Seven Gates of Jambala (Thalion)

The Seven Gates of Jambala was Thalion’s third game after Chambers of Shaolin and Warp. The side-scrolling platformer is an enchanting adventure where wizard’s apprentice Dravion has to escape the caves of Jambala.

The game features the smooth multi-directional scrolling routines of Swedish coding wunderkind Niclas Thisell who had previously been trailblazing the demoscene circuits. Strangely enough, not only on the Amiga, but also on a basic ST. Thisell would graduate from his first games at Thalion and become a seasoned industry veteran, with experience on modern AAA game projects such as Rage 2, Just Cause 3 & 4 and Generation Zero at Avalanche Studios.

Playstation 4 and XBOX ONE. A Mad Max-like shooterverse was created in 2019 with Rage 2.

A C64 port of “Jambala” was in the works, but was never finished, although the manual contains loading instructions for the system. Programmer working on the conversion, Mario Knezovic, revealed that the port was cancelled due to a lack of graphic artist. The C64 code was later used for Starbyte Software’s game Rolling Ronny (1991).

Fun fact! The boot sector of the game contained the following message, directed at software pirates: The Exceptions say: Please don’t crack this program! Wanna earn money? Contact: Germany-xxxx-xxxxx (number redacted).

Seven Gates of Jambala on Atari ST was programmed by Gunter Bitz and Niclas Thisell. Graphics by Michael Grohe and Monika Krawinkel. Soundtrack by Jochen Hippel. Game design by Michael Grohe, Monika Krawinkel and Holger Flöttmann. Additional Programming by Michael Raasch, Fabian Hammer and Jens Kleemann. Additional Graphics by Holger Flöttmann and Erik Simon. Copy protection by Gunter Bitz and Jochen Hippel. Text by Richard Karsmakers.

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ATARI ST AND THE CREATIVE PEOPLE.

Title & video, courtesy by WASABIM