The Lion King

aka: Der König der Löwen, El Rey Leon, Le Roi Lion, O Rei Leão
Moby ID: 2077

Trivia

DirectX

The Windows version of The Lion King was the inspiration for DirectX. It was released with a large line of Compaq computers, but then the system specs were changed at the last minute. The game ceased to work on the computers after the change. To prevent this from happening in the future, Microsoft created DirectX so that applications could run on any computer.

Missing levels in the Amiga version

The Amiga version has only 7 levels compared to 10 levels in the DOS, Genesis and SNES version. The missing levels are "Level 2 (Can't Wait to be King)", "Level 6 (Hakuna Matata)", "Level 9 (Simba's Return)" and both bonus stages ("Bug Toss" with Pumbaa and "Bug Hunt" with Timon).

There are 2 different explanations:

1) Programmer of the Amiga version - Dave Semmens - said in an interview that he had only around 2 months to convert the game from Genesis because it had to be released on Christmas. He received all the source code from the Genesis version which he expected to be in 68000 assembler (the Amiga and Genesis shared the same 68000 processor) so a lot of parts could be used from the existing code. Unfortunately it turned out that the source code was in "C" - a language he had never seen before. Converting the game was a crunch job right from the start and at one point he worked 40 hours straight. In the end he only used one table from the provided code. Because of this fact and a limited time he wasn't able to fully complete the game for a Christmas release. He had 2 of the other levels almost complete but there wasn't enough time to fully test them before release. As a result he lost out about 25% of the money for not delivering the missing levels.

2) The Amiga manual contains following information: "Due to size limitation this version of Disney's The Lion King does not contain the bonus stages, "Can't Wait to be King", "Hakuna Matata" or "Simba's Return".

Awards

  • Amiga Joker
    • Issue 02/1996 – #2 Best Dexterity Game in 1995 (Readers' Vote)
  • GameFan
    • Vol 3, Iss. 1 - Movie to Game Translation of the Year 1994
  • Game Players
    • January 1995 - Best Genesis Game in 1994
    • January 1995 - Best Genesis Action Game in 1994

Information also contributed by Big John WV, B.L. Stryker and Picard

edit trivia · view history


Know of any trivia we're missing? Contribute.

Trivia contributed by Terok Nor, Zack Green, B.L. Stryker, Patrick Bregger.