The dna of Black legend

commodore amiga

The majority of Black Legend’s games were created for the Amiga and the company proved loyal to Commodore’s machine. As Richard M Holmes says, “It was a damn good system and it was a lovely, simple machine to work with compared to what else was out there.” There were, however, some PC titles and Tactical

Manager made an appearance on the Atari ST.

european developers

Black Legend worked with a good number of development teams based on the continent, and it struck up a particularly strong relationship with Croteam in Croatia – a newly created development team founded by six friends which still exists today. Most of Black Legend’s games were developed in mainland Europe, drawing on talent from multiple countries.

Football Games

Football Glory and Tactical Manager were Black Legend’s biggest successes both in terms of sales and critical acclaim. Black Legend also published Five-a-side Soccer on the Amiga and Tactical Manager Italia, although Tactical Manager 2 was less well received. Croteam, which developed Football Glory, released the game as freeware in 1998.

demo scene

The Amiga had a thriving demo scene and Black Legend tapped into its talent. One deal that fell through was Shenandoah: Daughter Of The Stars by four teenage demo sceners from Sweden. Black Legend had them featured in UK magazines but the team split shortly after. Black Legend also published Demo Maniac for ‘lamers’ to produce video demonstrations.

mass distribution

Since Black Legend was part of the distribution company Kompart, it was, in effect, a ready-made publisher with all of the infrastructure needed to get big box games into the shops. The publisher would also make appearances at shows such as the European Computer Trade Show, and it became one of a handful of companies supporting the Amiga when many left it behind.