L.E.D. Storm

This was my second arcade conversion, and it came as a bit of a surprise. After finishing Bubble Bobble, I was scheduled to start on Rainbow Islands, but Software Creations changed publishers to US Gold, and suddenly I was working on L.E.D. Storm instead.

The Scrolling Challenge

This was my first real-time scrolling game. Programming the scrolling itself was straightforward enough, but getting it to run fast was a different story. The Atari ST was particularly challenging in this regard.

I would have loved to make it full screen, but I just couldn't keep the framerate up. Like many games of that era, we introduced a panel to reduce the scrolling area and keep things smooth.

Learning by Playing

Same as Bubble Bobble, there were no proper specifications. The team just played the arcade game over and over until we knew it well enough to convert it. Not exactly scientific, but it worked.

Looking Back

Watching the videos now, it looks pretty good. The scrolling is smooth, the colors are vibrant, and it captures the frenetic pace of the arcade original. Sometimes limitations force you to find creative solutions, and those solutions end up being good enough.