The Amiga line recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Or to be more accurate, it's been four decades since the iconic computers’ first launch event, which took place back in July 1985. The machines themselves would start shipping to customers in September that year.
But it was the summer of that year that so many game developers still remember so clearly. The future they longed for was suddenly just around the corner.
At a lavish launch party held at the the Lincoln Center in New York, Commodore and a host of celebrity guests including pop artist Andy Warhol and punk icon Debbie Harry lifted the lid on the Amiga 1000, otherwise known as the A1000.
Commodore Amiga 1000Built around the Motorola 68000, for a home computer it was stunningly powerful, particularly with regard to graphical and audio capabilities. Commodore had set out to unleash a rival to Apple’s first ever Macintosh machine, the 128k, released just over a year earlier. At half the price, with twice the memory and a more advanced OS, while the Mac brought its advantages, Commodore’s new machine offered a stunning proposition.
It would soon emerge as a creative platform that would shape the future of game making, hosting hundreds of classic and influential games – as explored in Bitmap’s own Commodore Amiga: a visual compendium.
A young Torben Bakager took notice of this new machine. In time, the Amiga would shape his career as a game maker, and the rest of his professional life.
He had fallen for games several years earlier, when his parents brought home a clone Pong machine. His passion ignited, Bakager’s next step on the path to becoming a game maker would be when he stumbled upon a Sinclair ZX81. He couldn't shake the idea of making his own games. In time he found the cash to buy his own ZX Spectrum, and began to learn by copying out code pages from computing magazines to access games. Then came the Commodore 64, secured by saving earnings from a paper round.
“I was hooked on computers as a way to create, and I loved games,” says Bakager, who would go on to make two of the Amiga’s most celebrated shooters, at the studio he co-founded, Cope-Com. “I started just making demos and small experiments. Early on, I was just exploring what I could do. And then the Amiga arrived; this new powerhouse of a computer. Me and my friend Martin Pedersen could immediately see that this new machine made it possible to make games with an arcade quality, in terms of pixels, colours, and sounds. The idea that we could make games like the ones we saw in arcades was really exciting.”
Bakager and Pedersen had met working on an Amstrad conversion of the Commodore game The Vikings. They quickly establish a harmonious professional relationship, their distinct skillsets complimenting one another perfectly. By 1987 they founded their own studio together, and named it Cope-Com.
“We quickly began making games for the Amiga, as we saw that by comparison machines like the Amstrad were so limited" Bakager confirms. “We were already visiting arcade centres quite a lot, and they were hugely inspiring to us – particularly once we realised that with the Amiga, we could make the same kind of games. There were a lot of vertical shoot ‘em ups in arcades at the time – more than horizontal shooters. At least, that’s how I remember it. I was really into that vertical style. It was a lot harder, really, to make a vertical shoot ‘em up than a horizontal, but with the Amiga, we felt we could make the games we loved. So we decided to try to figure out how it was possible.”
The pair soon found that the Amiga could be used to create the kind of busy, sprite rich, vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up they dreamed of building, so they began planning the first Cope-Com release, Hybris. When it launched in 1989, it showed just what the Amiga could do, serving up remarkably detailed pixel art, fast-paced gameplay, and a vibrance and dynamism that rivalled the arcade games of the time.
It would soon emerge as a creative platform that would shape the future of game making, hosting hundreds of classic and influential games – as explored in Bitmap’s own Commodore Amiga: a visual compendium.
A young Torben Bakager took notice of this new machine. In time, the Amiga would shape his career as a game maker, and the rest of his professional life.
He had fallen for games several years earlier, when his parents brought home a clone Pong machine. His passion ignited, Bakager’s next step on the path to becoming a game maker would be when he stumbled upon a Sinclair ZX81. He couldn't shake the idea of making his own games. In time he found the cash to buy his own ZX Spectrum, and began to learn by copying out code pages from computing magazines to access games. Then came the Commodore 64, secured by saving earnings from a paper round.
“I was hooked on computers as a way to create, and I loved games,” says Bakager, who would go on to make two of the Amiga’s most celebrated shooters, at the studio he co-founded, Cope-Com. “I started just making demos and small experiments. Early on, I was just exploring what I could do. And then the Amiga arrived; this new powerhouse of a computer. Me and my friend Martin Pedersen could immediately see that this new machine made it possible to make games with an arcade quality, in terms of pixels, colours, and sounds. The idea that we could make games like the ones we saw in arcades was really exciting.”
Bakager and Pedersen had met working on an Amstrad conversion of the Commodore game The Vikings. They quickly establish a harmonious professional relationship, their distinct skillsets complimenting one another perfectly. By 1987 they founded their own studio together, and named it Cope-Com.
