Thalion Software and Grandslam

Pictured from left to right: Duncan Lowthian (Grandslam), Holger Flöttmann (co-founder of Thalion), Karsten Köper, Richard Karsmakers, Manuela Scholz, Niclas Thisell, Marc Rosocha, Erik Simon (co-founder of Thalion), Günter Schmitz, Michael Bittner, Jochen Hippel, Stephen Hall (Grandslam), Monika Krawinkel, Christian Jungen, Matthias Sykosch, Peter Künst, Mario Knezovic.

At the end of 1989 the British publisher Grandslam Interactive visited the German game developer in their home town of Gütersloh. Thalion was only founded one year earlier but had already released three games: Chambers of Shaolin, Warp and Seven Gates of Jambala. All were published by Grandslam.

Wonderful graphics with up to 512 colours, 50 Hz scrolling, digitised sound and open screen borders – Thalion openly acknowledged the ethos of the demoscene and particularly presented brilliant, not thought possible, technology for the Atari ST gamers. However, it was the gameplay which couldn’t keep up at this level. In the highly competitive UK games market, this was a knock-out criterion.