Introduction

This article was originally written for Retro Gamer magazine, when it was a Live Publishing title. Unfortunately, Live Publishing disappeared and so (for a while) did the magazine. It was resurrected the following year by Imagine Publishing, and an edited version of the article (only featuring ‘Bloodwych’) was eventually published.

Snippets of the Legend section originated from interviews I conducted with Tag and Pete James for the long since defunct Red Herring adventure fanzine, which was edited and published by Marion Taylor way back in the early to mid 1990s.

Here then for the first time anywhere is the full unedited version of the original article, covering all of the RPG games that Tag, Pete and Phil created.

Richard Hewison
January 2008

The Trazere Trinity

In the late 1980s to mid 1990s, three UK publishers released a number of popular role-playing computer games - “Bloodwych” and the “Bloodwych Data Disk” (Image Works, 1989-1991), “Legend” and “Worlds of Legend – Son of the Empire” (Mindscape International, 1992-1993) and “Hexx! Heresy of the Wizard” (Psygnosis, 1994).

Although not an official trilogy, there was a heritage that ran through each of the games. They were all designed and created by Anthony Taglione (better known in the gaming world as ‘Tag’), his younger brother Philip (who coded the 8-bit versions of Bloodwych) and their friend Pete James.

Tag originally became interested in computers back in 1982, when the rubber keyed Sinclair Spectrum was first launched. Like most other hobbyists at the time, he initially played games and fiddled with Sinclair BASIC, but gradually became interested in machine code programming and the wonders of the z80 processor.

His first commercial project followed the release of Incentive Software’s “Splat!” in 1984. Tag’s brother Philip had looked at the game in great detail, and concluded that the tape protection routines were very poor and easily circumvented. Philip proved this was the case and sent the results on a tape to Tag, who was living in Reading at the time.

Tag went as far as telling Incentive exactly what he thought of their routines, and owner Ian Andrew’s response was to challenge him to come up with something better. The brothers pooled their knowledge and then Tag came up with his own protection routine, christened “Power-Load 48”. This routine for the Spectrum quickly became a popular scheme with many of the pioneering games publishers including Incentive, Bug Byte and Argus Press Software.

Tag soon moved on to converting existing games to new formats. He wrote the Spectrum version of the astrology title “Zodiac Master” and embarked on a series of conversions for Beyond Software, including “Spy vs Spy” for the Spectrum and the eagerly anticipated Commodore 64 conversion of Mike Singelton’s epic “The Lords of Midnight”. Both games had “conversion by Tag & the Kid” emblazoned on the cover, as Tag collaborated with another programmer at Incentive (Malcolm Hellon) to write them. They had also worked together on creating the Commodore 64 version of Tag’s protection routines, renamed “Powerload 64”.

One conversion that Tag was less proud of was First Star’s “Superman” game for the Spectrum, mainly because the C64 original it was based upon was so disappointing. He also started work on the infamous Spectrum version of “Star Trek – The Rebel Universe” for Firebird, but it was eventually abandoned along with Timothy Walter’s Amstrad CPC conversion after continuing delays with the lead ST version. Philip Taglione originally planned to write the Amstrad version, but was already committed to another project.

Having grown tired of converting other people’s games, Tag then set up his own software company, and by early 1987 Starlight Software was a reality. Philip Taglione was Chairman, Tag was Secretary and Francis Lee (formerly of Beyond Software and then Telecomsoft) was Managing Director. Timothy Walter was the other Director.

Starlight published a handful of original titles, including “Greyfell: The Legend of Norman”, “Deathscape”, “Dogfight 2187” and the strategy game “Red L.E.D.”. Their last release, “Alloyrun” was published in early 1988. Ariolasoft distributed Starlight’s games, but they pulled out of the software business, owing Starlight money. Unable to survive without it, Starlight approached Mirrorsoft but eventually had to admit defeat. However, never one for resting on his laurels, Tag had already started work on a new game design - a two player 3D role-playing game set in a dungeon…

Bloodwych

The origins of Bloodwych can be traced back to Tag’s University days in Reading:

“I used to play D&D type games at University and remember one night trying to fall asleep wondering just how to put D&D onto a computer. My friend and colleague, Pete James, was suffering similar insomnia and, being an artist, was drawing screens for a first-person perspective game on his C64. He really fancied creating a two-player game and had the idea of a chess-like game based in a dungeon.”

