Synergistic Software

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Synergistic logo from Vengeance of Excalibur game.

Synergistic Software was a game developer that published some of the earliest available games and applications for the Apple II family of computers. They continued developing games for various platforms into the late 1990s.

1 Early history
2 PC Revival
3 Merger and Acquisition
4 List of Titles
5 External links

[edit] Early history

Synergistic was founded in 1978 by Robert Clardy and Ann Dickens Clardy. One of the earliest successful third-party software developers for the Apple II platform, they are most well-known for their Dungeons & Dragons inspired Dungeon Campaign / Wilderness Campaign game, which was later expanded and repackaged as Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure. Dungeon Campaign / Wilderness Campaign is one of the earliest D&D-like games that is epic in scope (compared to the more commonplace "dungeon crawl" games, such as Temple of Apshai.

Synergistic also published a number of business applications, including a word processor and a simple database program.

[edit] PC Revival

Unlike many other companies that could or did not make the jump to other platforms, Synergistic continued as an independent developer as the IBM PC DOS platform became dominant. Possibly their most successful titles during this period were Thexder, a side-scrolling shooter game and Silpheed, a 2D shooter (later ported and republished by Sega for the Sega CD console).

[edit] Merger and Acquisition

Synergistic was acquired by Sierra in 1996. They maintained their identity as an independent development group within Sierra for several years. They were closed in early 1999 as part of a Sierra's restructuration plan.