After the War (video game)
| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Spain |
| Products | After The War |
After The War is a side-scrolling beat 'em up title released in 1989 by Dinamic Software, set within a hostile, post-apocalyptic urban environment. Promotional and unpublished illustrations by Luis Royo and Alfonso Azpiri suggest the backdrop is a post-nuclear New York City.
Gameplay
The gameplay unfolds in two distinct segments. The initial phase involves a side-scrolling beat 'em up experience reminiscent of Streets of Rage, where players combat various foes and bosses through city streets to locate an entrance to the underground railway. Upon completion, players can enter their name on a leaderboard and receive a password for game continuation.
The subsequent segment transitions into subterranean tunnels, adopting a shoot 'em up style similar to Contra. In this stage, adversaries are larger, more resilient, and exhibit more intricate designs.
Versions
Different platform versions exhibit unique characteristics; some 16-bit releases include digitized voice samples and improved visuals—for example, the Amstrad CPC edition utilizes both mode 0 and mode 1 graphics.
Dinamic introduced two proprietary technologies branded as "FX": FX Double Load, which divides the game into two parts to better manage memory constraints, and FX Giant Sprites, enabling the use of oversized sprites that cover up to three-quarters of the screen's height. This effect was accomplished by constructing large characters from smaller reusable sprite components, facilitating smooth animation across various characters.
Certain ports reveal this sprite assembly technique due to vertical synchronization glitches, resulting in characters appearing segmented vertically.
While an arcade coin-operated version never saw widespread release outside Spain, it was available several years earlier at Madrid's Parque de Atracciones, visually consistent with the 16-bit computer editions.
Cover art
The final cover art for After the War was crafted by artist Luis Royo. Initially, Spanish comic creator Alfonso Azpiri, who worked with Dinamic on box art and whose brother Jorge provided graphics for the Amstrad CPC version, designed an early cover. However, delays in development combined with Azpiri's move to software firm Topo Soft led to Royo producing the artwork featured in the official release.
Legacy
Nearly twenty years after Dinamic ceased operations, in 2011 some of its original members regained distribution rights for the Windows title Collapse in Spain and Italy through their new company FX Interactive. This game was rebranded as After the War and positioned within the fictional universe established by the original 1989 release.
External links
- After the War at Moby Games
- After the War at Spectrum Computing