CHAMPION CODER
BERND BUCHEGGER (AKA PANTHER)
The Cosmos Designs coder explains why his game, Outrage, took so long to appear
From: Austria Website: outragegame.com, cosmos-c64.com Format: C64 Recently coded: Lions of the Universe (C64) Developing: Outrage (C64)
Bernd with the Protovision (cartridge) and Psytronik (disk) versions of the finished Outrag
When did development start?
Arnold Blüml and Hannes Sommer invited me to found Cosmos Designs. At that time Hawkeye set the benchmark in the run-and-gun genre. I devised my own game mechanics that I had not seen before and started coding, graphics, animation and level design for Outrage in 1990. At that time, I attended a boarding school which meant that I could only work during weekends.
Was it going to be published back then?
Boeder announced a talent competition in 64er magazine in 1993, promising to award the top three with full publication. The winners were published – and Outrage was in the top three! I had to wait several months again before Boeder informed me they had cancelled all C64 activities due to the market decline. I tried to sell Outrage to CP Verlag but got rejected again. I packed the whole project into a drawer.