“We quickly began making games for the Amiga, as we saw that by comparison machines like the Amstrad were so limited" Bakager confirms. “We were already visiting arcade centres quite a lot, and they were hugely inspiring to us – particularly once we realised that with the Amiga, we could make the same kind of games. There were a lot of vertical shoot ‘em ups in arcades at the time – more than horizontal shooters. At least, that’s how I remember it. I was really into that vertical style. It was a lot harder, really, to make a vertical shoot ‘em up than a horizontal, but with the Amiga, we felt we could make the games we loved. So we decided to try to figure out how it was possible.”
The pair soon found that the Amiga could be used to create the kind of busy, sprite rich, vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up they dreamed of building, so they began planning the first Cope-Com release, Hybris. When it launched in 1989, it showed just what the Amiga could do, serving up remarkably detailed pixel art, fast-paced gameplay, and a vibrance and dynamism that rivalled the arcade games of the time.
Hybris, 1989
“It was hard, sweaty work trying to get what we wanted from Hybris. The Amiga was powerful, but we had a lot to learn. But we feel the result speaks to what could be achieved on the Amiga – and what we were capable of while we were still pretty young, with an Amiga in our hands. Even today, compared to a lot of games from the time, the Cope-Com games still look so colourful and fresh, and that is thanks to what the Amiga was capable of.”
Hybris, 1989
Proving themselves to be remarkably productive, that same year Cope-Com released the spiritual sequel to Hybris, Battle Squadron. A remarkably fast, busy game for the time, it stunned critics and players. A new standard for Amiga development had been set. Arcade quality on home computers really hadn’t been deemed possible just a few years earlier. Arcades were meant to be light years ahead, but the Amiga had other ideas.
Battle Squadron, 1989 Sure, games built for powerful arcade hardware were still a cut above. In 1989, as Battle Squadron was delighting Amiga owners, the wildly influential Japanese shmup studio Toaplan released seminal works like Zero Wing and Fire Shark. Home gaming still lagged behind a little. But young teams like Cope-Com were closing the gap, empowered by the Amiga. As machines like the Amiga 2000 and 500 arrived, the opportunity to play and create games only expanded.
Battle Squadron, 1989
In tandem with that move forward, more and more aspiring game makers fell for the Amiga. The Commodore machine founded the skillset of so many young developers, many of whom now stand as senior game industry figures leading major studios. They cut their teeth on the Amiga, while countless consumers fell for games via the very same machine. Many of those everyday users at least got their feet wet with a little coding, or perhaps some sprite creation in Deluxe Paint. The Amiga had gifted computer literacy to millions of us, priming the layperson for a future dominated by technology.
“That was the power of the Amiga,” enthuses Bakager. “It gave you not only great games to inspire you, but also great art, great coding possibilities, and that ability to sample sound. You couldn’t really do that on previous computers. The ability to sample an explosion might not sound like much, but it made the games feel more intense, or more real. Those factors – along with the Amiga being presented as a creative machine – really made it important to games. Seeing Andy Warhol using one, and having Deluxe Paint in your hands? That was so exciting to us at the time, and really an important moment for games.”
To this day, Cope-Com’s works stand out as significant. Hybris had caught the eye of many fellow games makers at the time, who were captivated by its technological prowess, and inspired to push their own projects to new places. And Bakager and Pedersen were happy to share lessons they’d learnt making their own game. The Amiga scene at the time was defined by a remarkable willingness for exchanging ideas, as a new generation found a fresh, cutting-edge way to make games. Together, the Amiga-focused studios brought on game development in leaps and bounds, and today, whatever games we play, we likely owe a small debt of gratitude to the humble A1000.
“That was the power of the Amiga,” enthuses Bakager. “It gave you not only great games to inspire you, but also great art, great coding possibilities, and that ability to sample sound. You couldn’t really do that on previous computers. The ability to sample an explosion might not sound like much, but it made the games feel more intense, or more real. Those factors – along with the Amiga being presented as a creative machine – really made it important to games. Seeing Andy Warhol using one, and having Deluxe Paint in your hands? That was so exciting to us at the time, and really an important moment for games.”
To this day, Cope-Com’s works stand out as significant. Hybris had caught the eye of many fellow games makers at the time, who were captivated by its technological prowess, and inspired to push their own projects to new places. And Bakager and Pedersen were happy to share lessons they’d learnt making their own game. The Amiga scene at the time was defined by a remarkable willingness for exchanging ideas, as a new generation found a fresh, cutting-edge way to make games. Together, the Amiga-focused studios brought on game development in leaps and bounds, and today, whatever games we play, we likely owe a small debt of gratitude to the humble A1000.
If you want to immerse yourself in the art and history of the Amiga line, Commodore Amiga: a visual compendium brings you 420 pages of game profiles, insights from developers, artists and publishers involved, interviews, and a deep dive into the demo scene. Packed with hundreds of meticulously printed screenshots and game art examples, it's an essential read for every Amiga fan – or anyone interested in game history.
