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Thalamus Ltd

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Thalamus managed to survive the liquidation of Newsfield, but funds were running low. With 8-bit gaming being superseded by 16-bit gaming, production costs were rising, forcing hundreds of independent publishers, such as Thalamus, to either close down or allow themselves to be consumed by a
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Thalamus capitalised on the success of the Commodore 64 gaming scene by releasing their first batch of titles on this platform. Having established numerous contacts within the C64 development scene through the popularity of their
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Stavros Fasoulas returned to Finland for National Service, so for their next release Thalamus turned to upcoming C64 programmer Martin Walker. Having already programmed the well-received C64 titles
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from the Rowlands brothers, which have been lauded by several computer magazines for the strength of their gameplay and graphics on the aging machine. Cartoon-style platformers
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were also released. In 1991, Newsfield ran into serious financial trouble. Newsfield were forced to halt publication of their popular gaming magazines.
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in 1993. With their various Amiga projects spiraling out of budget and no further income, Thalamus had no choice but to close down their operations.
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being released, but by this time the Spectrum market was in decline and Thalamus decided to halt development of a number of Spectrum projects.
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development manager Paul Cooper was brought on board to head up the company and moved the offices from London to Aldermaston in Berkshire.
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marked the commercial debut of The Boys Without Brains, a Dutch collective who had already made a name for themselves within the C64
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loading system. Provided as standard on the cassette versions of each game (and as a bonus on the floppy disk versions), the
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stepped in to save the magazines, but they slowly died out over the next year or two as their respective markets dwindled.
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system allowed players to remix the loading music of the game, in real time, as the main program loaded in the background.
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As the 1980s drew to a close, Thalamus continued to release C64 games, including the surreal puzzle/shooter
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In the second half of 1988, Thalamus returned from a period of relative silence with two new titles.
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PR Manager Andrew Wright was assigned the position of Company Director and Newsfield staff writer
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was created by Gary Liddon in conjunction with Rob Hubbard and derived from an idea by
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provided the music for the first two titles, while Matt Gray provided the music for
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Fisher, Andrew (December 2013). "The Commodore 64 Games that Time Forgot".
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later included a full synthesised version on one of their cover cassettes.
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as an in-house software publishing label of British magazine publisher
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was appointed Technical Executive. The company was initially based in
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Thalamus entered the 1990s with a few more C64 titles, including
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programmer Stavros Fasoulas to develop their first three titles,
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Interview with former Thalamus programmer Richard Underhill
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publishing giant. Thalamus released their final C64 game,
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Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. 905:Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom 136:platforms during the late 1980s and early 1990s. 896: 378: 201:gaming magazine, Thalamus were able to sign up 849:"Arsenal FC (C64) - 1992 Thalamus - GTW64" 239:proved to be so popular amongst fans that 915:1986 establishments in the United Kingdom 109:Learn how and when to remove this message 910:Video game companies established in 1986 863:"Restrictor (Amiga/ST) - 1992 Thalamus" 897: 826: 814:"Bamboo (C64) - 1989 Thalamus - GTW64" 772:"A celebration of C64 loading screens" 758:"A celebration of C64 loading screens" 425: 652: 340:was a shoot-'em-up in the spirit of 285: 47:adding citations to reliable sources 18: 13: 14: 926: 880:Thalamus history article at C64HQ 873: 361:, from the Rowlands brothers and 420: 23: 890:Gordon Houghton's Zzap!64 pages 309:Rupert and the Toymaker's Party 250:popularised the concept of the 191: 34:needs additional citations for 855: 841: 820: 806: 792: 778: 764: 750: 1: 743: 671:Q8 Team Ford Rally Simulation 607:Creatures II: Torture Trouble 538:Q8 Team Ford Rally Simulation 478:Armalyte: Competition Edition 392:Creatures II: Torture Trouble 679:(1990, Spectrum, C64, Amiga) 379:Final titles and dissolution 7: 502:Sanxion: The Spectrum Remix 172:, during the mid-1980s. Ex- 10: 931: 739:(1993, Amiga and Atari ST) 357:, the horizontal scroller 290:During the development of 158:Newsfield Publications Ltd 144: 139: 588:Armalyte: The Final Run 266:, author of well known 16:Computer games company 677:The Search for Sharla 507:Spectrum/Spectrum 128 43:improve this article 540:(1990, Amstrad CPC) 426:Commercial releases 246:The C64 version of 835:Imagine Publishing 725:Nobby the Aardvark 627:Nobby the Aardvark 414:Nobby the Aardvark 317:Back to the Future 802:. 30 August 2017. 774:. 12 August 2009. 760:. 12 August 2009. 653:Unreleased titles 616:(1992, C64/Amiga) 286:The staff changes 119: 118: 111: 93: 922: 867: 866: 859: 853: 852: 845: 839: 838: 833:. 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"Thalamus Ltd"
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Learn how and when to remove this message
8-bit
16-bit
1986
Newsfield Publications Ltd
Crash
Zzap!64
Activision
Gary Liddon
Canonbury
Finnish
Sanxion
Delta
Quedex
Commodore User
Rob Hubbard
Nick Pelling
BBC Micro
Frak!
Firetrack

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