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In 1983 video game development began in Hungary on an industrial scale still under the Soviet influence. While in the Western nations at that time we can only speak of handfuls of bedroom developers in Hungary on behalf of Novotrade already more than 150 people were developing games for Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and other types of computers. Due to the Iron Curtain the computers used for developing several times had to be smuggled in through the borders. Despite the difficulties posed by the circumstances as early as 1983 the Hungarian developers evinced such a high level of technical brilliance that even Jack Tramiel, the legendary leader of Commodore, decided to pay a visit to Hungary to meet with them.
As far back as 1984 the British newspaper The Times reported that ’’Western computer stores are clearing room on their shelves for Hungarian products...” Hungarian developers released such world-famous games as the ’Scarabeus’ ('Invaders of the Lost Tomb') for instance which probably was the very first 3D image-tear free, first person labyrinth game to appear on C64. Or there was the 'Impossible Mission II'. And as it turns out the Hungarians are to be thanked for the creation of the 'The Last Ninja' too. Eidos’ later president, Ian Livingstone, too, started to develop his first video game with the help of Hungarians. What’s more, it’s quite possible that the first video game developed in Europe and released in Japan as well was the Hungarian ’Traffic’ which Sony released for MSX in 1986.
Hungarians developed games for Nintendo’s console as well with no official development kit at their disposal that no one in the world, let alone Nintendo, could comprehend how they actually managed to pull off. The Hungarian games were released by companies such as Activision, Epyx, Commodore, Konami, Virgin, Sony, etc.
According to SEGA in the middle of the 90s Novotrade running under the new name of Appaloosa Interactive became the biggest independent studio for game development at the time. During these years Hungarian developers have produced such world-famous games as 'Ecco the Dolphin', 'Adventures of Batman & Robin', 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Crossroads of Time', 'Contra: Legacy of War,' 'Lost World: Jurassic Park', etc.
