Simulmondo

Last updated
Simulmondo S.r.l.
Industry Video games
Founded1988 [1]
Founder Francesco Carlà
Headquarters Bologna, Italy
Key people
Francesco Carlà (Founder and CEO), Ivan Venturi (Programmer), Riccardo Cangini (Graphic and Designer)
Number of employees
20
Website www.simul.it

Simulmondo was an Italian software house from Bologna. Specialized video game developer and publisher, it has produced about 150 videogames for Commodore 64, Amiga, PC and Atari ST. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Originally founded in 1988 by Francesco Carlà and Riccardo Arioti, [1] via an agreement with publisher Ital Video, [5] Simulmondo was among the most important game developers in Italy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, developing mostly titles for home computers. [6]

Simulmondo released games manly for the Amiga, MS-DOS and the Commodore 64 platform. The latest Simulmondo's game, middle 90s, had been released for Windows 95 platform. For the distribution of the games, Simulmondo used an innovative strategy for the time: Simulmondo branched out into an early form of episodic gaming, by publishing short adventures that could be completed in one or two hours and distributed them on newsstands at a price much lower than that of the complete games sold in a normal shop. [7] In this way Simulmondo could reduce development costs and maximize profits. Games where usually distributed as tapes or floppys.

Simulmondo's most famous games where licensed videogames based on comic books like Dylan Dog, Spider-man and Tex Willer.

By 1993 the company had lost many of its original programmers and artists, like Ivan Venturi, and, by the following year, Simulmondo had all but disappeared from the mainstream video games market. [8] In its final years, the software house developed games for television programs, like interactive games for the kids program Solletico and a football engine for Processo di Biscardi .

List of games

#TitleRelease yearPlatform(s)
1Bocce1987Amiga, Commodore 64
2Italy '90 Soccer1988Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
3Simulgolf1988Commodore 64, MS-DOS
4F.1 Manager1989Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64
5The Basket Manager1990Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
61000 Miglia1991Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
73D Scacchi Simulator1991Commodore 64
8500cc Motomanager1991Amiga, Commodore 64
9Basket Playoff1991Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
10Big Game Fishing1991Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
11Formula 1 3D1991Amiga, Commodore 64
12Formula 1 3D: F.1 Manager II1991Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64
13G.P. Tennis Manager1991Amiga, Commodore 64
14I Play 3D Soccer1991Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64
15I Play Football Champ1991Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64
161st Chess Tutor1992MS-DOS
173D World Boxing1992Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
183D World Soccer1992Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
193D World Tennis1992Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
20Dylan Dog: Gli Uccisori1992Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
21Extasy1992Amiga, MS-DOS
22I Play 3D Tennis1992Commodore 64
23Italian Night 19991992Amiga
24Diabolik1993Amiga, MS-DOS
25Dylan Dog1993-1994Amiga, MS-DOS
26Dylan Dog: Attraverso lo specchio1993Amiga, MS-DOS
27Simulman1993-1994Amiga, MS-DOS
28Tex1993Amiga, MS-DOS
29Tex: Piombo Caldo1993Amiga, MS-DOS
30Time Runners1993-1995Amiga, MS-DOS
31L'Uomo Ragno1994Amiga, MS-DOS
32Mosè: il profeta della libertà1996PC
33Viaggio nel corpo umano1996PC
34We are Angels1997PC
35SoccerChamp1998PC

Note: We are Angels was developed by Simulmondo but released by ARI GAMES, it's a game based from the TV series Noi siamo Angeli.

Cancelled titles

#TitleRelease yearPlatform(s)
1Martin Mystère and the secret of the BirdmanCancelledPC

Related Research Articles

<i>Ghouls n Ghosts</i> 1988 video game

Ghouls 'n Ghosts, known as Dai Makaimura in Japan, is a side-scrolling platform game developed by Capcom, released as an arcade video game in 1988 and ported to home platforms. It is the sequel to Ghosts 'n Goblins and the second game in the Ghosts 'n Goblins series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commodore CDTV</span> Multimedia entertainment and video game console

The CDTV is a home multimedia entertainment and video game console – convertible into a full-fledged personal computer by the addition of optional peripherals – developed by Commodore International and launched in April 1991.

