Housemarque Games
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Housemarque Games
Housemarque Oy (or Housemarque Inc.) is a Finnish video game developer based in Helsinki. The company was founded by Ilari Kuittinen and Harri Tikkanen in July 1995, through the merger of their previous video game companies, Bloodhouse and Terramarque, both of which were founded in 1993 as Finland's first commercial developers. Housemarque is the oldest active developer in Finland and has about 110 employees as of 2023. It was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in June 2021, becoming a part of PlayStation Studios. History Bloodhouse and Terramarque (1993–1994) Bloodhouse and Terramarque were founded in 1993, becoming Finland's first commercial video game developers. Bloodhouse was led by Harri Tikkanen, and released their first game, '' Stardust'' in 1993, with a version updated for the Amiga 1200, titled ''Super Stardust'', released the following year. Terramarque was founded by Ilari Kuittinen and Stavros Fasoulas, and hired Miha Rinne in 1994. Fasoulas, at the ...
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Subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unlike regional branches or divisions, subsidiaries are considered to be distinct entities from their parent companies; they are required to follow the laws of where they are incorporated, and they maintain their own executive leadership. Two or more subsidiaries primarily controlled by same entity/group are considered to be sister companies of each other. Subsidiaries are a common feature of modern business, and most multinational corporations organize their operations via the creation and purchase of subsidiary companies. Examples of holding companies are Berkshire Hathaway, Jefferies Financial Group, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Citigroup, which have subsidiaries involved in many different Industry (e ...
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Elfmania
''Elfmania'' is a 2D fighting game developed by Terramarque and released by Renegade Software in 1994 for the Amiga. Gameplay The gameplay is a standard fighting game, but ''Elfmania'' does not have special moves triggered by various button combinations, as is typical in most other games of this type. Instead, there are only a few standard attacks and one special move for each character. In order to win the game, different characters have to be used, which need to be bought. To buy more expensive and stronger characters, the player collects gold coins as a reward for beating enemies. Multiplayer fights use an odd variation of tic-tac-toe: the game has an overhead map consisting of squares. Players choose where to fight, and the square is marked with the winner's symbol. Getting a line of six squares wins the game. Characters There are a total of six characters to choose from, in order of cost to hire and with the first three costing the same amount of gold: * Janika, an elf who ...
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Arcade Genre
An arcade video game is an arcade game that takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. All arcade video games are coin-operated or accept other means of payment, housed in an arcade cabinet, and located in amusement arcades alongside other kinds of arcade games. Until the early 2000s, arcade video games were the largest and most technologically advanced segment of the video game industry. Early prototypical entries ''Galaxy Game'' and ''Computer Space'' in 1971 established the principle operations for arcade games, and Atari's ''Pong'' in 1972 is recognized as the first successful commercial arcade video game. Improvements in computer technology and gameplay design led to a golden age of arcade video games, the exact dates of which are debated but range from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. This golden age includes ''Space Invaders'', ''Pac-Man'', and ''Donk ...
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VentureBeat
''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. ''VentureBeat'' is a tech news source that publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, an ex-correspondent for ''The Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...''. History In March 2009, ''VentureBeat'' signed a partnership agreement with IDG to produce DEMO Conference, a conference for startups to announce their launches and raise funding from venture capitalists and angel investors. The partnership with IDG ended in 2012. In September 2009, Matt Marshall took on the role of executive producer for the DEMO conference. Over the years, a variety of companies have launched ...
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Imagine Media
Future US, Inc. (formerly known as Imagine Media and The Future Network USA) is an American media corporation specializing in targeted magazines and websites in the video games, music, and technology markets. Headquartered in New York City, the corporation has offices in: Alexandria, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Washington, D.C. Future US is owned by parent company, Future plc, a specialist media company based in Bath, Somerset, England. History The company was established when Future plc acquired struggling Greensboro ( N.C.) video game magazine publisher GP Publications, publisher of '' Game Players'' magazine, in 1994. The company launched a number of titles including ''PC Gamer'', and relocated from North Carolina to the San Francisco Bay Area, occupying various properties in Burlingame and South San Francisco. When Chris Anderson, the founder of Future plc, sold Future to Pearson plc he retained GP, renamed Imagine Media, Inc. in June 1995, and operated ...
