Synapse Software (1981-1985) Documentary

[@Chordonblue]

This needed to be done. Thank you Bast... And FU to the Tramiel's Atari for destroying two great games companies: Epyx and Synapse... :/

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers and thx for watching

[@mikefulton1963]

The deal Synapse had was with Atari Inc. (owned by Warner Communications). Jack Tramiel did NOT buy "Atari, Inc." and the deal did not transfer responsibility for debts incurred by Warner. What Tramiel bought was the assets of the home video game and computer divisions of Atari, and the right to use the name "Atari" in those specific markets. The new "Atari Corp." was actually just a new name for "Trammel Technologies" which he had started the previous January. Basically, Synapse should have gone after Warner to get paid but either didn't know or chose not to.

[@DTM-Books]

@@mikefulton1963 Thank you. I don't think most kids knew that Atari was broken into two pieces in 1984 as the US videogame market disintegrated.

[@mikefulton1963]

@@DTM-Books I was 21 y/o in 1984 and an Atari User Group officer. I paid close attention to the situation. and remember it well and it really bugs me when people get it wrong. In 1990, I started working for Atari Corp. and spent a lot of time (after hours, of course) poking around old file cabinets and storage rooms and made a nuisance of myself asking annoying questions.

[@rossdtool]

Fort Apocalypse and Blue Max were amazing for 1982. They were amongst the first few games I had for my c64 and they were always stand out games on the system. I love your channel, these software house doco’s are really put together well.

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers thx and yeah Synapse put out a lot of excellent early C64 games , i love Zaxxon and Pahroah's Curse as well 👍

[@youarepredictable]

I know I've commented on other videos of yours, but I'll say it again. Great job! This brings back so many memories. Synapse was my *favorite* game publisher for my 800XL back in the day. Then by default, Broderbund became my favorite because they purchased Synapse. Blue Max is one of my all time favorites and I still play it, not to mention the Shamus series too! Another seminal work from Synapse.

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers thx 👍👍

[@10MARC]

Shamus was my favorite VIC-20 game back in the day. I still play it to this day!

[@BastichB64K]

Awesome!! it's a fun game

[@aceabo88]

Great documentary on one of my favourite software companies who produced some great and innovative software in the early days of the C64. Am discovering their Atari gems now. Thanks for making it

[@BastichB64K]

No problem 👍 thank you for watching 😊

[@Zeitgeist997]

😅ĺĺĺll😅llllĺ😅

[@DennyAtkin]

Really enjoyed this! I was working in computer stores at the time, selling these titles. Lots of fun memories. Blue Max was one of my favorite C64 games. It's not a huge surprise they got the Zaxxon license, given that Blue Max essentially took the Zaxxon gameplay and set it in WW I. :)

[@BastichB64K]

Cool thanks for watching . Yeah I agree blue max is sorta Zaxxon , I just wish they were able to do a few more arcade conversions seen as they did such a good job on Zaxxon

[@youarepredictable]

Haha...that is great. My wife and I just moved back to KC where I grew up and I was just driving past one of those store fronts that used to be a "software" shop where individual titles were shrink wrapped on tiny display shelves on the wall. I remember going in there every month begging them to give me a job when I was 14. Blue Max was also my favorite from my favorite publisher back in the day. I actually spoke to Bob Polin a few times via email regarding a possible reboot of that game :)

[@menotworking]

What a kick to find this documentary! I ended up working for Synapse through a chance encounter at a computer store. I was hired to design a disk duplicator for them (it was controlled with an Atari 800, naturally!). I made it flexible enough that they could program it to write odd data for their disk protection schemes - it was always a running battle with the people trying to copy our programs. Later I really wanted to program a game for them, but they talked me into writing SynCalc instead, and I have no regrets there. I was fortunate to be involved with Synapse, those were good times! My Ihor story is that he built an electronic drum set from a kit and it didn't work so he asked me to take a look at it. It used dozens of small diodes, and the instructions were not clear so he had soldered every single one of them in backwards. I think I spent an entire day removing them and turning them around. I also learned about lucid dreaming from Ihor. He was a great to work for and with!

[@BastichB64K]

Cool story , thx for sharing 😄👍

[@youarepredictable]

YOU wrote SynCalc? Holy crap.....impressive...

