The bedroom shoot-'em-up that turned a redundancy project into a real games company
DMA's first game was a horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up that Dave Jones had coded in his bedroom, with graphics by Tony Smith and sound effects by musician David Whittaker. It was nearly finished by early summer of 1988 under the name Draconia, itself a rename of the working title CopperCon1, taken from a register of the Amiga's Copper graphics chip. Another game then shipped with the same name, so Draconia became Menace so close to release that some magazines had already printed reviews under the old title. Psygnosis released it on its new Psyclapse arcade label for the Amiga at £19.95, and it sold fifteen thousand copies in 1988. The Games Machine scored it 78 percent that December and called it "a step in the right direction" for 16-bit shoot-'em-ups. The first royalties bought Jones a 16-valve Vauxhall Astra, which he drove straight over to show the team.
Menace turned a bedroom project into a real studio. It proved the team could finish and sell a commercial game, it opened the Psygnosis relationship that would fund and publish DMA's work for years, and it established the Amiga craftsmanship the studio's reputation was built on.
The release is usually dated October 1988, but we could not confirm the month in a primary record, so we say autumn. Mike Dailly's first-hand history has the game nearly finished by early summer 1988, The Games Machine reviewed it in its December 1988 issue, and the Business History Review records fifteen thousand copies sold in 1988. The Draconia rename is attested independently by Dailly and by the magazine's review.
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