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Who Done What: Tiertex Ltd
Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:56 am
Last edited by anagrama on Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:09 pm; edited 8 times in total
I'll keep this first post updated with the most up-to-date info:

Games known to be developed by Tiertex
Master System
Ace of Aces
FIFA International Soccer
Flintstones
Heroes of the Lance
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
James Pond II: Codename Robocod
Mercs
Paperboy
Star Wars
Strider
Strider II
Super Kick Off
Winter Olympics
World Class Leaderboard
World Cup USA '94

GameGear
FIFA International Soccer
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
James Pond II: Codename Robocod
Madden '95
Madden '96
Paperboy
Shaq-Fu
Star Wars
Strider Returns
Super Kick Off
Winter Olympics
World Class Leaderboard
World Cup USA '94

Mega Drive/Genesis
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
International Rugby
Madden NFL '98
NBA Live '98
Olympic Gold
Strider II (Gen: Strider Returns)
Super Kick-Off
Winter Olympics
World Class Leaderboard
World Cup USA '94

Mega CD
World Cup USA '94

Games with music by Tiertex
Gauntlet (SMS)
Impossible Mission (SMS)

Games possibly developed by Tiertex
Desert Strike (GG)
Klax (MD)
Ms. Pacman (MD)
Olympic Gold (SMS)
Olympic Gold (GG)
Super Space Invaders (GG)
Turbo Outrun (MD)

US Gold games NOT by Tiertex
Championship Hockey (Imagitec Design)
Incredible Hulk (Probe)
Outrun Europa (Probe)
Road Rash (Gary Priest)
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Re: Who Made What: Tiertex Design Studios
Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:52 am
anagrama wrote
OK, not a patch on CRV's brand of excellent detective work, but I thought I'd list all the Sega-related titles shown in the archive on Tiertex's website.
I stumbled across it a while back, and thought I'd bring it to wider attention (assuming it's not common knowledge already?)

Games known or suspected of being developed by Tiertex
Master System
Ace of Aces
Gauntlet
Impossible Mission
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade (SMS version not pictured)
Mercs
Paperboy
Star Wars (not pictured, but I've got this listed seperately as a Tiertex game)
Strider
Super Space Invaders


Very good work.

Add Strider II, The Flintstones, and Heroes of the Lance. And yes, Star Wars is by Tiertex. All four games mentioned Tiertex. I just checked them.

I figured Strider and Mercs were European-made. Strider and Strider II look quite similar.

I thought Super Space Invaders and Desert Strike were by The Kremlin, which I had read was a division of Domark.

anagrama wrote
GameGear
Desert Strike
FIFA International Soccer
James Pond II: Codename Robocod
Madden '95
Madden '96
Paperboy
Shaq-Fu (not pictured)
World Class Leaderboard (not pictured)

Mega Drive/Genesis
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
International Rugby
Olympic Gold
Super Kick-Off
Turbo OutRun
Winter Olympics
World Class Leaderboard
World Cup USA '94

It's probably not unreasonable to suspect that Tiertex handled the ports of the above listed games for each of the other formats too (unless anyone knows otherwise?).
Any code-monkeys fancy digging into the ROMs to confirm/disprove any of it? ;)


Do you mind if I share this info with Video Game Rebirth (www.vgrebirth.org)? Actually, you could probably submit yourself. In fact, you should.
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Re: Who Made What: Tiertex Design Studios
Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:40 am
CRV wrote

Do you mind if I share this info with Video Game Rebirth (www.vgrebirth.org)? Actually, you could probably submit yourself. In fact, you should.


Yes, of course. I'll try and add them in shortly...

Thanks for the additions, I'll edit the original list this evening.

If I get the time I'll try having a look at the credits where possible aswell.
And I know I've seen a couple of other games credited to The Kremlin, so I'll try and find the original source for those again...
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 11:03 am
Master system:
FIFA international soccer
FIFA soccer
Star wars
Indiana Jones and the last crusade
James Pond 2

What I wonder is, whether Tiertex has any relation to the musician, TIERTE.T.PORTE, of Gauntlet and Impossible mission fame.
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Re: Who Made What: Tiertex Design Studios
Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:53 pm
Last edited by anagrama on Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:39 am; edited 1 time in total
idrougge wrote

Master system:
FIFA international soccer
FIFA soccer
Star wars
Indiana Jones and the last crusade
James Pond 2


Thanks! I thought they probably were aswell, but didn't want to add them until I had seen some confirmation.

More as it comes... :)
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 11:16 pm
Last edited by anagrama on Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:18 pm; edited 3 times in total
Company Information

From Companies House:

TIERTEX LIMITED
Date of Incorporation: 13/07/1987
Status: Dissolved 06/01/2004

TIERTEX DESIGN STUDIOS LIMITED
Date of Incorporation: 27/02/1992
Status: Active
Previous Names:
Date of change Previous Name
12/12/2002 TEAM-X LIMITED
16/12/1992 NEEJAM 128 LIMITED


Known Tiertex staff
Donald Campbell (co-founder, programming) 1987 - 200?
John Prince (co-founder, production/design) 1987 - 200?
Martin Wakerley (artist) 1988(?) - ?
Mark Tait (music) 1987 - ?
Gary Marshall (?) 1991(?) - 200?
Mike Davies (music) 1990(?) - ?
Chris Brunning (programmer) 1990(?) - 2000(?)
Wayne Billington (artist) ? - ?
Carleton Handley (programmer) 1994(?) - ?
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 11:27 pm
I'll try to bring some people in, I have some contacts who worked there.
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Post Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:37 am
Last edited by anagrama on Sun Aug 21, 2005 2:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
Some credits (I'll keep this post updated with any further ones):

Gauntlet (SMS, 1990): Coding - T Porter, Graphics - K Bulmer & T Porter , Sound Effects - T Porter, Music - Tiertex.

(Tony Porter and Kevin Bulmer have been credited on games from the C64 to the present day for a variety of companies, but were both US Gold staff at this time).

Impossible Mission (SMS, 1990): Programming - Gary Priest, Graphics - Blue Turtle, Sound - Tiertex.

Gary Priest also has a long list of credits to the present day, and was a US Gold staffer at this time (and later worked for Virgin). Blue Turtle appears on a few other US Gold games.

Paperboy (SMS, 1990): "Programmed by Tiertex Ltd"

World Class Leaderboard (SMS, 1991): "Reprogrammed game by Tiertex Ltd"

Heroes of the Lance (SMS, 1991 "Program creation by US Gold, Programming team: Tiertex Ltd"

Super Kick Off (SMS, 1991): "Programmed by Tiertex Ltd"

Flintstones (SMS, 1991): "TIERTEX - Sega version by Paul Marshall"

Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade (SMS/MD, 1992) "Game Design & Program: Tiertex Ltd"

James Pond II: Codename Robocod (SMS, 1993): "Programmed by Tiertex Ltd"

Star Wars (SMS, 1993): "Developed by Tiertex Ltd"

World Cup USA '94 (SMS, 1994) "All Programming, Graphics and Music by Tiertex"

FIFA International Soccer (SMS, 1996) "Developed by Tiertex Ltd"
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Re: Who Made What: Tiertex Design Studios
Post Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:47 am
I've started doubled-checked my games for any further info, and tried to collate everything in the first post above. More when I get the chance...

CRV wrote
I thought Super Space Invaders and Desert Strike were by The Kremlin, which I had read was a division of Domark.


I'm still puzzled by this - both games seem clearly credited to The Kremlin in their in-game text, yet both are pictured in Tiertex's archive (also, RetroBase credits Tiertex/Domark for the GG version of SSI).

idrougge wrote

What I wonder is, whether Tiertex has any relation to the musician, TIERTE.T.PORTE, of Gauntlet and Impossible mission fame.


I think that's a slightly confused name - as you can see in the credits above, there's a "T Porter" (Tony) seperately credited alongside Tiertex for those games.
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Post Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:48 am
Bock wrote
I'll try to bring some people in, I have some contacts who worked there.


Excellent! :)
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Post Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:12 pm
OK, I'm satisfied that Tiertex were responsible for Ace of Aces, since US Gold also handled all the home computer ports, and Tiertex were practically US Gold's in-house team at that point.

I've also removed the SMS versions of Desert Strike & Super Space Invaders since everything points to The Kremlin being behind those. I'll have a look at the Game Gear versions when I have a chance.
(Does anyone know of other games released on both SMS & GG but developed by different teams? Seems strange if it is the case.)
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 2:55 pm
I beat Turbo OutRun (MD) last night, but the lack of any closing credits leaves me none the wiser about this one - I've seen nothing to link it to Tiertex aside from the pic in their archive (unless you count the god-awful handling and shoddy graphics as being a pointer!).
Guess I'll try it over on a harder difficulty just to be sure...
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Post Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:00 pm
No feedback from people I contacted. I'll post what I know

Carleton Handley / Programmer

"I wrote 2 Game Gear games in the early 90's (Fifa International Soccer and Lillehammer Winter Olympics). "

[...]

"When I was working on GG Winter Olympics I'd just started at the company developing it (Tiertex) and I think they didn't want to risk me on something too important so they gave me the GG version of WO! "

[...]

"I don't know about any other versions of FIFA except for the fact that a lot of my code was reused in later versions of the game after I left Tiertex (including GameBoy versions). I didn't know there was ever a SMS version though. It's be interesting to see if it is the same game though.

It's pretty amazing that they're still selling the SMS in Brazil although if the
games are good enough why not?"

With bonus info:
The Dev kits we're called ERX-Z80 as far as I can remember although that may have been the assembler! IT was effectively a circuit board that had all the MS/GG chips on it. It also had a connector with which you could plug on a miniature LCD screen just like the GG. Although you could also view the GG screen on a normal monitor also. For such a big and expensive piece of kit I seem to remember it being a little lacking in features. The debugger was particularly awful. It also took ages to download code/data to it (partly because it only recognized a certain type of file which was effectively hex data but in ASCII!!!! This made the files more than twice the size they needed to be, which in the days of 20meg hard drives wasn't ideal!


Pete:

"Hi Omar,

I wrote two games on Sega Master System. Ace of Ace's and Kickoff.
Ace of Ace's bombed as I had to use an inhouse sprite routine that was
rubbish!
I only agreed to write Kickoff if I could use my own sprite routine. I've got
a copy of the Z80 source code but not the graphics.

Pete."

"It was quite tricky programming the MasterSystem due to the restraint of 8
sprites per line, but with KickOff it all just fell into place! MegaDrive was
doddle to program due its 68000 processor and its scrolling and sprite
capabilities. I wrote BlasterMaster and Spiderman on MegaDrive."
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:12 am
anagrama wrote
I've also removed the SMS versions of Desert Strike & Super Space Invaders since everything points to The Kremlin being behind those. I'll have a look at the Game Gear versions when I have a chance.


The GG version of Super space invaders lack references to the MS programmer Andy Taylor, as well as to The Kremlin. Instead, it says "Conversion by Tiertex".

anagrama wrote

(Does anyone know of other games released on both SMS & GG but developed by different teams? Seems strange if it is the case.)


Yes, but usually those releases are separated by several years.
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Post Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 6:22 pm
I talked to Mark Tait, though he says he doesn't remember composing those games. He DID say however, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson was responsible for Paperboy.
There is also Mark Ortiz who did a great deal of Game Boy games and SNES games which were developed by Tiertex. Mark Tait told me about a few people I could ask. He told me Blue Turtle is James Clarke.
Wow, I just realized how old this post is! Well, won't be surprised if no one responds. I'll probably stop asking Tiertex developers. ;)
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Post Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 9:30 pm
Interesting infos mate, history never stops to be written so if you can manage to get more informations, do not hesitate !
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Post Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 9:31 pm
You got it!
I'm pretty sure 'Tiertex' is an alias for Mark Ortiz, but I cannot find him. I found Tony Porter and sent him a message asking about 'Tiertex' in the SMS Gauntlet. Haven't heard back from him yet. Will edit this post if/when he does.
Update:
Chris Brunning told me that the music credit alias "Tiertex" is most likely Mark Ortiz or John Hancock. He said there was another musician there named Mike but he can't remember his last name. With some research, I found out his name is Mike Davies.
He also told me that Blue Turtle is really Nick Pavis.
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Post Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 7:00 am
Bock wrote
The Dev kits we're called ERX-Z80 as far as I can remember although that may have been the assembler!

Presumably ERX-Z80 would have been something similar to what's pictured in this thread.

Bock wrote
It also took ages to download code/data to it (partly because it only recognized a certain type of file which was effectively hex data but in ASCII!!!! This made the files more than twice the size they needed to be, which in the days of 20meg hard drives wasn't ideal!

There are a couple of files in the Columns GG Source which match this description: HEX/MAIN.HEX and HEX/ID.HEX. The former contains the vast majority of the data and the latter the ROM header. If combined and converted to binary, they exactly match the "Columns [v2]" ROM.

These files seem to have been output directly by the "LNK" linker. Their format is fairly obvious except for the last byte on each line - it seems to be a checksum calculated such that the 8-bit sum of all bytes on the line is zero.
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Post Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 8:42 am
It seems "Intel hex" is (or was) commonly used for EPROM writing software and ROM emulators, maybe because of the checksums?
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Post Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:56 pm
We can probably confirm MD Turbo Out Run and SMS GP Rider.

Back in 1993, Atari Corp. sued Sega of America for patent infringement. They eventually settled, and part of the deal was that they could cross-license up to five games a year through 2001. Atari was sent a list of 8- and 16-bit games they could license from Sega. The list also mentions any outside companies that would be owed royalties. In the case of Turbo Out Run and GP Rider, that was Tiertex.
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Post Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:04 pm
What the hell is Alex Kidd in Monster World??? Appears in those notes
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Post Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:45 pm
Must be Miracle World.
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Post Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 12:04 am
I wonder if the unreleased Pat Riley Basketball was by Tiertex, or maybe BlueSky Software, as games by both companies use the same font (as illustrated below).
prb.png (6.33 KB)
prb.png
og.png (4.73 KB)
og.png
jmf.png (3.75 KB)
jmf.png
gr.png (3.32 KB)
gr.png
dt.png (1.04 KB)
dt.png

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