Brataccas

mostro 2019-06-04
It's near-certain that Brataccas looks that way because it was originally developed for the Sinclair QL. Apparently they had a complete working version for that format, and I'd guess they simply ported it "as is" to the ST and then Amiga.

Notice that it doesn't use the full screen width; the QL's higher resolution mode was 512x512 rather than 640x512. That mode also had a fixed four-colour palette identical to that seen in Brataccas.

I'd still guess that Brataccas- as one of the first "true" 16-bit games- was visually impressive compared to most 8-bit games of the time, it's just that things moved on quickly. Page 6 magazine's reviewer not only noted its similarity to a QL game, but also noted presciently that "it is very good, but it is by no means the definitive game on the ST. This is still early days and there will be many games coming along that will make people wonder what all the fuss was about. "
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Kodoichi 2012-03-20
Uses the hi-res/half-res/whatever name that resolution of 640x256 pixels has on the Amiga, which only allows for 16 colours on screen...
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=^D Guy 2007-06-13
(7/10)
Psygnosis actually did a good job on preferring gameplay over graphics. The actual pain is the controls. The actions are just damn hard to control, but the game is pretty okay.
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Tapewormz 2006-02-14
I would have liked to have seen this game made specifically for the Amiga. It was some pseudo resolution game for the Atari ST. I didn't like that graphics resolution on the ST. All the pixels were 1x2.
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Puzzle Rattrap 2005-07-14
I have no idea if this is true, but it's rumoured that some elements of the lost Imagine 'megagame' Bandersnatch lived on in Brataccas
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Eltar 2005-06-08
(10/10)
I loved that game. I just loved it. It had something that I've been ever looking for afterwards, the feeling of a whole environment living independantly from you. A whole base, crowded with people doing their own stuff, and not caring about you. That was : a non-linear game. There was very few of them, on the Amiga, and even games like Elite or Ultima IV didn't fully give you that impression of being anonymous in a crowd (they were free of that "sprite following his predetermined path" aspect of other games, but even them didn't really make you believe ther characters, off screen, were busy with their own lives instead of waiting for you to appear). The weird thing is, that game was ahead of its time, and yet, is one of the oldest Amiga titles.

Oh, yes, 1990 looks strange. I'm sure I've played it much earlier.
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Wandus 2005-02-23
This was one of the first arcade adventures designed exclusively for 16-bit platforms. Although the titlescreen dates the game as a 1990 release, it appeared as early as 1985 on the Atari st!

i was extremely impressed in the mid-eighties. Today, a glance at the screenshots reveals that the computer game industry was only beginning to come to terms with the abilities of 16-bit computers. Very few colours are used, chequered patterns create the illusion of additional shades (as was necessary on the c64), and movement was slow.

for 1985, though, brataccas was visually groundbreaking in the arcade adventure mould, considering that the characters were huge and fairly detailed. I don't recall the actual premise of this game, but I reckon people did not mind the inherent pick-it-up-here-place-it-there simplicity when any 16-bit release was warmly welcomed.

it is nevertheless a shame that psygnosis did not commision a visual update for the belated Amiga incarnation.
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