Blood Money pushes the Amiga harder
DMA's second game swaps hardware scrolling for blitter tricks and a shoot-'em-up safari across four planets
Quick facts
- Developer
- DMA Design
- Publisher
- Psygnosis
- Platform
- Commodore Amiga
- Launch price
- £24.95
- Development started
- January 4, 1989
- Made by
- Dave Jones (code), Tony Smith (graphics)
- Inspired by
- Mr. Heli (Irem)
- Modes
- One or two players
What happened
Dave Jones started Blood Money on January 4, 1989, on a 25 MHz 386 PC development system that a pleased Psygnosis had sent after Menace, taking his inspiration from Irem's cute helicopter arcade game Mr. Heli. He abandoned the Amiga's hardware scrolling for a blitter-driven system so he could use the machine's full color range and fill the screen with animated enemies. The finished game cast players as tourists on a shoot-'em-up safari across four alien planets, tackled by helicopter, submarine, jetpack, and spaceship, alone or with a second player, buying weapons with the coins that shot-down aliens dropped. Psygnosis published it for the Amiga at £24.95, with graphics by Tony Smith. The Games Machine's June 1989 review called it a game that "shines with the latest and best of Psygnosis's superlative presentation" and judged its intro, Loadsamoney samples included, a promise the game actually kept.
Why it matters
Blood Money is where DMA's technical identity showed up. Rather than repeat what worked in Menace, Jones rewrote his own approach to squeeze more from the same hardware, and that habit of topping his last game became the studio's pattern through Lemmings and, eventually, Grand Theft Auto. The game also marks DMA outgrowing the bedroom: that same spring Jones was arranging the studio's first office and first hire.
How we know
Development details come from Mike Dailly's first-hand history, written from inside the studio. The release window comes from the contemporary record: The Games Machine reviewed it at £24.95 in its issue stamped June 1989. The release is commonly dated May 1989, which we have not confirmed in a primary record, so we say spring.
Sources
- The Games Machine. Blood Money review, The Games Machine issue 19 (June 1989), archived scan (1989) · Reputable sourcearchive.org · The domain "archive.org" is on our Reputable source registry.
- Mike Dailly. The Complete History of DMA Design, Chapter 2 Part 1 (first-hand, archived) · Reputable sourceweb.archive.org · The domain "web.archive.org" is on our Reputable source registry.
- Steve Hammond. About DMA Design (co-founder's first-hand account) · Unverified sourcestevehammond.org · Cited as a "website" source (no stronger domain match).
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