It was around this time that FTL’s “Dungeon Master” was released. Mirrorsoft’s John Cook gave Tag, Philip and Pete a boxed copy of “Dungeon Master” and they played the ST original to death, completing the quest a number of times. They even finished the game with a party entirely made up of short people! On another occasion they took just two characters into the dungeon and still finished the game in less than twelve hours.

Inspired by the game, they suggested to Mirrorsoft (the European distributor for Dungeon Master) that they could write a Commodore 64 version for them. Whilst Mirrorsoft deliberated over the commercial viability of the project, Tag and Pete proceeded with their two-player RPG game design, which was initially called “The Crystal Maze”.

The idea of a C64 conversion of “Dungeon Master” came to nothing in the end, but it gave Tag and Pete a foot-in-the-door at Mirrorsoft. The basic C64 screens that Pete created were integrated into a C64 demo that was shown to Mirrorsoft boss Peter Bilotta and Producer John Cook. As a result of that demo, Mirrorsoft agreed to fund the development of ‘Crystal Maze’ on the proviso that the lead versions were 16-bit (Atari ST and Commodore Amiga).

Tag was forced to learn the intricacies of programming Bloodwych’s pseudo-3D system for 68000-based machines, whilst Pete upgraded his C64 graphics and designed the initial maps for each dungeon level. In total, the game had over forty different levels to explore, spread across the Treihadwyl cellar and the five different towers - Serpent, Moon, Chaos, Dragon and finally Zendik’s.

By the time the game was halfway through development, Richard O’Brien had stolen a march on them by announcing the ‘Crystal Maze’ programme for Channel 4 in the UK. Forced to seek an alternative name, they eventually came up with “Bloodwych”.

The plot behind Bloodwych was typical fantasy fare. Four crystals needed recovering from four towers, which then had to be taken to the fifth and final tower where they could be used to defeat the evil Zendik, Lord of Entropy. To thwart the player, the citizens of Trazere had been transformed into psychotic monsters and various other challenging puzzles obstructed the adventurers.

The puzzles in Bloodwych were generally designed around keys, pressure plates, gems, buttons and doors, with plenty of monsters and other puzzles to combat en route. Safe rooms to rest in (character’s gained experience levels and could buy extra spells whilst they slept) and shops to trade items were also liberally scattered throughout the dungeons. Lastly, regenerating rooms allowed dead adventurer’s bones to be brought back to life.

Other RPG elements included the Psyche types. Each type was represented by a playing card suit – Spades for Fighters, Clubs for Mages, Hearts for Adventurers and Diamonds for Assassins. Their magical allegiance was represented by a colour – Red for Fire, Green for Earth, Blue for Moon (Psychic power) and Yellow for Chaos.

Bloodwych also featured a plethora of special items to collect. In true RPG fashion, these items included various swords, axes, staffs, armour, gloves, wands, bows and arrows. Each character’s Armour Class (AC) could improve or worsen depending on the type of armour and shield worn; the lower the AC rating the better the protection. The player’s other ability stats included Strength (ST), Agility (AG), Intelligence (IN), Charisma (CH), Vitality (VI), Food levels and their crucial Hit Points (HP).

Common keys would open or lock a typical dungeon portcullis and gold coinage was used for buying and selling items at the shops. Various other special keys unlocked and opened specific doors. Once a key was used on a door, the key would disappear.

The spell system in Bloodwych was quite simple. Each adventurer started the game with a spell book and one suitable spell. As they defeated the monsters each character gained vital experience. Increasing their experience levels could only happen whilst resting, and gaining a Level also gave them the chance to buy one new spell to add to their spell book. Early spells included Armour (extra protection), Magelock (to lock or unlock common doors), Missile, Confuse (temporary disorientation of the enemy) and Deflect.

Two’s Company

Bloodwych allowed the player to choose their adventurers from a selection of sixteen pre-defined characters. This included human and non-human characters with wonderful names like Blodwyn Stonemaiden, Mr. Flay Sepulcrast and Thai Chang of Yinn. Alternatively, the player could choose a quick start game where the party was pre-chosen.

