Turrican
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Turrican is a 1990 video game programmed by Manfred Trenz. It was first developed for the Commodore 64 by Rainbow Arts, but was ported to other systems later. In addition to concept design and character creation, Trenz personally programmed both Turrican I & Turrican II on the Commodore 64.
Turrican can be described as a cross between Metroid and Psycho-Nics Oscar[1], while the huge detailed labyrinth levels and the morph-ball function were inspired by Metroid, the overall graphics design and weapons were inspired by Psycho-Nics Oscar. Unlike many other action games of its time, Turrican didn't just force the player to complete a linear level, the real thrill for the player was to fully explore it and uncover every secret spot, hidden room and invisible passage.
The name Turrican is based on "Turricano", an Italian name which Trenz found in a phone book. There was a rumour about Turricano being the name of a pizzeria Trenz used to visit regularly, but this has been proven false. However, he did visit a pizzeria called Katakis, which the planet was named after.
The first demo of Turrican 1 (C64) was called Hurrican.
The Turrican series are well known for the high quality of their soundtracks. The most notable is the Turrican 2 soundtrack for Amiga, composed by Chris Hülsbeck. Music from Turrican 2 was performed live by a full orchestra at the second Symphonic Game Music Concert in 2004. The event took place in Leipzig, Germany.
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[edit] Turrican 1
The series started in 1990 on the Commodore 64. Turrican 1 became very popular due to its high technical achievements, demonstrating graphics which many did not believe to be possible on a C64.
Turrican 1 was developed mainly by Manfred Trenz and published by Rainbow Arts. A later Amiga conversion was produced by Factor 5. The following people are credited with the C64 version of Turrican:
- Idea, programming and graphics: Manfred Trenz
- Producer: Marc A. Ullrich
- Music: Ramiro Vaca, Stefan Hartwig, Chris Hülsbeck
- Sound-FX: Adam Bulka
- Sound-Routines: Chris Hülsbeck, Adam Bulka, Oliver Blasnik
- Digi-Routines: Jeroen Tel
Turrican 1 was also released for the Atari ST, CDTV, Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy, PC Engine, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. The console ports were handled by Accolade.
"Subsong 2" from Turrican 1 is actually the song "Escape" from The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack.[2] Btw -> Ramiro Vaca is responsible for the complete C64-tunes inclusive the cover of the song Escape in "Subsong 2". This has absolutely nothing to do with Chris Huelsbeck. Chris has only composed the Amiga-tunes of Turrican I, II, III as also the Mega Turrican (Sega) & Super Turrican (Snes) - tracks.
The title screen for turrican is said to be based upon the Manowar album cover Kings of Metal[3]
[edit] Turrican 2
Turrican 2 was released in 1991. The Amiga version, done by Factor 5, was finished before the C64 version, but Manfred Trenz cites the C64 version as the original design.
- Design: Manfred Trenz, Andreas Escher, Holger Schmidt, Julian Eggebrecht
- Programming: Holger Schmidt, Thomas Engel (Atari ST) and Manfred Trenz (C64)
- Graphics: Andreas Escher, Manfred Trenz and Sven Meier (Atari ST)
- Cover: Celal Kandemiroglu
- Music: Chris Hülsbeck (Amiga), Jochen Hippel (Atari ST), Markus Siebold and Stefan Hartwig (C64)
- Publisher: Rainbow Arts
Turrican 2 was also released for the CDTV, Atari ST, PC, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. The PC targets the MS-DOS operating system but can by run under Dosbox in Microsoft Windows or Linux.
A conversion for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Boy was produced by Accolade, who had kept the rights for the console ports of the franchise. But at a late stage, they also acquired rights to produce a game spin-off of the Jean Claude Van Damme movie Universal Soldier and decided to rebrand the game. Turrican's sprite was changed into a marine and several other substitutions were made. Amongst other changes, the eyeballs-walking-on-fingers became mini tanks, and instead of a large mech/steel dragon in the first stage, the player now faces a large representation of Dolph Lundgren's character in the movie.
The three "shoot'em up" stages would have probably been cut out from the port so the developers replaced them with three original stages (a Vietnam jungle, a fortress, and a motel/car junkyard) that in theory should link the game to the movie's atmosphere. The game was not very well received, and is generally considered to be a mistake to "butcher" a Turrican game in this way.
There also exists a Super Nintendo version that was almost finished, but it never reached a commercial release and nowadays can only be found as a beta. The Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Boy versions were the only console ports that were finally released.
[edit] Mega Turrican / Turrican 3
Mega Turrican was an original Factor 5 game initially designed for the Mega Drive/Genesis, and later followed by an Amiga port under the title of Turrican 3. However, despite not being the original, the Amiga version was the one that was first commercially released in 1993, published by Rainbow Arts in Germany and Renegade in Europe. The Mega Drive version didn't have a publisher and stayed unreleased until 1994, when Data East carried over its worldwide distribution. Data East itself released the game in North America, and contracted Sony Imagesoft for its distribution in Europe.
- Developer: Factor 5
- Publisher (Mega Drive): Data East / Sony Imagesoft
- Publisher (Amiga): Rainbow Arts / Renegade
- Design: Frank Matzke, Thomas Engel, Julian Eggebrecht, Willi Bäcker and Lutz Osterkorn
- Programming: Peter Thierolf and Thomas Engel
- Grafics: Frank Matzke and Ramiro Vaca
- Cover: Celal Kandemiroglu
- Music (Amiga): Chris Hülsbeck
Turrican 3 featured slighty toned down graphics and poorer backgrounds than the Mega Drive version, but on the other hand, had a better sounding soundtrack. In general terms, the game features much smaller levels to the original Amiga Turrican games and has much chunkier sprites, but compensating these with many new effects and graphical improvements, and a major focus on shooting action. The lightning whip from the first two games is gone and is replaced by a Grappling hook.
Turrican 3 for the C64 is a fan-game and was released on August 28th 2004 at the Demoparty Evoke by the group Smash Designs.
[edit] Super Turrican 1 & 2
The Super Turrican games were independent developments for the SNES, both of them done by Factor 5, the first being published by Seika and the second one by Ocean.
Super Turrican plays similarly to Mega Turrican and shares a similar visual style. The game has a different set of levels, however, and features a freeze beam in place of the original lightning whip.
Super Turrican 2 featured more action than the first part and used many "Mode 7" effects but sacrificed the big levels of the original Turrican games.
There is also an unrelated Super Turrican for the NES, which was created by Manfred Trenz alone. It is based roughly on the levels of the first two Turrican games.
[edit] Thornado (never released)
This Turrican spin-off by Factor 5, planned for release on the Nintendo Gamecube was supposed to become the successor to the Turrican series, but sadly, it was never released. All that was available from this game was a piece of preliminary music composed by Chris Hülsbeck and some art assets that were reused in Star Wars: Rebel Strike, such as the Golden Gate-like looking bridge. The "Thornado Demo" track which was released as a teaser for the upcoming GameCube game was in fact running on the older Nintendo 64 sound hardware using Factor5's new proprietary MusyX software sound engine. The Thornado Demo, although not available on Factor5's website anymore, can still be found on the internet or on popular p2p networks such as eDonkey.
[edit] References
- ^ Interview about games that inspired Turrican
- ^ Facts about Turrican at Turrican SETA
- ^ Facts about Turrican at Turrican SETA
