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Dang, they were later known for their utilities, but I was raised on some of their games on OS9 and X! Apeiron, Bubble Trouble, Uplink, Escape Velocity (and sequels), Barrack, Swoop and of course Maelstrom. A few were definitely remakes of classic games, but they made them very well. The RPG simulations of Uplink (hacker sim) and EV Nova (space sim) were excellent.

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I don't know about the others, but Uplink was just a port from Introversion - http://www.introversion.co.uk/.

The ports were few and far between. Most were made either entirely in house or with the lead programmer being a freelancer (they allowed people to pitch their ideas, then would supply artists, their various code libraries, support, testing etc.).

Incidentally, for those not in the know, Uplink has recently been ported to iPad and Android tablets:

http://www.introversion.co.uk/uplink/

Another port that wasn't in-house, if I remember correctly -- some enterprising individual just decided to port it to iOS, Introversion liked the result and decided to publish it properly.

http://www.modojo.com/features/uplink_interview_with_introve...

Barrack! That was a great game, every now and again I wish I had a system that could run it... (Barrack's Mac OS 9 only.)

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