However, the main feature that made Bloodwych stand out from the crowd was the simultaneous two-player option. Using the same computer, two players could explore the same dungeon levels at the same time. The screen was split horizontally, allowing the players to have their own view of the dungeon at the top or bottom half of the screen. The similarity between this approach and the simultaneous two-player split-screen featured in “Spy vs Spy” was surely more than just a coincidence, considering Tag’s involvement in both games.

The main drawback with the two-player feature in Bloodwych was that it kept the 3D dungeon window small, to allow room for two displays. At a technical level, the small window helped to keep the two-player game running at an acceptable speed. Unlike similar games, Bloodwych showed four steps ahead instead of the usual three so speed needed to be kept at an acceptable level.

Talking

Apart from the innovative two-player option, Bloodwych also included a rudimentary communications system. The original idea was quite simple, and it grew as the game design developed. A number of basic options lead to other sub-options. Players could try talking to other characters in the dungeon. They could ask their name (an option suggested by Anthony’s wife) or their occupation, as well as request information on other items, characters or rumours. Fellow party members could also be commended, reprimanded, recruited or dismissed.

By making a character ‘wait’, the remaining adventurers could go elsewhere in the dungeon. They could then ‘view’ the dungeon through the eyes of the waiting character and then ‘call’ them back into the party later on. Although this feature could in theory be used to help solve some of the puzzles found in the game, players seldom used it as the ‘waiting’ character couldn’t be controlled independently and was merely a passive observer.

The Art of Bloodwych

Renowned fantasy artist Chris Achilleos was approached to create the box artwork, and was taken to lunch near the Mirrorsoft offices in London to discuss the project. His painting of a “crystal guardian” for Bloodwych was the first of many paintings produced for Mirrorsoft. Others included “beserker” (for “Battlemaster”) and “no prisoners” (for “Riders of Rohan”). Chris remembers how much he enjoyed producing the Bloodwych artwork for Mirrorsoft:

“It was wonderful to be given the freedom to paint whatever I wanted. The only brief I was given was that it had to be a monster guarding a crystal, in a tunnel-like environment. The rest was left up to me.”

Having finished the painting, the creature that Chris Achilleos created was then incorporated into the game itself as the Behemoth, located in the final level of Zendik’s tower.

Demos and Data Disks

A playable ST demo of Bloodwych was produced for the first ever issue of “ST Amiga Format magazine” in the summer of 1989. This was a couple of months ahead of the full game and helped to promote the impending launch.

Bloodwych divided RPG fans down the middle. Those who liked it were mainly attracted by the multiplayer element, which allowed two players to explore the same dungeon level on the same machine at the same time. Those who didn’t appreciate its finer points usually complained about the style of graphics, the simplistic animation and the small size of the dungeon ‘window’.

Within a few months of release, a collection of free public domain utilities had been written by fans of the game, allowing players to edit characters, maps, and inventories as well as view full solutions, copious playing tips and detailed maps of every dungeon level.

The game was generally well received by the computer press, and it sold well enough to merit a data disk release for the ST and Amiga. Originally scheduled for Christmas ’89, the “Bloodwych Data Disk” somehow missed its release slot and was eventually published a few months later than planned. More than just extra levels, the Data Disk also introduced fresh spells to the spell book and allowed players to recruit monsters into their party for the first time.

The only way to play the extended levels was to import a saved game from the original Bloodwych. The Data Disk also featured much tougher opponents than before, so the recommended experience level for the imported adventurers was level 14. If the imported characters’ experience fell below that level, the Data Disk would temporarily accelerate their progress. The package also included a free ‘hints & tips’ booklet for the original dungeons.

Conversions

The 8-bit conversions of the original Bloodwych game followed in 1990. Tag’s brother Philip wrote the Z80 versions (Sinclair Spectrum 48k and Amstrad CPC), squeezing everything he could get out of the meagre amounts of available memory. The Spectrum version (which ran in 48k) only had 7 bytes free by the end! Aside from having to squeeze into a minuscule amount of memory, this version also suffered from a monochromatic 3D dungeon, leading to objects on dungeon floors being quite difficult to spot.