[@napoleonwilson3912]

I'm confident that some of the great box cover art helped sales. Thank you for the video.

[@BastichB64K]

In the early days the box art was definitely the selling point , you also had to use your imagination quite a bit 😀👍

[@ryo1999]

I'm always astonished by the tremendous amount of research behind these documentaries. You should be recognised as an historian of the gaming culture, BastichB.

[@BastichB64K]

Thank you sir I appreciate that greatly , unless you have over 10,000 subs on KZbin nobody even pays attention to any vids you make unfortunately 😑 anyway thank you for watching 👍👍👍 glad you enjoyed it .

[@aphexteknol]

So many memories of Blue Max and many other Synapse titles. Still play them all the time all these years later! Thanks for this great deep dive into a legendary publisher...

[@BastichB64K]

No problem , glad you enjoyed it and thx for watching

[@dennyhaynes3]

After a break due to work commitments I'm back to watching your back catalogue again. Firstly yet again, stunning documentary and production values. Lesson to all other content creators, put in the time, effort and research and this is what you can produce. The games, love the variety but only really knew two of them namely Shamus and Fort Apocalypse. Shamus was good on the C64 but the Vic-20 blows all the other versions away, it really is that good. Fort apocalypse, yeah big fan of Airwolf back in the day and played it a lot. What a truly fantastic video to come back to after my break 👍

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for checking that one out , I chose a kinda more obscure company because I honestly wanted to know more about them myself ... And I found a treasure trove of info ! It was so much fun researching that one.

[@markmeric8580]

Thank you Mr B, for another masterclass in informative and insightful video creation. This goes far beyond the confines of a KZbin video, and is more comparable in quality and production value to prime-time TV documentaries. A quick note on Encounter by Novagen. In my opinion, the greatest 3D experience of the early 8-bit generation. No other 3D game came remotely close to the speed, fluidity and sheer exhilaration of this classic. Technically and visually way ahead of its time!

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks a lot sir 👌 , I took ages to put together lol 😂. Yeah I agree Encounter is great really ahead of the curve at the time

[@jonathanadnitt7704]

A well put together documentary. A lot of these games i never realized were by the same company. May i put in a vote for an Elite systems doc next. Great work as usual.

[@BastichB64K]

Thank you very much , glad you enjoyed it . And Elite is one my long list of companies to cover .. I'm not sure when it'll happen but it will eventually . Thanks for watching .

[@fogvarious2478]

You want to big up elite considering how they treated folk of late "hmmmm"

[@jonathanadnitt7704]

@@fogvarious2478 - ?????

[@fogvarious2478]

@@jonathanadnitt7704 i suggest ya do some research . Google is ya friend

[@jonathanadnitt7704]

@@fogvarious2478 - Just because there are legal wranglings with Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, that doesn't mean there can`t be a documentary on the company for folks to watch. I`m sure many company's have screwed people out of what the are owed, doesn't mean to say you can`t feature them. If a doc is made about them, that`s your choice if you wanna watch or not.

[@mattmyers9351]

Very well done video! You've really done your homework on this one!

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks for watching 😀👍

[@darrenlonghurst4433]

Hey buddy! Thanks for this one! Great Doco! Lots of infomation and Well researched! Surprised that out of all of their games I only ever played Alley Cay on the IBM. But just thinking about that game brought back some awesome memories of my childhood. Thanks again and keep up all the hard work. Loving it!!!! 😁

[@BastichB64K]

Alley cat is great , Zaxxon and Blue Max are classics worth playing on the C64

[@RobbieStrike]

Great Documentary, Keep up the good work. Learned of some games I never herd of and will have to try out!

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers and thanks for watching , always good when you find new (old) games 🕹️👍

[@elyuw]

Great video, thanks so much for making it. Pharaohs Curse and Fort Apocalypse are two of my fav. games for the Atari 8-Bit :)

[@BastichB64K]

No problem and thx for watching , those are my favs as well but for the C64 . They ready made some great stuff and don't get any recognition .. so thats why I made it 🕹️👍

[@saidnobodyever711]

Thanks for all your excellent content! Please keep it coming.

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers thanks for that😁 👍👍👍

[@marceltiel7919]

Great stuff man, started playing some of those game more than 30 years ago and still never finished them, such as the Shamus games and Blue Max, that game was the bomb...everyone I knew with a C64 had a copy of that game

[@BastichB64K]

Glad you enjoyed it , Blue Max is do much fun .