<i>Qix</i> 1981 video game

Qix is a 1981 puzzle video game developed by husband and wife team Randy and Sandy Pfeiffer and published in arcades by Taito America. Qix is one of a handful of games made by Taito's American division. At the start of each level, the playing field is a large, empty rectangle, containing the Qix, an abstract stick-like entity that performs graceful but unpredictable motions within the confines of the rectangle. The objective is to draw lines that close off parts of the rectangle to fill in a set amount of the playfield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beam Software</span> Former Australian video game developer

Krome Studios Melbourne, originally Beam Software, was an Australian video game development studio founded in 1980 by Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen and based in Melbourne, Australia. Initially formed to produce books and software to be published by Melbourne House, a company they had established in London in 1977, the studio operated independently from 1987 until 1999, when it was acquired by Infogrames, who changed the name to Infogrames Melbourne House Pty Ltd.. In 2006 the studio was sold to Krome Studios.

<i>Solomons Key</i> 1986 video game

Solomon's Key is a puzzle game developed by Tecmo in 1986 for an arcade release on custom hardware based on the Z80 chipset. It was ported to multiple systems including the Nintendo Entertainment System and Commodore 64. The PC Engine version was known as Zipang and the Game Boy version as Solomon's Club. A prequel, Solomon's Key 2, was released in 1992 for the NES. The game was also ported to Virtual Console for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U in 2006 and later to Nintendo Switch Online in 2018.

Artworx was a Naples, Florida software company that produced and supported a line of computer games from 1981 to 2015. It is named after the founder's given name. At first the company published a variety of games, including titles in adventure and arcade-action genres, but were later best known for a strip poker series.

<i>Striker</i> (video game) 1992 video game

Striker is a soccer video game series first released by Rage Software in 1992.

Appaloosa Interactive was a corporation, founded in 1982 in Hungary, that produced video games, computer programs and television commercials during the 1980s and 1990s.

<i>Gateway to the Savage Frontier</i> 1991 video game

Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991) is a Gold BoxDungeons & Dragons computer game developed by Beyond Software and published by SSI for the Commodore 64, PC and Amiga personal computers.

MicroIllusions was a computer game developer and publisher of the home computer era. Based in Granada Hills, California, the company was a strong supporter of the Amiga and typically released titles on that platform before porting it to others.

<i>Toki</i> (video game) 1989 video game

Toki is a run and gun platform game released in arcades in Japan in 1989 by TAD Corporation. It was published in North America by Fabtek. Designed by Akira Sakuma, the game has tongue-in-cheek humor mixed with the action. The player controls an enchanted ape who must battle hordes of jungle monsters with energy balls from his mouth. The ultimate goal is to destroy the evil wizard who cast a spell on the title protagonist; thereby transforming him from an ape back into a human, and rescuing the kidnapped princess. The game was ported to several video game consoles and home computers.

<i>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</i> (1985 video game) 1985 video game

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is an action video game developed and published by Atari Games and released in arcades in 1985. It is based on the 1984 film of the same name, the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise. It is the first Atari System 1 arcade game to include digitized speech, including voice clips of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Amrish Puri as Mola Ram, as well as John Williams's music from the film.

Trecision S.p.A. was an Italian video game developer founded in 1991 by Pietro Montelatici, Fabrizio Lagorio and Edoardo Gervino. The company's headquarters was in Rapallo.

Tiertex Design Studios Limited was a British software development company and former video game developer based in Macclesfield, England; it was founded in 1986, focusing on porting games to home computers and handheld platforms.

<i>Mickey Mouse: The Computer Game</i> 1988 video game

Mickey Mouse: The Computer Game, also known as just Mickey Mouse, is an action game developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1988 for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum.

<i>TV Sports: Football</i> 1988 video game

TV Sports: Football is a 1988 video game by Cinemaware for Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, and TurboGrafx-16.

<i>Fright Night</i> (video game) 1989 video game

Fright Night is a video game published by British software company, Microdeal, for the Amiga. It is based on the American horror comedy movie Fright Night.

References

  1. 1 2 "Simulmondo: Company profile". Internet Archive. 1992. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  2. Audureau, William (2017-06-03). "Pourquoi l'Italie n'est jamais devenue championne des jeux vidéo de football". Le Monde.fr (in French). ISSN   1950-6244 . Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  3. "I videogiochi dell'incubo". Multiplayer.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  4. "In sviluppo Pride Run, primo titolo dedicato al movimento LGBT • GamesVillage.it". GamesVillage.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  5. Gerli, Damiano (2021-02-27). "Once we were giants: the history of Simulmondo - Italy's first software house - Part I". The Genesis Temple. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  6. "Simulmondo - MobyGames". MobyGames. Retrieved 2017-07-31.
  7. infogiochi (2023-02-19). "The history of Simulmondo". Neperos. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  8. Gerli, Damiano (2021-03-06). "Once we were giants: the history of Simulmondo - Italy's first software house - Part II". The Genesis Temple. Retrieved 2022-02-28.