Some game features and graphics had to be sacrificed on the 8-bit versions. For example, most of the communications system was exorcised - talking was only allowed when the player encountered a shopkeeper. Thanks to the lack of signs on the walls, the only way a player knew they were at a shop was because the shopkeeper didn’t attack them! The grandiose stone staircases from the 16-bit versions were changed to ladders, and the shelves and signs that adorned walls and pillars were quite literally shelved!

The save game code for the Amstrad tape version was actually based on the Spectrum ROM routines, and was much faster than the standard Amstrad code. Unfortunately, some Amstrad 464 tape decks failed to load the saved games, so Philip produced a number of alternative versions. The new versions featured tweaked code that reduced the baud rate (speed) and they were individually sent out to customers who contacted Image Works. Philip also wrote a separate map viewer program that ran on the Amstrad and displayed maps for each level of the game.

With the Z80 versions finished, Philip then wrote the Commodore 64 version with help from Tag. All three 8-bit versions featured the same reduced features and the same map data. However, despite the technical limitations, these versions managed to retain the simultaneous two-player option that made Bloodwych so unique. There simply wasn’t anything else like it on the Spectrum, Amstrad or Commodore 64, and the Amstrad CPC version was even awarded ‘Adventure Game of the Year 1990’ by the French Computer Press. Despite good reviews and accolades, sales figures were less than expected for the 8-bit versions.

Walking Circles wrote the IBM PC conversion of Bloodwych in 1991, based on Tag’s original 68000-source code. PC Bloodwych was in fact the only version to feature in-game music, written by erstwhile games musician David Whittaker. Konami released the PC version in the US, but chose a white box rather than the original black.

Unfortunately, a bug managed to creep into the initial PC release. If it was triggered early on in the game, the consequences didn’t manifest until later in a seemingly unrelated level. The map data became corrupt, disabling one particular puzzle known as “Welcome back!”. The puzzle involved a long corridor and an invisible spinner in the middle which turned the party of adventurers around by one hundred and eighty degrees without them realising. The secret was to turn around in the middle of the corridor and continue walking, except that the bug put a wall at the end of the corridor! A standalone patch that corrected the map was released into the public domain soon afterwards, but the collapse of Mirrorsoft in late December 1991 prevented a new fixed version from being officially released.

The ST and Amiga versions of Bloodwych were re-released in 1991 via Mirror Image, which was Mirrorsoft’s budget label.

The last lost Bloodwych

The last version of Bloodwych to be developed was for the short-lived Amstrad GX400 console. Philip took the existing Amstrad CPC game and created a cartridge version, minus the usual ‘save game’ functionality. In its place was a pass-code generator, which created a long code consisting of numbers and letters. The codes were presented at the end of each dungeon level. When entered into the game, the codes remembered the items and general stats that belonged to the adventurers and placed them at the start of the next dungeon level. This made the game harder as the player would have to continue until the end of the current dungeon level, and some levels were quite large!

Other changes were made for the GX400 console version. The full communication system from the 16-bit version was implemented as the extra code could be called from the cartridge as if it was RAM, An improved cursor was also included, along with a ‘dancing’ Bloodwych logo on the title screen and other minor technical improvements.

Unfortunately, all their work was to no avail, as Mirrorsoft took the decision not to publish, mostly due to poor sales of the GX400 hardware. The decision hardly mattered, as Mirrorsoft went into Administration soon afterwards. The GX400 cartridge version therefore remains the one ‘lost’ version of Bloodwych that the public has never seen. Despite rumours to the contrary, a Commodore cartridge version for the equally unsuccessful Commodore console called the C64GS was never discussed, let alone developed.

Legend

As the various versions of Bloodwych were being finished, Tag and Pete James turned their attention to a new game design called “Legend”. The game was another fantasy based RPG, but instead of the first person viewpoint used in Bloodwych, it employed an isometric display. Back then, only a handful of RPG games had used that perspective, with “The Immortal” from Electronic Arts being the only one of any real significance.

The genesis of Legend was remarkably painless from Tag’s point of view:

"After much time and a lot of wondering what to do next, Pete and I were playing Dungeon Quest one night. It's a great game that can spread over an entire floor until you finally feel you've had enough. Pete had some lead figures he'd painted and looking at them I re-discovered the great view you get when you get down on the floor amongst the figures. Suddenly, like the proverbial bolt from the blue, we had 'Legend'.