[@TheDavo10001]

Terrific doco. Thanks for making this

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers , thx for watching

[@DTM-Books]

This is a great little documentary on one of my favorite software publishers from the home computer era. This was fun to hear all about the creative minds behind all these classic games. One interesting thing I've noted a few times: You can always tell when someone ended up tussling with the Tramiel Family, because they end up calling them "tra-MEAL" (instead of "tra-MEL"), a mis-pronunciation that always drove Jack mad. As for blaming them for the demise of Synapse, I personally think that's a bit of a stretch. Dedicated gamers will note that the quality of their software titles took a dive in 1984-85, and that solid string of classics--Fort Apocalypse, Shamus, Drelbs, Zeppelin, Necromancer, Rainbow Walker, Encounter, yadda yadda--quickly dried up. Was Synapse a casualty of the Videogame Crash of 1983-84? Were they victims of a changing marketplace and evolving artform? Did they just simply run out of hits? And who got the bright idea to fully embrace text adventures just when the entire genre was embracing graphics? I will also note that reader reviews for later games like NYC and Blue Max 2001 are just brutal. Oh, well, those were turbulent times.

[@BastichB64K]

Thx for watching, obviously their demise like all these companies is a combination of many many factors , i have to simply go on facts from actual real interviews in the end because thats as close to what happened as we outsiders looking in can get. Anyway thanks for watching regardless

[@russfriend3685]

I didn't realize how many Synapse games I enjoyed playing on my old Atari 400. Blue Max, Necromancer, and Shamus. I didn't even know there was a Shamus II. It's hard to imagine Tramiel would shaft a company that released hit games across multiple platforms. Thanks for creating this. The one thing that strikes me about Synapse is this: they released fast paced graphically advanced games, but they struggled to turn the corner and find their niche. But that's how hindsight works, heh....

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers and thank you for watching , when I started putting the video together I had actually forgotten about a bunch of their games until I started making the list ... It brought back some great memories 🕹️👍

[@scottythegreat1]

Tramiel didnt want to get involved with publishing anything. All he wanted was to design and distribute hardware. Youd think with Tramiel's history of refusing to pay a company and then watching that same company go bankrupt only to have Tramiel buy the company for next to nothing that he'd do that with Synapse, but no.

[@Woodwerker]

Wow - this was really great and informative! Looks like I have to try Shamus on the VIC 20 now! Coool!!!

[@BastichB64K]

Thanks glad you enjoyed it ... Enjoy Shamus 🕹️👍

[@DkViking1]

13:27 Drelbs was my favourite Synapse game, because of the strategic varied gameplay and the creepy atmosphere. And Drelbs actually has an ending! I purchased the C64 version.

[@BastichB64K]

Pretty interesting game 🕹️👍

[@kumrogames]

This was awesome to watch. Great documentary on such a cool game company! I remember wanting to get shamus and zeppelin as a kid!

[@BastichB64K]

Awesome thx for watching , I've got quite a few other company documentary's you may also like so check em out

[@fogvarious2478]

sentinel is my fav.. zzap gave it a silver medal as a budget release, which is how i know it

[@BastichB64K]

Great game , never knew it was a budget game in the UK

[@fogvarious2478]

@@BastichB64K Americana put it out. Like park patrol budget version it gained many fans.. the Shawshank redemption of c64 pretty much, where it did better later

[@TamasKalman]

i never thought i'll see a video in the future about synapse software. but here we are. :)

[@BastichB64K]

Thx for watching 👍

[@Blue_Moon_Consulting]

Fantastic documentary, all of my favorite games from yee olden days, thanks so much for this!

[@BastichB64K]

🤣glad you enjoyed it , thx for watching 👍

[@frankschneider6156]

Very good documentary about an unduly forgotten company with incredibly high standards, when it came to their releases. If you ever do more of these documentaries, I'd suggest Sirius Software. Unlike Synapse, who came from Atari branch of home computers, Sirius came from the Apple II side to the C64 and produced great and well known games like Wavy Navy, Squish em, Repton, Bandits and Gruds in Space. A Broderbund documentary would also be appreciated. BTW, I guess Will Wright was also more than just a little bit inspired by Survivor (which is today as playable as it was in 1982), when doing Raid on Bungeling Bay.

