Bloodwych

Remake

The developers of Bloodwych (Pete James and Anthony Taglione) later made a remake of their game, called Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard. The selectable characters are even the same for both games.

The game is set in the same universe as The Four Crystals of Trazere, which was also developed by the same programmers.

The 8-bit conversions

The 8-bit conversions of the game were written by Philip Taglione, younger brother of Anthony Taglione who created and designed Bloodwych. Z80 version was created first, running on Spectrum 48k and Amstrad CPC. Philip managed to squeeze the most of the game's essence into meagre amounts of available memory. The Spectrum version was crammed into the system - just 7 BYTES of memory was left on the largest levels. When Z80 version was finished, Commodore 64 version materialised where Anthony helped his brother with coding. Nevertheless some of the games features had to be sacrificed for 8-bit conversions. * Spectrum version had to employ a monochromatic 3D dungeon, which meant some of the objects left lying on dungeon floors were difficult to spot * most of the communications system was cut - talking was only allowed when the player encountered a shopkeeper. * there were no signs on the walls, so the only way the player knew he was at the shop was because the shopkeeper didn't attack the party * stone staircases known from Atari ST and Amiga versions were changed to ladders * there were no shelves that adorned the walls

DOS conversion

Walking Circles software house was responsible for DOS conversion of the game. It was based on 68000-source code and was released in 1991 by Konami. As the only version it featured in-game music written by David Whittaker.

Amstrad GX400 version

Based on Amstrad CPC version Philip Taglione procured a cartridge version of the game for Amstrad GX400. Instead of "save game" functionality it contained a pass-code generator, which created a long code consisting of numbers and letters. The codes were presented at the end of each dungeon level and "remembered" the items and general stats of the adventurers. On the contrary to 8-bit versions full communications system was implemented with improved cursor and animated Bloodwych logo on the title screen. No matter how advanced the development was, Mirrorsoft canceled the project mostly due to poor sales of the GX400 consoles. Pretty soon the publishing house was also closed.

Awards

• ST Format
  • January 1990 (Issue #06) - Included in the list 50 Games of the Year
  • May 1990 (Issue #10) - Included in the list "ST Format's 30 Kick-Ass Classics"
• Amstrad CPC
  • Adventure Game of the Year 1990 - French Computer Press