“I don't think the game really changed all that much from those first enthusiastic ramblings and notes we made that night. We re-designed the non-dungeon parts a couple of times and the magic system was designed much later but where can you go wrong with such a tried and tested environment as looking down over your party of fearsome adventurers while they dash around smiting anything they see?”

“We toyed with the idea of moving in phases of player then monsters and even of making it a game of 'pass the mouse' with each player controlling their own character. We soon saw, however, that keeping the game real-time just had to be the most fun to play even if a lot harder to write.”

“Legend” allowed the player to take another party of four characters into a series of dungeons. Unlike the sprawling dungeon areas found in Bloodwych, “Legend” was typically played out in dungeon rooms. Each character could be issued separate instructions within each room, including commands to explore, read signs, push buttons, open or shut chests or doors, fight monsters, cast spells and so on.

Unlike the pre-defined characters found in Bloodwych, Legend allowed players to customise the name, the gender and the basic ability scores of each of the four party members. However, the player was forced to take one of each character class – Berserker, Troubadour, Assassin and Runemaster – into the dungeon.

Items could be traded in an Apothecary, a Holy Temple, an Artificer or at a Blacksmith, but each was located outside of the dungeon environment. Plenty of items could also be claimed as spoils of war, as monsters would often leave objects behind when they died.

The party could also escape from the dungeon environment once in a while and travel across the Trazere landscape, doing battle (switching back to the isometric environment) with wandering enemy armies of varying strengths, before entering the next dungeon.

Legendary Magic

The most innovative part of “Legend” was the spell casting. Whilst Bloodwych followed a more traditional ‘experience leads to better spells in your spell book’ system, Legend had an open-ended magic system that allowed players to create their own spells by mixing ingredients and runes together. The availability of spells wasn’t tied to a character’s experience level at all. If the Runemaster owned a mixing bowl, then he could buy runes and collect or buy the required ingredients to mix whatever spells he desired.

Legend offered sixteen different runes, which could only be bought from a character called ‘The Ancient’. There were two rune types available – Director and Effecter. A Director rune affected the direction that the spell travelled in when cast, whilst the Effecter dictated the effect of the spell once it hit a target.

Each rune had to be paired with an ingredient for it to work, and there were eight different types of ingredient to choose from. Sometimes a vanquished monster would leave ingredients behind, and other times the player had to buy them from an Apothecary.

By giving the player complete freedom, an amazing array of different spells could be concocted. As Tag once said: “There are 10 to the power of 24 different spells in Legend, but only a couple of million are of any use”.

Players could pre-prepare a list of unique spells and select them from a spell scroll whenever they needed them (ingredients permitting). Simple spells included ‘Missile Heal’ or ‘Missile Damage’. When cast, they would fly towards their target and would either heal or damage the target once they hit home. However, a more complex spell might be ‘Heal Antimage Surround Paralyse Continuous Damage Missile Damage’. That spell would heal the caster, give them temporary immunity from other magic, then cast a number of continuous spell effects on the eight dungeon tiles that immediately surrounded them, including ‘Paralyse’, followed by ‘Damage’. The spell would finally fire a damaging missile from each of the eight surrounding tiles in all eight directions! Powerful magic indeed!

The functions that surrounded the isometric dungeon included a ‘rallying cry’ and a map-drawing dragon called Elliot. Elliot was named after the dragon in the Walt Disney movie “Pete’s Dragon” and was a direct reference to co-designer and graphic artist, Pete James. Drawing an automatic map was a game feature sorely lacking in Bloodwych, so Legend redressed the balance and saved a lot of time, pencils and graph paper in the process!

Each character’s health was depicted by a stack of skulls in the bottom left corner of the screen, and the current character’s inventory pouch could also be accessed nearby. Equipped items for the current character (one for each hand) would also be shown, along with a curious ‘chicken’ that would force the characters in the room to flee to the nearest exit!

Various messages appeared at the bottom of the screen, to confirm commands and other character actions, along with some standard command buttons (Push, Take, Look, Open, Shut) and the character classes’ special ability – Berserker Rage, Bardish Melody, Hide In Shadow, or Cast Spell.

The challenges that faced the player in Legend were designed around logic and were room-based. Many rooms had items or exits that couldn’t be reached until a series of traps or logic puzzles were solved first. These rooms usually gave the player a respite from fighting, but also required some lateral thinking along with generous amounts of spell casting!

