Shadow of the Beast is a platform game developed by Reflections and published by Psygnosis in 1989. The original version was released for the Amiga, and was later ported to many other systems.

Shadow of the Beast was known for its graphics, with numerous colours on screen and up to twelve levels of parallax scrolling backdrops, and for its atmospheric score composed by David Whittaker that used high-quality instrument samples.

​Shadow of the Beast was followed by two sequels, Shadow of the Beast II in 1990 and Shadow of the Beast III in 1993, with music penned by Tim Wright under the alias of CoLD SToRAGE. A remake was released for the PlayStation 4 in May 2016, and also included the Amiga original.

The cover design of the game is by Roger Dean. He designed a lot of the artwork used on psygnosis games and we have other games design by him that you can see by clicking here 

Last week we got this game called Turrican on the ZX Spectrum, and I ended up spending the weekend both playing it and reading up on it, and what I discovered sparked enough interest for me to throw in a little video about it.

​Turrican was first released on the Commodore 64 in 1990. It was developed by a German programmer named Manfred Trenz. The guy was a household name in the commodore scene in the 1980s and he is most famous for his first computer game called the Great Giana Sisters. That game was so so similar to a certain Italian plumber that Nintendo sued him concerning the game.

​In Turrican you play a futuristic soldier sent to a colony that’s been invaded by an evil alien overlord. Armed with big guns and cool gadgets, you blast your way through five large levels to battle the evil MORGUL. Where Turrican stands apart from many other games is its freedom of exploration. Taking your time and looking around is loads of fun and well worth the effort.

Turrican is heavily inspired by big games on the NES like Contra and especially Metroid, but Turrican also influenced other games that would be released in the future. One game flat out stole and used graphics straight from Turrican, The game? Duke Nukem from apogee. 

Shortly after its release Turrican saw conversions to many other computers, including an Amiga version that featured highly improved graphics and a stunning soundtrack by Chris Huelsbeck. The soundtrack elevated Turrican to the legendary status it enjoys today, but the basic fact is that Turrican is a damn fine action game.  

The Spectrum version, which we have here at the museum, was voted number 36 in the Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time-list. 

​Turrican had 2 sequels made: Turrican 2 was released the year after and was also both coded by Trenz and originally intended for the C-64, however the Amiga version was completed first. Turrican 3 came the year after that but was developed by the programmers that originally converted Turrican to the Amiga.

Turrican still lives on today and in there are many fan made versions of the game available. Most notable is the game Hurrican which was released in 2008.

Trinity is an interactive fiction computer game written by Brian Moriarty and published in 1986 by Infocom. It is widely regarded as one of the company's best works. Trinity was included as one of the titles in the 2010 book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.

​The plot blends historical and fantastic elements as part of a prose poem regarding the destructive power of the atomic bomb and the futile nature of war in the atomic age. The name refers to the Trinity test, the first nuclear explosion, which took place in July 1945. It is Infocom's twentieth game and the last game released by the company when it was solvent.

​As the game begins, the player's character is spending a final day of a London vacation in the Kensington Gardens. The evening flight back to the United States is looking increasingly unlikely for a number of unusual reasons. Hordes of nannies are blocking all exits from the Gardens, and the grass actively resists efforts to be walked upon. Worst of all, a gleam on the horizon soon heralds the unwelcome arrival of a Soviet nuclear missile. Time begins to slow as the missile approaches, and with some ingenuity the player's character finds an incongruous door hovering in mid-air. There's no telling where it may lead, but it cannot possibly be worse than the alternative of being at ground zero of a nuclear detonation...

​Brian Moriarty created Trinity's story in 1983. After joining Infocom in 1984 he proposed it to the company, but management believed that it was too large for the z-machine at the time. After completing Wishbringer Moriarty began working on Trinity in May 1985, researching the history of nuclear weapons and visiting the Trinity site and Los Alamos, New Mexico. He attempted to make the game accurately depict the geography of New Mexico and Kensington Gardens. Moriarty completed the game in June 1986, and later stated that "... writing it wasn't a pleasant experience, I can tell you that. It's not easy to sit down and write that stuff ... It was hard to live with that game for a year". He added, however, that "Trinity is not a funeral, and [don't] be afraid of it. It's kind of a dark game, but it's also, I like to think, kind of a fun game, too. But I do want people to think about what they see."

Here is a small video of the unboxing of the game, it is in Icelandic Language thou :)

And screenshots of the amazing text adventure gameplay.