. When Atrax started programming Assembler (after ST-Basic and GfA-Basic), the first version of Escape soon emerged, still with Atrax's idiot graphics, but it was already a sidescroller (albeit VERY slow). Some traces of the graphics are still found in the final Escape version. (basically everything that looks bad…)
- In Farbe
- NrD started creating graphics, a great improvement. The Escape project trundled along, the years went by, during vacations we always drew and programmed manically. Unfortunately we gamed a lot too, so it took a long time.
- Reality
- When Escape was finally finished, the Atari had already taken a nosedive… We tried to sell the game nevertheless, but the software companies were not interested. Finally we decided to publish Escape as shareware through Maxon. Unfortunately we made the capital mistake to publish a complete version. So we did not become rich and instead of being game designers NrD became an engineer and Atrax a musician.
- No Future?
- When everybody was buying PCs, we created Bombtris for the Atari. Beside that we started lots of ideas that were never finished, mainly since Atrax made too much music or played too many games or whatever. NrD bought a Falcon and noticed to his astonishment that Escape is Falcon compatibel! And he started to render intensely (first on an Ameeega, later on a Mac G3).
- A New Start
- Two years ago (1996) we started in a suicidal mood to program a Falcon game that does not have a name yet, but all in its own time. We noticed with joy that there is still a strong Atari scene. Emulators, too, brought a new Atari popularity.
- Firesoft today
- Of course no fairytale can be perfect. So Atrax decided to leave Switzerland and continue his studies in New York. So the Falcon project is frozen at the moment, for a revival in spring. NrD started to study multimedia producer, so he will finally get rich with computers anyway…
Besides Escape and Bombtris (Bomtris), Firesoft finished two more games: the Tron-style Kurvoid and Firework, a platform shooter in the style of Thexder, Psycho-Nics Oscar and Turrican. Like Bomtris, these games vanished when the Firesoft website went down.
Project YZ
About that Falcon game (the German magazine ST-Computer, who had access to a playable demo, knew it under the name Project YZ) we find the following:
Our latest game project is a mix of Bubble Bobble and Command & Conquer. Vehicles at the dispose of the player are a battle mech, a robot, a mobile mine, a cannon, and an ore transporter.
Object of the game is to destroy the opponent's base. With ore and scrap metal (dropped by every destroyed enemy unit) new vehicles can be built in the players base.
The game will run on the Falcon 030.
And Finally…
Adrian Pflugshaupt is now a Jazz saxophonist. About the other members of Firesoft, I could find out nothing. Project YZ was never finished. The Firesoft website went down some time in 2002. Since then, the Firesoft games are missing in action, only Escape has miraculously reappeared, and you can download it here.
