Hello eveyone,
I was able to dig up some good information and items on Phoenix
Software, which published software from 1981 to 1984. I thought it might
be of interest! I've included links to some pictures at the following
address:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/sracle
Some interesting tidbits about Phoenix, which some of you may already know:
-The first game published by Phoenix was "Adventure in Time", a text
adventure a la Time Zone (in fact, it came out before Time Zone -
perhaps there was some "sharing" of ideas? LOL) - published for the
Atari and the Apple II
-This was followed by "Birth of the Phoenix", a very easy, introductory
level adventure. The manual is pretty impressive though - at 20 pages,
it includes all sorts of tips on mapping, typical puzzles, parsers, etc.
- once again published for the Atari and the Apple II
-"Queen of Phobos" was the next adventure game, and this time it
included graphics, although not in colour. Only about 150-200 copies of
Queen of Phobos were ever published. From the info I have, this one was
strictly Apple II.
-Phoenix's two most popular games were "Sherwood Forest" and
"Masquerade", which both came with colour graphics. Approximately 1500
copies were made of each of these two. In fact, Sherwood Forest (which,
incidentally, is called "Sof-Toon #1", even though there was never a
second one) was translated in Japanese and sold a few hundred copies in
Japan. Apple II only for Sherwood Forest and Masquerade, although I hear
rumours of a C-64 conversion for Masquerade. The Phoenix Software
catalog only lists it for the Apple though.
-Masquerade was considered so difficult that there was in fact a contest
associated with the game - the first person to finish it could win
$1000. (I have included a scan of the contest form on my website).
Phoenix Software was sold to American Eagle shortly after the release of
Masquerade and American Eagle promised to honour the contest. Rumour is
that a woman in New York won, however whether or not the money was paid
out is not known.
-One of the reasons Phoenix was sold was because it was being sued by
another company of the same (or a similar) name. Phoenix settled out of
court and would have had to change its name anyways. The other major
factor in the sale of Phoenix was that very large companies (Disney,
Hasbro, etc) were starting to get involved in software publishing.
Advertising rates were going up, and it was difficult for a small
company like Phoenix to compete. (as an added note, Phoenix never had a
storefront or business office - it was run out of someone's bedroom,
just like many of the companies of the time)
-"Fraktured Faebles", in the same style as Sherwood and Masquerade, is
sometimes attributed to Phoenix. However, it was published strictly by
American Eagle after Phoenix was bought out. American Eagle never
re-packaged the Phoenix games.
-Phoenix also published a few arcade-style games called "Mad Rat", "Bats
in the Belfry", and "Gemini". These were Apple II-only items that were
never widely distributed.
-The most successful Phoenix products were not games but utilities. Five
items were released for the Apple II called "Forms Foundry", "Invoice
File", "Communicate and Win", "Banner Magic", and "Zoom Grafix". The
last one, a screen-dump printing software, is probably the most
well-known . It sold nearly 10 000 copies (which is fairly good,
considering the user base was probably around 25 000 back then) - this
included sales to the US DoD, the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, etc
-Phoenix packaging for most items consisted of a piece of stock
cardboard folded in half - with the instructions printed on the inside.
Packages included a disk in a Tyvek sleeve with the Phoenix logo, a
registration card, and perhaps a catalog. "Adventure in Time" was
slightly different, as it essentially consisted of a cardboard pouch. As
well, "Birth of the Phoenix" came into a Ziploc bag with a bound manual
and disk. The other game packages were shrinkwrapped, except for Queen
of Phobos which also came in a Ziploc.
-An interesting tidbit is that Sierra's Ken Williams actually sued
Phoenix for the use of the name "hi-res adventure". This was eventually
settled out of court too, given the fact that by that time, neither
Sierra [On-Line] or Phoenix were using the terminology anymore.
Well, that's all I can think of now. Hopefully this will prove
interesting to some of you! I have a few more Phoenix items (stationery,
sales brochures, etc) that I plan to scan when I have the chance.
Stephane
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