Dynamix, a videogame developer that was bought by Sierra On-Line in 1990, released a bunch of titles I enjoyed including The Adventures of Willy Beamish, Deathtrack and Tribes to name a few. They also had a creative group called K.A.A., Knot another adventure game, based in Oregon which was aimed at designing action-orientated titles – a total of two of which were made before disbanding – and while not amazing I have fond memories of playing them as a kid.
The side-scrolling action game Hunter Hunted was one of these games and ended up being a title that got of fair bit of playtime via multiplayer when friends stopped by. Set in the year 2015, a date far in the future back then, Earth has been invaded by an alien race and cities are turned to rubble. This invading race called the Masters have enslaved any survivors, along with the Minotaur-like creatures of another conquered planet, and forced them to enter competitive games of life-or-death. Players would control one of two characters and could engage in either cooperative missions or competitive encounters, both of which kept us busy late into the night.
The other game, CyberGladiators, was a 3D fighting game where cyborg combatants, who having been transformed by a cosmic storm into the titular CyberGladiators, would battle to the death. While not overly complex and a little repetitive combat wise, as a youngster that didn’t matter, as matches between friends were really just fun and not taken seriously, thus not something we would overly critiqued.
So, while the studio and games have become memories of an older era in gaming, at least for me those memories are fond ones.
