MSX-Engine

History

MSX-Engine was formally founded in 1990 as a merger between MSX Futurist (Wubbels) and LoVaKo Software (van Kooten). On one end MSX-Engine focussed on publishing its own magazine specializing in MSX news from Japan, and importing original MSX Games from the same country, while on the other end MSX-Engine produced a disc magazine, applications and games. Because MSX-Engine was more a coding power-house then anything else, often other artists contributed to their products most notably Marco Willemsen (Aliensoft) and Ruud van de Moosdijk (Zodiac). Their last product, the shoot'em-up game DASS was the only Dutch scene product to ever be sold in the then famous Japanese Takeru machines. It was originally planned to be released at the MSX Fair in Tilburg, but was later pushed back to May 19th 1993 and was released at the MAD MSX Fair in Doetinchem. The big box game came with a 59 page storybook, and an audio-casette with synthesizer arrangements of the game's soundtrack (Sophistication).

Trivia

• After leaving the MSX scene, MSX-Engine changed name to Engine Software. Employees are amongst others MOA (Emphasys), Bart Roijmans (Compjoetania), Ruud van de Moosdijk (Zodiac), Jeroen Schmitz (NBWC) and Ivo Wubbels (MSX-Engine) producing games for various game consoles.

Engine Software at times will make references to their MSX roots in newer commercial products, some examples:

• The Gameboy Advance game "X2: Wolverine's Revenge" has a level in Tokyo city, where the shop windows include an MSX logo, and the Compile mascotte Carbuncle peeking around a corner.
• The (unpublished) SNES game CornBuster features a poster of DASS on the wall during the intro
• The Nintendo DS game "Princess in Love" features a music box item that can be used to distract guards, it plays the melody of the DASS ending (originally written by Loek van Kooten).
• Globey, the green dragon mascotte used by MSX-Engine was a hidden playable character in the PC game "Coronel Indoor Kartracing"; Globey also had his own casual PC Game "Globey on the Roll" released by REAL Arcade; and finally: the Engine Software corporate logo features a silhouette of a dragon's head which is based on Globey

Past and present members

Productions

• Dragon Disk 1 (1991)
• Dragon Disk 2 (1991)
• Dragon Disk 3 (1991)
• Dragon Disk 4 (1991)
• Dragon Disk 5 (1991)
• Dragon Disk 6 (1991)
• Dragon Disk 7 (1992)
• Dragon Disk 8 (1992)
• Dragon Disk 9 (1992)
• Dragon Disk 10 (1993)
• Dragon Disk 11 (1993)
• Dragon Disk 12 (1993)
• Dragon Disk Special (1993)
• Cheat Master
• Studio FM
• Dizzy (1991)
• Dix (1992)
• Dass (1993)