Epyx was one of the great developer/publishers of its time. The company began its life in 1978 when Jim Connelley and John Freeman founded Automated Simulations. Their first game was Starfleet Orion, a space combat game for the Commodore PET computer. It had a sequel called Invasion Orion.
These were followed by Temple of Apshai in 1979. The Action/RPG genre was born.
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Freeman left the company to form Freefall Associates which made games like Archon for Electronic Arts. Automated Simulations underwent management changes and the company was renamed Epyx. Connelley also left shortly after and formed The Connelley Group. Epyx still published some of their games like the rest of the Apshai games and Silicon Warrior.
In general the company moved away from RPGs like Apshai and Rescue at Rigel and became a leader in action games. The bought out Starpath in 1983, the company that made the cassette player add-on for the Atari 2600, which was known for its innovative first-person action game Escape From the Mindmaster.
Jumpman and Jumpman Jr. were popular platform games in 1983.
The Action/Strategy game Crush, Crumble and Chomp also came out in 1983.
They ported some arcade shooters to home computers: Midway's Sea Wolf 2 and Gun Fight and Exidy's Fire One and Star Fire.
Their Pitstop games were among the best home racing games of their time.
In 1984 they released the revolutionary action/exploration game Impossible Mission which was successful in North America and hugely popular in Europe. The voices and animation were unrivaled in a home game at the time. Its 1988 sequel wasn't as popular.
Epyx also capitalized on the 1984 Summer Olympics by making Summer Games. This was the first in a long line of excellent sports games that included Winter Games(1985), World Games(1986), Summer Games 2(1985), The Games: Summer Edition(1988), The Games: Winter Edition(1988), California Games 1(1987) and 2(1990).
Summer Games, Master System screen
Winter Games, Commodore 64 screen
California Games, NES screen
These were great party games as players took turns in different events trying to outdo the scores of other players. Most console ports of these games were done by other companies like Rare and Sega. Aside from the computer originals, Epyx only did the Atari versions. Some other Epyx sports games were World's Greatest Baseball, Final Assault and the Street Sports series.
The 1984 game Rogue was an innovative dungeon crawler that showed that Epyx hadn't completely abandoned its RPG roots yet.
Dragonriders of Pern, Lunar Outpost and Break Dance also came out in 1984.
Dragonriders of Pern
Hot Wheels(1985) was neat game. I enjoyed customizing every aspect of the car. And speaking of Mattel-licensed games, Epyx also released a Barbie game the same year.
They published System 3's awesome fighting game International Karate in North America as World Karate Championship.
Supercycle was a quality Hang-On clone in 1986.
Epyx also published some of Incentive's games in North America. Incentive was UK-based developer that made 3d polygon games like Driller as early as 1987. Their contributions to gaming have gone far too unappreciated and the company shifted away from games when they became Superscape.
They also published France-based Exxos' Purple Saturn Day(futuristic sports) and Project Neptune(3d action) in North America. Palace's Metroid-ish Sacred of Armour of the Antiriad was released by Epyx as Rad Warrior. Thalamus' action/puzzle game Mind Roll was also published by Epyx.
The adventure/strategy game L.A. Crackdown was released in 1988.
First Star Software's Omnicron Conspiracy was published by Epyx in 1989. It was a good adventure game from what I remember.
In the late '80's hoped to revive the the handheld market with their portable Handy. Yet, financial troubles brought the company close to death and the system was sold to Atari which released it as the Lynx in 1989 packaged with California Games.
The Lynx was an amazing piece of hardware. It was full colour and it had hardware scaling and rotation which was unheard of in a console at the time, let alone portables. Epyx made some great games for it like the After Burner-ish Blue Lightning, the 3d action/adventure game Electrocop and the shooters Gates of Zendocon and Zarlor Mercenary. The puzzle game Chip's Challenge was released on PC and Lynx. I'm not completely sure how many Lynx games were developed by Epyx but you can pretty much guarantee that most of the early games were by them.
Blue Lightning
Electrocop
Gates of Zendocon
Epyx barely survived and what was left of them was sold to Bridgestone, a developer of Christian software. Their last few releases were mostly PC games like California Games 2. It was ported to SNES and is way shittier than the first game although it made good use of Mode 7.
As far as I can tell, the 1994 strategy game PC/Mac game Battle Bugs was Epyx's final game. There is a Battle Bugs game on the Japanese Playstation but I haven't been able to confirm if it's the same game.
Thoughts, additions, questions? I'm a little confused about Epyx's demise myself. What are your favorite Epyx games?
Elite Gamer
Strangely enough, the one Epyx product that I've enjoyed the most
was their XJ500 joystick.
It was legendary in terms of its durability and ergonomic design; it was also almost indestructible. It's still one of the best controller I've ever used.
I didn't play that many Epyx games but I used that joystick to play hundreds of other games.
Right, because if anything validates the existance of a handheld piece of shit, it's taking those shitty handheld games and placing them on a screen big enough so that the inherent flaws of the software is visible to all humans. Including Ray Charles.
Atari did actually pick up all the creative staff at Epyx that had worked on Lynx games. If you look at the credits of all the later Atari games on the system, the same names appear. I don't really know where most of them went after the Hasbro buy out. Suffice it to say they were split up, but I don't know if any stillwork in the industry. Alex "LX" Rudis, the musician for nearly all first party Lynx games went on to release an album or two.
That makes sense. I wasn't sure since they stopped putting the Epyx name on the games after a while.
Gutsman, I remember that joystick. It always felt weird to me.
Yeah, actually the earliest titles had the epyx name on them since they were fnished and copyrighted when Atari bought them out. All the games actually made under Atari ownership bore the Atari name.Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
That makes sense. I wasn't sure since they stopped putting the Epyx name on the games after a while.
zero bubble
Wow. Memory Lane. Epyx was almost synonymous with gaming in the early 1980s.
More frightening: recalling Crush Crumble Chomp (a comparatively huge title at the time), I realized that the horrid "chomping" sound effect has failed to undergo any real update -- witness Gunvalkyrie.
"Fiends! Animals! Bastards!"
Oh, and I would like to express much love for said Lynx games. Electrocop was way ahead of its time. Zarlor Mercenary was great. Blue Lighting is still one of my favorite handhelds ever. Their later games under Atari were excellent as well. Much love.
light from a dead star
I played those games way too much back in the day. They were some of my favourite early PC games. They were usually pretty fun and addictive (especially in multiplayer)... but they were also frustrating way too often.Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
Epyx also capitalized on the 1984 Summer Olympics by making Summer Games. This was the first in a long line of excellent sports games that included Winter Games(1985), World Games(1986), Summer Games 2(1985), The Games: Summer Edition(1988), The Games: Winter Edition(1988), California Games 1(1987) and 2(1990).
Please look forward to it!
wow this brought me back. jumpman jr is one of my favorite games on the c64. nearly every game you listed is excellent.
another great thread, neo.
Load"*",8,1
I played Jumpman like crazy. It was one of the best known titles on the C-64 for it's time.
Pitstop was like an enhanced version of Pole Position. The 2 player split screen was very innovative for it's time and running your opponent into the edge of the track usually ended up with one of you blowing out a tire.
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