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Next Generation (magazine)
''Next Generation'' was a US video game magazine that was published by Imagine Media (now Future US). It was affiliated to and shared content with the UK's '' Edge'' magazine. ''Next Generation'' ran from January 1995 until January 2002. It was published by Jonathan Simpson-Bint and edited by Neil West. Other editors included Chris Charla, Tom Russo, and Blake Fischer. ''Next Generation'' initially covered the 32-bit consoles including 3DO, Atari Jaguar, and the then-still unreleased Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Unlike competitors '' GamePro'' and '' Electronic Gaming Monthly'', the magazine was directed towards a different readership by focusing on the industry itself rather than individual games. Publication history The magazine was first published by GP Publications up until May 1995 when the publisher rebranded as Imagine Media. In September 1999, ''Next Generation'' was redesigned, and its cover name shortened ''NextGen''. A year later, in September 2000, the ma ...
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Pelit
''Pelit'' ("Games") is a Finnish video games magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. History ''Pelit'' dates back to 1987, as an annual extra games-only issue of ''MikroBitti'' and '' C-lehti''. Another annual issue was published in 1988, and in 1989 it became semi-annual (two times per year). In 1992, the staff of the semi-annual computer game book launched ''Pelit'' as a fully-fledged magazine. Its layout and contents have occasionally been revised over the years. Game walkthroughs were dropped as the adventure and old-fashioned role-playing games fell out of fashion. A comic, ''KyöPelit'', was started in 1993. While the magazine started with four computer platforms, coverage of the Amiga, Commodore 64 and Atari ST was reduced as the market share for those platforms diminished. The most notable changes to the magazine format were the 1998 founding of its sister publication, the PlayStation-focused ''Peliasema'', and the later merging of the two due to the growth of the conso ...
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The Reap
''The Reap'' is an arcade shooter. It was released in 1997 for the PC, developed by Housemarque and published by Take 2 Interactive Software Europe. Gameplay The game has a total of 4 stages and each stage has three to four levels, altogether there are 10 levels. Players are tasked to shoot enemies in an arctic oriented scenery. Next they fly through the deep oceans, wherein between shipwrecks and fish bones are sharks, submarines, and a genetically-engineered quadrapus waiting for them. After this there comes a canyon-desert stage. At last, players fight their enemies in a skyscraper city. The player's ship can get 5 weapon systems and all of them can be upgraded three times. The biggest weapon is a rocket blaster. Players can also find bombs or invulnerability shields. The game was influenced by the Neo Geo The , stylized as NEO•GEO, is a video game platform released in 1990 by Japanese game company SNK Corporation. It was initially released in two ROM cartridge-b ...
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Alien Incident
''Alien Incident'' () is a 1996 point-and-click graphic adventure game. It was developed by Finnish game developer Housemarque and published by GameTek for MS-DOS. Plot On Halloween, Benjamin Richards is at his uncle's mansion to bear witness to his newest invention, the " Worm Hole Spawner". Upon activation, a wormhole brings an alien spaceship into the Solar System. The aliens kidnap Benjamin's uncle, whom the player must rescue in addition to stopping the alien threat. Development The game was initially developed by Bloodhouse (before the company merged with Terramarque to form Housemarque) and it was known during development as ''Leokadia''. In January 1994 a six-person team had developed the game for nine months and it was due for release in Fall 1994 for PC and later for Amiga 1200 The Amiga 1200, or A1200 (code-named " Channel Z"), is a personal computer in the Amiga computer family released by Commodore International, aimed at the home computer market. It was laun ...
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MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system. IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in its PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax and capabilities. Beginning in 1988 with DR-DOS, ...
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Punavuori
Punavuori (; ) is a neighbourhood in the center of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The name Punavuori () refers to red cliffs located between Sepänkatu and Punavuorenkatu. They were still visible in the 19th century, nowadays they are covered with buildings and pavement. Punavuori was traditionally a working-class neighbourhood, today it is known as a bohemian district popular among artists, students and hipsters. It is one of the most densely populated areas in Finland. After the new location and growth of Helsinki in the 18th century, Punavuori became the area next to the center. During the 19th century the district had a seedy reputation. Most of the brothels and beerhouses were found in Punavuori. The social problems were aggravated by quickly built rent-apartments for the poor. After World War II, the district went through a process of gentrification. Today Punavuori offers many trendy small shops and bars, nightclubs and restaurants. Important streets include Uuden ...
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Personal Computer
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC game, gaming. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. The term home computer has also been used, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people. Institutional or corporate computer owners in the 1960s had to write their own programs to do any useful work with computers. While personal computer users may develop their applications, usually these systems run commercial software, free-of-charge software ("freeware"), which i ...
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