The original Shadowrun game design concept was developed by Gregg Barnett. It was very forward thinking according to Shadowrun map designer Justin Halliday but also rather technically infeasible. The games design document promised the feel of a 3D world. Halliday explains “It envisaged this beautiful isometric game on the SNES with forced perspective where you could move your character between foreground and background objects.” None of which had previously been done on the SNES.
Aussie Rules Footy was the first Australian Rules Football (AFL) game for console (1). It was developed by Beam Software and published under their Laser Beam Entertainment identity that Fred Milgrom created to publish Nintendo games locally. The game was only released in Australia.
Released in 1992, International Cricket is the second of the Australian Sports Games Beam Software self published in Australia for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES ) through their publishing arm Laser Beam Entertainment. It followed on from Aussie Rules Footy in 1991.
The genesis of Nightshade according to designer Pauli Kidd is that the higher-ups at Australia’s Beam Software wanted a “graphic adventure game that would be a whodunit” The game designed by Beam Software is described by GameSetWatch writer Todd Cioleyk as “offbeat superhero” a precursor to genre popularised in movies such as “The Tick or Mystery Men” (Cioleyk, 2007).
“It recreates cricket almost perfectly , whether that is good or bad depends if you like cricket or not. It’s an excellent sports sim but lacks any arcade style fun.” (“Super International Cricket Review”., Total! Magazine , Issue 43, July 95, pages 34-35).
This summary by UK games magazine Total! provides a sense of the challenge of making a cricket videogame.