An early example of a puzzle room was found on the second level of Treihadwyl. The player’s path to the South exit door was cut off by water, and a series of rune floor tiles gave the player a few hints as to which spells should be cast (and where). Casting simple damage spells (of varying strengths) at the runes on the floor would give the player access to a lever on a previously inaccessible pillar. When pulled, the lever rotated a ‘shooting pillar’ to the south. Casting a few more choice spells rotated a second shooting pillar. Eventually, the water tiles on the floor were turned to stone, allowing the party across the room and out through the South exit.

The Saga Continued

Although it was never explicitly stated, Legend was in fact a prequel to Bloodwych. Fans of Bloodwych would have recognised Trazere and the well-fortified town of Treihadwyl, located in the very heart of the land. Part of the game’s major sub-plot involved locating four power crystals and placing one in each of the four keeps. As each crystal was deposited, all travelling enemy armies were wiped out and any towns or keeps occupied by enemy forces were liberated. Once all four crystals were in place, the land of Trazere was finally free; well, until Bloodwych anyway!

Legend started off life as another Image Works project. A graphical introduction was commissioned separately, with the job being awarded to Paul Walker at Arc Developments. The introduction showed four adventurers meeting in a local tavern whilst the locals transformed into monsters. David Whittaker was once again employed to write the in-game music for the ST, Amiga and PC versions. An early Commodore 64 demo of the isometric interior did exist, but the small amount of memory available eventually scuppered its development.

Mirrorsoft’s demise a few months into development saw Legend move to a new publisher in early 1992. Mindscape International signed and released the game in the summer for the ST, Amiga and PC. Unfortunately, neither Arc Development’s introduction nor David Whittaker’s music survived the transition to the new publisher. Instead, Mindscape commissioned Richard Joseph to create the music and Pete James created a more modest introductory sequence that helped to set the scene.

In addition to the game itself, Mindscape also published a hint book (“Legend Adventurer’s Handbook”), which contained comprehensive maps along with a complete walkthrough and general playing tips to help players complete the quest. In the US, Mindscape published Legend under the title “The Four Crystals of Trazere” – a title that would have described Bloodwych equally well.

Tag and Pete created an Amiga demo version of Legend (featuring a special version of the first level of Treihadwyl) for the UK games magazine Amiga Power. However, a few days after delivering the demo to Mindscape, they were asked to tone down the new puzzles they had created because the in-house testers found them too hard! A revised version 2 was quickly produced and the demo was included on Amiga Power’s cover disk for issue 14, published in May 1992.

Captive

As a stopgap between games, Tag briefly returned to conversion work in late 1992, coding the PC version of the award winning and very popular Tony Crowther RPG, “Captive” for Mindscape International.

Further Legendary Adventures

Legend received very good reviews (typically in the high eighty or low ninety percent range) and sold enough copies to justify a sequel. Although originally planned as a data disk, “Worlds of Legend – Son of the Empire” was released as a stand-alone game, set in the land to the east of Trazere, called “The Empire of the Moon”. Experienced Legend players could import their party from Legend into the new game, retaining all their items and spells as well as having their existing abilities doubled! Thankfully, new players could start from scratch and create new characters to explore the dungeons.

The game system employed in “Son of the Empire” was almost identical to the original game, so it was basically ‘more of the same’. Although it was set in a different land, the casual observer couldn’t tell the difference between the two games.

Tag and Pete approached Mindscape with the idea of another sequel to Legend, called “Runemaster’s Revenge”. An early 256-colour PC demo was produced using the same isometric approach, but issues in the US distracted Mindscape UK and the idea came to nothing. In the end, only the one extra “World” was ever developed.

By 1993, the gaming world was moving on. Despite the better gameplay and the innovative spell system, technically impressive RPGs like Origin’s “Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss” were stealing the thunder away from games like “Legend”. It was therefore time for Tag and Pete to change tact once again, so they began working on a new real 3D game engine for the PC…

Psygnosis

Mike Simpson (author of the PSS Spectrum game “Swords & Sorcery”) was the original Mirrorsoft producer for the ST and Amiga versions of Bloodwych, and four years later he was working for Psygnosis in their new satellite London office near Kings Cross. Mike employed Tag and Pete to create a few new games for the rapidly expanding PC market.

