Epyx and Atari Make a Dream in the Handy

At its prime, Epyx employs 200 people and is making 9 to 10 million dollars annually. Its best-selling product is the Fast Load cartridge, which speeds up the painfully slow loading process of the C64 1541 floppy disk drive fivefold, and sells around 350,000 units. The company also picks up some licensing deals from Mattel, after that company exits the video game and computer industry in early 1984. Barbie, G.I. Joe and Hot Wheels are positioned as pseudo-educational games under Epyx’s Computer Activity Toys line.

Click button to play G.I. Joe on the good old Commodore 64

Heading into the final stretch of the 80’s, product sales are failing to meet company projections. The C64 is dropping off the scope as a gaming platform, and a hardware project called Handy is draining resources,. It is designed by Dave Needle and R.J. Mical, coming from the Amiga computer development team at Commodore. Handy is to be the world’s first colour handheld game device but is proving to be an elongated drag on Epyx, with two years and a reported $8 million sunk into its development. Needle and Mical leverage their other big invention to use for the Handy project – using an Amiga 2000 computer as part of the development environment for the handheld.

A high-level schematic look at the Atari Portable Color Entertainment System, aka the Lynx, 1989

Besides the expenses Epyx is incurring for this project, another problem is that its games are some of the most pirated computer titles around, with practically everyone with a C64 playing Summer Games and Impossible Mission but few actually paying for the privilege. Amid a lack of funds and little ability to actually manufacture the revolutionary handheld game system at scale, the Handy project is still debuted behind closed doors at the Winter CES in January of 1989; some of those privileged few who got a look must have been from Atari, as Handy is eventually sold to that company, on the verge of the 1989 Summer CES. The deal also makes Atari a part owner of Epyx. Announcing the colour handheld system as the PCES or Portable Color Entertainment System at the Summer CES , Atari eventually renames the system as the Lynx. Meanwhile, Epyx reorganizes, dropping the distribution part of the company to focus on game development for consoles. They also lay off 85% of their workforce, along with the departure of Mical, Needle and company head David Morse.

1990 ad for the Atari Lynx colour handheld, developed by Epyx

The new name of Atari’s handheld device highlights the fact that up to eight of the devices can be linked together via a cable, for head-to-head play. It also sports a 3 1/2-inch colour LCD screen with a resolution of 160×102 pixels, capable of displaying 16 colours at a time out of a palette of 4,096. Inside the case also resides a 16mHz 65C02 processor. Lynx sees a limited rollout, first hitting the New York City area on September 1, 1989. In the early part of 1990, the system begins selling in five more markets: Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston. It is available nationally through 1990. Atari wisely packs a translation of hit Epyx game California Games in with the system. While technically superior to the recently released Nintendo Gameboy portable game system, the $179.99 Lynx and its games lineup ultimately fail to compete against Nintendo’s juggernaut, even after a price slash down to $129.99 for Atari’s handheld in the early part of 1992.

The ill-fated Atari Lynx

Atari president Sam Tramiel plays an Atari Lynx, 1989

The Atari Lynx, California Games cartridge and power supply.

Atari Lynx creators R.J. Mical (far left) and Dave Needle, with Atari president Sam Tramiel (standing), 1989

R.J. Mical, one of the designers of Epyx’s Handy handheld console undated

R. J. Mical, one of the designers of the Atari Lynx handheld video game, in 1995

Epyx CEO David Morse, formerly of Amiga, circa 1987

Click button to play the great Atari arcade game Rampart on the Atari Lynx

Meanwhile, Epyx has been struggling. In 1988 they report that they will no longer publish games and scale down to a development house. In September of 1989, the same month as the initial release of the Lynx, Epyx starts laying off most of it staff. It later files for bankruptcy. The company struggles out of receivership long enough to port a few games to the PC, but eventually, the remains of the company are sold to Bridgestone Multimedia, specializing in Christian media products. This company, in turn, sells the major Epyx software rights to Atari Corp., who then ALSO go out of business. It appears that Hasbro, picking over the corpse of Atari in early 1998, has gained the Epyx game rights.

The excellent Dragonriders of Pern, C64 version 1983

Epyx President Michael Katz gives McCaffrey first Dragonriders game off the line, 1983

When you play the game of threads, you win or you die

Anne McCaffrey signs copies of the Dragonriders of Pern computer game by Epyx, 1983

Epyx Dragonriders of Pern: Game of Threads

One personal favourite of the Epyx games I feel I have to single out here before I close this entry is Dragonriders of Pern, released in 1983. Based on the seminal fantasy novels by Anne McCaffrey, the game is a stunning mix of political intrigue, diplomacy, strategy, and action. Assuming the role of Bendon Weyr, the player must forge alliances with a picky bunch or neighbouring kingdoms, carefully tailoring the amount of his aggressiveness or sniveling to suit the other leader across the negotiation table. Interspersed with this political chicanery is the occasional aerial battle against a shower of threads, not the most frightening of computer game adversaries ever created but who still provide a workout for your firebreathing charges. All of which is accompanied by a wonderful musical soundtrack. Produced right in the thick of the battle for the creative vision of Epyx, the designers of Dragonriders are The Connelley Group, founder Jim Connelley’s gang of programmers who have left the company, and who prefer the strategy in “action-strategy” more than the action part, but remain associated as game contractors. Dragonriders is not a commercial success, proving the bean-counters right on at least one point. A sequel game for the C64 is commissioned by Epyx for release in 1984, titled Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern, based on the McCaffrey novel of the same name. Announced at the 1985 Winter CES, the plug is eventually pulled on this endeavor, with programmer John W.S. Marvin having around 1/3 of the game finished. As for the original Dragonriders of Pern, I feel if more people had noticed the game, and if the Epyx marketing team had gotten behind the product a little more aggressively, this game typifies the type of epicness we could have looked forward to from Epyx.  

Click button to play the great Dragonriders of Pern on the good old Commodore 64

Dragonriders of Pern action sequence: We’ll make a shirt outta ’em!

The world of Pern: Well, who? A little help here?!

Screen from cancelled game Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern, 1984