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Interview with Factor 5

Editor: Andreas Stürmer










Everyone knows them, they made themselves a name with games like Turrican or Katakis. We are speaking about Factor 5, the team of Amiga-Freaks originally from Cologne. I talked to them about actual projects...

Every Amiga User has a minimum of one Factor 5 game at home. Every Amiga Freak knows you. Please tell us a short history from Factor 5...

Originally we emerged from the Hackergroup "The Light Circle". At the beginning Light Circle existed of three people, we coincidentally met in Cologne. Between 1986 and 1988 some others people joined us. Factor 5 was up-to-date as Katakis (or Neutralizer, it's origin name) was nearly finished. When developing Turrican we were more than five people. Neutralizer/Katakis was based on an idea, developing a game like Gradius/Salamander. After releasing the first demonstration versions, we got in contact with R-Type in a gambling-centre, we were impressed - this was the final touch for Katakis.

Your mega-seller Katakis (aka Denaris) in the year 1987/88 was your first smash-hit in the Amiga computergame history. How were your feelings when your heard of your break-through?

At that time we were conscious to us that there are no technical complex Amiga games on the software market. 1978 there was the "ST-Converting"-Problem. At that time many Hackers found out that the Amiga was capable of doing a lot. Many teams started own gameprojects, but only a few got finished. Successful titles from this "Amiga-awakening" in the european Hackerscene are "Sword of Sodan" and "Hybris" - both published by Discover Software. Also Katakis would have almost appeared by Discovery, in the end we trust Rainbow Arts a lot more. Katakis came exactly at the right time, we were surprised by the extreme success. We had and to have simply much luck with the team composition.

In the year 1990 your long-lasting phenomenon, Turrican alias Bren McGuire was finished. From whom did the idea come to this glory game and who has participated in the development?

Exactly the same as the idea to Katakis of Irem via R-Type, also Turrican was very "inspired". 1988 everyone at Rainbow Arts played Super Mario Bros. and Metroid on the Nintendo NES. RA merciless cloned Super Mario with Giana Sisters, Turrican was more a Metroid clone. The second large influence on Turrican was Data East's "Psycho-Nicks Oscar" - therefore many weapons come, background and the main figure. The first version started was the C64 version, the whole game was very C64-oriented. At that time nobody thought about a smooth-scrolling Amiga-version - no game had liquid scrolling in all directions at that time. Finally Turrican had this break-through and the Amiga version was strongly modified and improved in relation to the C64 version in the end. One of the most important elements of the game was Chris Huelsbecks music. We had operated with Chris for the first time when developing R-Type and with Turrican we got the possibility to use the incredible Amiga sound capabilities.

Turrican 2 and 3 came in the following years. Again both games were megahits and appear in everyones Amiga gamebox. How did the ideas come to the other parts, Turrican is a fight suit in reality and it's hero is a type named Bren McGuire?

Part 2 was planed much better and the Amiga (and ST) versions were the main platforms in this case. It disturbed us at Turrican 1 that the game did not have a story - therefore part 2 got the complete prehistory. Chris' title music is still one of the best music pieces, which was written ever for an Amiga game. Turrican 3 had a problematic history. We had begun B.C. Kid and T3 on Amiga after T2 in 1991 and planned the design with the plasma-rope, the graphics and most levels. We'd shown an early version 91 at the Amiga show. At that time consoles conquered the market and we wanted to work with Mega Drive and Super Nintendo. Therefore T3 was developed as mega Turrican on the Mega Drive (instead of Turrican on SNES which was more a mixture of T1 and T2). When the Mega Drive version was rather far, Rainbow Arts set another Team for an own Amiga-T3 in the meantime and the results were a disaster. Therefore RA came to us at the end of 1992 and asked for a conversion of the Mega Drive Turrican... and that way the Amiga got the game which was originally designed for it.

It was for a long time quiet around you in the Amiga world. Don't you think of "returning" some time, Back to the Roots? A Turrican successor for PPC or the future AmigaOne?

This depends on the success of the new machines. We left the Amiga only reluctantly at that time, but in the final result the games must be payable and the inability Commodores to develop the Amiga further together with the extreme software piracy makes profitable games practically impossible. In addition to that was the fact that the 2D consoles were very, very much better suitable for our type of games that time. Nowadays we would more probably make a 2D game for the Game Boy Advance.

What was the cause that you moved to San Rafael in California from the beautiful Cologne some years ago?

We operated more and more with international companies such as Nintendo, LucasArts and Konami and as LucasArts offered us 1995 to help with the removal all in the company were inspired. At that time no basis of a genuine console developer industry existed in germany and the work with companies located in the USA became (due the time difference) to an agony.

Beside I am surfing on your recently renewed website. In your team a quantity of countries is represented. How did it happen that today you're that "big"? (the only one I know are Julian, Christoph, Rudolf and Holger)

We aren't that "big". Particularly compared with other developers we are still quite small. The multi-cultural mixture was intended in such a way. We try to get only the best people of all countries. From old Amiga times are Chris Hülsbeck, Rudi Stember, Holger Schmidt, Thomas Engel, Jens Petersam, Rene Henke und Julian Eggebrecht.

You have a project called "Thornado" on your website. Please tell us a little bit more from the game, will it be developed for Amiga too?

We can't tell you about Thornado, it's a 3D game... but soon. We think it won't have a chance on Amigas...

You develop not only for Amiga and PC, also for Nintendo. Why?

We never developed specially for the PC - if there are versions of our games for the PC, they weren't usually ported by us, they're fast conversions on behalf of the Publisher. Since the early 90's we develop for Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, after we transferred from the Amiga to consoles. We made games for all console manufacturers, however, currently we're quite closely connected with Nintendo. That came mainly by our sound system MusyX, which is a clone from Chris Huelsbecks TFMX. Owing to Chris and Rudi we always were very interested in sound technology and in the N64 aera we found a perfect partner in Nintendo. That led to the fact that we were involved in the sound hardware development of the new Nintendo console Gamecube (appears in Germany in the first quarter 2002) and with MusyX we offer the official sound system for all Nintendo platforms.

How do you judge the current position of the Amiga?

For us the Amiga is something that stopped existing 1993: A home-computer platform with console-like capabilities and a gaming-specialised audience. The Amiga was conceived originally as console and as the home-computers took over the games-world in the 80s he was re-born as home-computer. In principle the Amiga was the perfect medium for computergames, on which PC-well behaved things with action co-existed peacefully.

How are your plans for the future? Some new projects for PC, Nintendo or even Amiga?

Currently we're working on the first Nintendo Camecube games: Star Wars - Rogue Leader. It's like a Best-of-Star Wars with the best scenes of the first three episodes. We can't tell you anything about other projects If we will develop games for the Amiga-system again depends on the success of the new Amigas.

Many greets,

Julian Eggebrecht, Factor 5