Torben Larsen: Cope-Com
Name: Torben Larsen
Company: Cope-Com
Profession: Creative Director
Favorite Classic Game: Ping Pong
Quote: It was the first game I played sometime late 1970’ties on a TV console. The simplicity and fun factor still holds today and reminds me of how far the games have developed since that time 🙂
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDrRnJOCKZc[/youtube]
Bio/Current Event:
Cope-Com was founded in 1987 by Martin Pedersen and Torben Larsen with the aim of making great Amiga computer games. With the award-winning game titles Hybris and Battle Squadron they successfully proved the capabilities of the Amiga home computer.
Martin Pedersen started out with a ZX81 (actually an upgraded ZX80) in 1982 and later switched over to the ZX Spectrum, which was eventually exchanged with an Amstrad. In 1985 he did the game “The Vikings” for the Amstrad. At the same time Torben Larsen was doing the graphics for the same game on the Commodore 64. This was how the two met.
Feeling limited with the Amstrad and its technical abilities, Martin and Torben decided to take a closer look at the Amiga in 1985-86. The technical aspects of the Amiga in terms of more advanced processors, better screen resolution, more colors, and 8 bit sound sampling, was very impressive to both of them.
Being excited about the great possibilities of the Amiga, they decided to develop games for this machine. They started out with their first Amiga title, a shoot’em up called Hybris. For this game they teamed up with the American publisher Discovery Software International Inc. Hybris was published worldwide in 1987 and was an instant success on the Amiga. The game received several Amiga awards and was praised for its high technical standard, great game play, and sharp graphics.
Taking on the challenge after Hybris, they decided to develop an even better vertical shoot’em up for the Amiga called Battle Squadron. This time they teamed up with Innerprise Inc. as publisher. The game was released worldwide in 1989 and again an Amiga classic was born. The game featured two simultaneous players and a novel gaming “predator” enemy effect. Battle Squadron received a 109% rating in Amiga Computing, and 90-100% in many other computer magazines of that time.
As of 2012 Cope-Com is now working on converting their great classic Amiga games to new formats, such as iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad and Android.
Have a look on the past and current projects from Cope-Com here on their website:
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