Ninjaforce

Ninjaforce is a group of German computer enthusiasts, active during the early 1990s on the Apple IIGS computer. Some members originated from other computer systems, like the Commodore Amiga and the Apple Macintosh). They specialized in creating development tools, multimedia shows (better known as demos) and later games (though nonw were released).

Ninjaforce was established in 1990 with the release of the Picture Ripper II. Founding members were Jesse Blue (Alexander, code) and Musashi (Markus, art support). While Musashi lost interest in the scene in 1992, Jesse Blue is still in the group. Musashi had stopped activities on computers, as he spent more and more time with his girlfriend and didn't have the time to help Jesse anymore. In 1991 Jesse met Clue (visual arts) on a local Apple User Group Europe meeting. In late 1993, Dreamer (audible arts) joined.

The name "Ninjaforce" came up while Jesse Blue was pixeling a ninja on his computer screen. He was fascinated by a picture of the Arcade Game "Shadow Warriors", that he had seen in a Computer Magazine. This picture made it into the Picture Ripper II.

After releasing the Picture Ripper II (part one was lost) Jesse went to work on his own assembler.

With this new power, Jesse created the "Revenge of the Bobs" demo. The Gfx of that demo were partly done by Musashi, who pixeled some of the Bobs. The main tune was taken from a Demo by Spreapoint on Amiga.

Around 1992/1993 Clue came in, and the team created something the Apple IIGS scene had never experienced before, as the scene was already quite dead at that point: a "megademo", spanning two disks, with new effects to show off the GS. It was released in early 1995. Two years later it won first prize at the Wild Competition on the Mekka & Symposium Demoparty.

Ninjaforce also created several utilities, namely the multi-system at boot-time switcher TaifunBoot, the GS/OS MOD player NDA Deskplay, the animation utility anime, the Apple II disk image Asimov, the TCP/IP-enabled IRC client Samurai, and others.

After the release of the Megademo, Ninjaforce began work on a game for the Apple IIGS: an adaption of Bomberman with several original features. The game, supposed to be called KABOOM!, was almost finished, but never made it out of the Ninjas' harddisks.

Ninjaforce also helped with the Apple IIGS version of Wolfenstein 3D. Clue worked on the graphics, while Dreamer created sound effects.

Notable releases

• NF Assembler - a ProDOS 8 based assembler programming environment. Complete with debugger and GS/OS support.
• Revenge Of The Bobs - the first demo from 1992.
• NFC Megademo - biggest demo ever for the Apple IIGS. Still a benchmark for every emulator developer, as it uses some quite obscure features of the GS hardware. (Accelerator card required, needs a patch for use on ROM 3 machines.)

Awards

• Mekka & Symposium (1997), 1st place Wild Competition, Megademo [1]

External links

• Official website
• Index of demoscene productions on Pouet.