MicroIllusions, based in Granada Hills, California was a

computer game developer A video game developer is a broad term for 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 ...

and

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

of the home computer era (late 1980s to early 1990s). MicroIllusions, as a company, was a strong supporter of the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

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 des ...

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 ...

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, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradi ...

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. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in ras ...

, as it is of Music-X, a forerunner of easy-to-use music packages like

GarageBand GarageBand is a line of digital audio workstations developed by Apple Inc. for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices that allows users to create music or podcasts. GarageBand is developed by Apple for macOS, and was once part of the iLife software ...

Founding

According to ''The Digital Antiquarian'', "The seeds of MicroIllusions were planted during one day’s idle conversation when Steinert complained to

David Joiner David "Talin" Joiner is an American game programmer, who created games such as ''The Faery Tale Adventure'' and ''Inherit the Earth'', contributed audio to '' Defender of the Crown II'' (1993), engineering for '' SimCity 4: Rush Hour'' (2003), and ...

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)

*''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, DOS, C64,

Megadrive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan as ...

(Genesis) created by David Joiner (Talin). Various addons were released ( language, Math, Science, Social Studies, Spell, Trivia 1) * Faery Tale Adventure, (1986)

, created by David Joiner (Talin) * Blackjack Academy (1987),

, DOS,

Apple IIGS The Apple IIGS (styled as II), the fifth and most powerful of the Apple II family, is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Computer. While featuring the Macintosh look and feel, and resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari S ...

created by Westwood * '' Ebonstar'' (1988), Amiga, created by the Dreamers Guild * ''

Romantic Encounters at the Dome Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of tha ...

'' (1988)

, DOS,

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

* '' Faery Tale Adventure'' (1987)

and Commodore 64 (C64), DOS,

Sega Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

List of MicroIllusions games
from

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

* Galactic Invasion (1987)

. Developed by Silent Software. * Tracers (1988) Developed by Hacker Corp.

* ''

Fire Power Firepower is the military capability to direct force at an enemy. (It is not to be confused with the concept of rate of fire, which describes the cycling of the firing mechanism in a weapon system.) Firepower involves the whole range of potenti ...

'' (1988)

, C64,

, DOS * Mainframe (1988) C64 *'' Craps Academy'' (1988)

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

-only release,

Developed by Silent Software. *'' Questmaster 1: Prism of Heheutotol'' (a.k.a. Dondra: A New Beginning) (1988) C64, DOS (

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...

version by Spectrum Holobyte) * Turbo (1989) Developed by Silent Software.

*'' Laser Squad'' (published, 1989) Developed by Blade (Teque)

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the S ...

, Atari ST, Commodore 64,

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 oper ...

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

, MSX 1/2, NEC PC-98 * ''

Dr. Plummet's House of Flux ''Dr. Plummet's House of Flux'' is a video game developed by MicroIllusions in 1989 for the Amiga. Plot ''Dr. Plummet's House of Flux'' is a game in which the unusual Dr. Plummet has invited the player character to come to his House of Flux fo ...

'' (1989) * Jetsons George Jetson and the Legend of Robotopia (1989),

Apple Mac The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

. 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, Inc. for various platforms.''Faery Tale II'' entry
from MobyGames

References

{{reflist

External links

MicroIllusions profile
from

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

Defunct companies based in California Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game publishers