{{more citations needed, date=August 2011 Network 23 was a British video game developer founded by teenagers Chris Lloyd and Russell Hughes in 1990. Located on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

, they produced games exclusively for the

Acorn Archimedes The Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems in this family use Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and initially ran the Arthur operating system, with later models ...

range of computers from 1990 to 1996. The studio's name was derived from the dominant mega-corporation Network 23, featured in

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

's 1985 short film ’ 20 Minutes into the Future’ (aka Max Headroom).

History

Network 23 were well known within the Archimedes

demoscene The demoscene () is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off computer programmi ...

from 1987 to 1990. Their best known releases from this time included ‘Wibble’, ‘Granny Chow’ and ‘Graffiti Street’. The company changed its name to R.A.G.E. Software Developments with the launch of its first commercial game ‘ Provocator’ in 1991, but reverted to its demoscene name in 1992 to avoid being confused with newly formed Amiga games developer, Rage Software Limited. Network 23's graphic style was influenced by the Amiga games of the day, especially those of the Bitmap Brothers and

Team17 Team 17 Digital Limited (Team17) is a British video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish dev ...

. The graphics were designed using Deluxe Paint on an

Amiga 500 The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, was the first popular version of the Amiga home computer, "redefining the home computer market and making so-called luxury features such as multitasking and colour a standard long before Microsoft or Apple ...

and ported to the Acorn using custom hardware, which gave their games a unique look. The Archimedes games market slowly dried up as the 90's progressed, and the company closed its doors in November 1996. Chris Lloyd went into business software and is now an independent I.T. consultant. He wrote the popular Archimedes emulator ‘Archie’ in his spare time, but was forced to shelve the project in 2001 due to time constraints. Russell Hughes stayed within the video game industry, working on titles including '' Carmageddon'' and ''

State of Emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state before, during, o ...

''. He subsequently worked in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

as an artist for

Blue Tongue Entertainment Blue Tongue Entertainment Pty, Ltd. was an Australian video game developer founded in 1995. It was acquired by THQ on 17 November 2004, and remained an internal development studio of THQ until its closure in August 2011. In addition to THQ, Blu ...

and THQ Asia Pacific. He died at the age of 37 on 22 September 2010.

Games

Provocator Network 23's first published game ‘ Provocator’ was released in September 1991 and published by Isle of Wight developer Computer Tutorial Services (C.T.S). Provocator was a fast space based shoot-em-up, reminiscent of the

Battlestar Galactica ''Battlestar Galactica'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson. It began with the original television series in 1978, and was followed by a short-run sequel series, '' Galactica 1980'', a line of book adaptat ...

TV show from the late 70's. It required the player to protect a huge convoy of ships from alien attack as they passed through hostile territory, and dock with a mother ship after each wave of attacks. Warlocks Released in late October 1993, Warlocks became Network 23's biggest hit. A platform shoot-em-up featuring a reincarnated knight who was tasked with freeing the world of Lylvania from the tyranny of 3 demented Warlocks. Warlocks' advertising boasted that was the only Acorn game to ever feature 8 directional, 256 colour, parallax scrolling whilst running at a consistent 50 frames per second. Warlocks technical achievements were used in advertising and promotional material, which can be found in both Acorn User magazine February 1994 and Archimedes World magazine January 1994. The advert reads 'FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER 256 colour PARALLAX scrolling running at 50 cyles per second'. Deadline Network 23's last game was Deadline, published in August 1995, a top down shoot-em-up that set the player the mission of rescuing hostages from 8 war torn battlegrounds.

References

External links

Network 23's old website
(mirrored)
Russell Hughes' Rap Sheet on Mobygames
RISC OS Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom