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Who Done What: Tiertex Ltd
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
Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:52 am
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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.
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
Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:40 am
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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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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
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 |
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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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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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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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
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:47 am
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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...
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).
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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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:48 am |
Excellent! :) |
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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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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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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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Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:12 am |
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".
Yes, but usually those releases are separated by several years. |
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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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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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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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Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 7:00 am |
Presumably ERX-Z80 would have been something similar to what's pictured in this thread.
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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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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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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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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Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:45 pm |
Must be Miracle World. | |
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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).
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