MicroIllusions
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MicroIllusions was a
computer game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...
and
publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...
of the
home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...
era (late 1980s to early 1990s). Based in Granada Hills, California, the company was a strong supporter of the
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
and typically released titles on that platform before
porting In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desig ...
it to others.
Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
cancelled them as an affiliated publisher after a year of signing them up. The company went out of business in or about 1990.


General

The company impact has been summed up as, "During MicroIllusion’s brief existence they produced some visionary software that, like so much else that came out of the Amiga scene, gave the world an imperfect glimpse of its
multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...
future. That’s as true of Photon Paint, the progenitor of photographic-quality visual editors like
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc., Adobe for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital ...
, as it is of Music-X, a forerunner of easy-to-use music packages like
GarageBand GarageBand is a software application by Apple Inc., Apple for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices that allows users to create music or Podcast, podcasts. It is a lighter, amateur-oriented offshoot of Logic Pro. GarageBand was originally released for ...
."


Founding

According to ''The Digital Antiquarian'', "The seeds of MicroIllusions were planted during one day’s idle conversation when Steinert complained to David Joiner that, while the Amiga supposedly had speech synthesis built into its operating system, he had never actually heard his machines talk; .. He proved as good as his word within a few hours. Impressed, Steinert asked if he could sell the new program ' talk to me' in his store for a straight 50/50 split. Given his circumstances, Joiner was hardly in a position to quibble. When the program sold well, Steinert decided to get into Amiga software development in earnest with the help of his wunderkind."


Applications

*'' Photon Paint 1.0'' (2D painting with 3D generation) (1987)
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
*''Photon Video: Cel Animator'' (animation) (1988) Amiga *''Transport Controller'' (animation) (1988) Amiga *''Photon Paint 2.0'' (2D painting with 3D generation) (1989) Amiga / Mac *''Edit Decision List Processor'' (film/video production) (1989) Amiga *''Genesis: The Third Day'' (3D landscape generation) (1991) Amiga *Music-X (1989) David Joiner (Talin) *Music-X Jr *Dynamic CAD 2.3 *Dynamic Word *The Planetarium *Micro Midi *Dynamic Publisher


Games

* Discovery (1986), Amiga, MS-DOS, C64, Mega Drive. Created by David Joiner (Talin). Addons were released: language, Math, Science, Social Studies, Spell, Trivia 1 * '' Discovery 2.0'' (1990) * Blackjack Academy (1987), Amiga, MS-DOS, Apple IIGS created by Westwood * '' Ebonstar'' (1988), Amiga, created by the Dreamers Guild * '' Romantic Encounters at the Dome'' (1988) Amiga, MS-DOS, Mac * '' Faery Tale Adventure'' (1987) Amiga, C64, MS-DOS, Mega Drive * Galactic Invasion (1987) Amiga. Developed by Silent Software. * Tracers (1988) Developed by Hacker Corp. Amiga * '' Fire Power'' (1988) Amiga, C64, Apple IIGS, MS-DOS * Mainframe (1988) C64 *'' Craps Academy'' (1988) Europe-only release, Amiga Developed by Silent Software. *'' Questmaster 1: Prism of Heheutotol'' (a.k.a. Dondra: A New Beginning) (1988) C64, MS-DOS (Apple II version by
Spectrum Holobyte Spectrum HoloByte, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher. The company, founded in 1983, was known for its simulation games, notably the ''Falcon'' series of combat flight simulators, and for publishing the first version of ''Te ...
) * Turbo (1989) Developed by Silent Software. Amiga *'' Laser Squad'' (published, 1989) Developed by Blade (Teque) Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, MSX, PC-98 * '' Dr. Plummet's House of Flux'' (1989) * Jetsons George Jetson and the Legend of Robotopia (1989), Amiga, Mac. Developed by The Dreamers Guild * Land Of Legends, Unreleased, Developed by Parsec Soft Systems. * '' Faery Tale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead'' (1997), sometimes credited to MicroIllusions, was completed by The Dreamers Guild for various platforms.


References

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External links


MicroIllusions profile
from
MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...
Defunct companies based in California Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game publishers