The first game they started working on was a new 3D RPG. However, not long into development, Psygnosis diverted them to write a film-licensed title based on the Francis Ford Coppola movie, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. Although the 3D system that Tag wrote was fast and technically compared well against Ultima Underworld, the simplistic gameplay compared unfavourably to the more action-oriented titles like ID’s “Doom”, which was taking the gaming world by storm. “Dracula” also bore little resemblance to the movie it was based upon and was quickly discarded by magazines and players alike as a typically disappointing film license. Perhaps it wasn’t that surprising when you consider that Tag and Pete were only given three weeks to create it!

Hexx! Heresy of the Wizard

“Hexx! Heresy of the Wizard” used a slightly improved version of the 3D engine that Tag had used in the “Dracula” game. The deadline for getting the game written was tight, so rather than create a brand new game, they took the decision (for better or for worse) to base the game on the original Bloodwych design. They recycled the basic plot to rescue and use four crystals against an evil entity, they re-used a number of the predefined Bloodwych characters, including Astroth Slaemwort, Elfric Falaendor, Sethra Boaghail, Zastaph Mantric and Zothen Runecaster, and they even had the same number of dungeon levels (which totalled 42)!

Other familiar Bloodwych traits included gaining experience levels and spells whilst asleep, buying items from shops, and so on. The dungeon graphics were even similar in style to those in the original game, as were most of the items, the spell books and the spells and most of the puzzles. In fact, the only puzzles that weren’t carried over were those that had relied on the restricted ‘single-step’ movement system used in Bloodwych. To any players intimate with Bloodwych, Hexx! would have felt very familiar indeed…

However, Hexx! differed in a number of ways from Bloodwych. Unlike Bloodwych, Hexx! had an auto-map function, which obviously helped the player to explore without getting lost. The game also offered multiple save game slots and the ability to save to RAM. For slower PCs, there were three detail settings so you could reduce the amount that the game had to display by turning various elements off, like floor or ceiling graphics. The game was also running in proper 3D this time round, giving a full 360-degree view of the dungeons.

Unfortunately, Hexx! also had a few problems. Once the player had chosen their characters and entered the first dungeon (The Keep), they couldn’t change the party order. The game also lacked the two-player option that made Bloodwych so unique, although it was understandable from a technical point-of-view; having just one dungeon window allowed Hexx! to show a much larger 3D view than Bloodwych was ever able to.

Hexx! was originally developed under the title “Wizard!”, but the change in name came quite late in the day, after US publisher Sir-Tech complained that “Wizard!” was too similar to their own “Wizardry” series. However, a more apt title for the game might have been “Bloodwych Revisited” considering its obvious heritage.

Psygnosis games were always known for their distinctive choice of box artwork, and Hexx! was no exception. They hired famous comic-book artist Carl Critchlow to produce the artwork. Carl has painted for many famous comic books, including Batman and Judge Dredd, and he also just happened to live close to Psygnosis in Liverpool.
 
Unlike its predecessors, Hexx! didn’t produce any sequels or data disks to continue the adventure. It was a playable enough game, but it lacked the visual appeal and the gameplay that other RPGs on the PC were offering at the time. Psygnosis published a hint book soon afterwards, but Hexx! failed to make much of a dent in the PC market and it quickly disappeared.

Tag and Pete then began work on another licensed game based on the Kenneth Brannagh movie “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”. However, this title was eventually abandoned, despite a much improved game design.

Reforge Thy Bones

Tag has continued to program games since Hexx!, and was most recently involved in writing the 3D Engine that is exclusively used in the successful “Total War” PC strategy titles, “Shogun” and “Medieval”, developed by Creative Assembly and published by Activision. His brother Philip and Pete James also still ply their trade in the games industry to this day.

Tag and Pete also began working on a Gameboy Advance version of Legend that featured amended graphics and plenty of other tweaks and improvements to make it more suitable for a handheld console. Unfortunately they were unable to find a publisher willing to fund the continued development of this new version, and the industry soon moved on to the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.
 
Thanks must go to Anthony and Philip Taglione, Peter Owen-James, Alison Beasley and Chris Achilleos (www.chrisachilleos.co.uk) for their insight and recollections.