[@BastichB64K]

Thx for watching , I really liked Wavy Navy and Bandits so its a possibility 😀👍. Broderbund on the other hand is on my list so its just a matter of time before i make that one. I've done a lot of 80's company documentaries you can check out as well , System 3 , Epyx , Datasoft , Accolade and more 😀👍

[@IsaacKuo]

Shamus II was such a trip! It's like ... who thought of this? The way the action works in the shooting screens is just so different. I had no idea what the tail end of Synapse was like - I just remembered them in their heyday and then I just stopped noticing any new releases from them. A bit sad ... if they had bet on a different genre than text adventures, who knows? Maybe they could have pulled through. Going all in on the C64 might have helped also, considering the volatility of the whole Atari situation after Tramiel took over. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the graphical action adventure - King's Quest - was about to hit it big. Synapse had a lot of weird innovative out-of-the-box titles. It's possible for them to have thought of doing King's Quest style graphical adventures rather than text adventures. Or maybe they might have done okay if they had bet on Ultima style CRPGs? Quite a number of Ultima style CRPG franchises were successful throughout the 1980s. Maybe not a very creative choice, but the genre did have enduring market popularity, while the classic text adventure did not.

[@BastichB64K]

Yeah Shamus 2 is mental ! Such a weird game but it works so well . Yeah it's a shame it didn't work out for them in the end ..so many factors involved . At least we got some classic C64 gems .

[@stevenmcgeorge1983]

Never knew about any of these games. Thank you.

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers , a lot of very early classics 👍

[@linuxdelights2348]

After watching this video i had to get couple old Synapse games...Nice video again.

[@BastichB64K]

😂nice ! I still need to get an original copy of pharaoh's curse and Sentinel myself

[@youarepredictable]

I grew up during the hey day of Synapse. I was 12 years old in 1983 and played many of these titles on my Atari 800XL. Blue Max is probably my favorite Atari 8 bit game and I still play in on my emulator today. Synapse was my favorite 8 bit game publisher from back in the day. I actually spoke to Bob Polin a few times via email about a possible reboot of Blue Max I might be doing :).

[@BastichB64K]

Awesome ! Are you still gonna do the reboot ?

[@nanorider426]

I think I tried Head-On in my local arcade when I was little. And Encounter was a big hit with my friends and me. Slam Ball reminds me of Pinball Fantasies and Dreams on Amiga, very well done.

[@BastichB64K]

Used to play Encounter at a friends house all the time , we really enjoyed it

[@nanorider426]

@@BastichB64K It's such a great game.

[@Reaperman4711]

I miss the Synapse classics--Blue Max and Pharaoh's Curse especially, but so many of my other early Atari memories are tied to their titles. I don't think I've heard of Sentinel, and it looks like it never came out on A8, but I will have to give it a shot. It's probably right up my alley.

[@BastichB64K]

Yeah Sentinel is a pretty decent blast , im sure you'll Have fun

[@chaoslab]

Enjoyed BlueMax. Even though it was very hard. Another fine video. Thanks!

[@BastichB64K]

Loved Blue Max .. and their version of Zaxxon

[@sulrich70]

Fort apocalypse and blue max were brilliant

[@BastichB64K]

Yeah total classics 🕹️👍

[@nauka9634]

Cool idea for documentaries, thanks!

[@BastichB64K]

Thank you and cheers for watching

[@ukaszkaczmarek990]

@@BastichB64K My pleasure

[@lurkerrekrul]

Dimension X - I really wanted this game for the C64. I loved the screenshots of the Atari version. Encounter may be similar, but for me, it didn't have the same graphical appeal. Sentinel - I liked this game, but I always wished that they'd followed the trend of having the crosshair fixed in the center of the screen, rather than allowing you to move it around like the Star Wars arcade game. With a fixed crosshair, I'm fine with flight controls where you push forward to go down, but when the crosshair itself moves, the inverted controls mess with my sense of direction. Zaxxon - This was the first Synapse game I ever played. Even though I was in America, I only had a tape drive for the first year I owned the C64 (a time I like to think of as the dark ages) and this was the only commercial game I had on tape. It took 15-20 minutes to load! I really liked it, although I think they could have done a better job on Zaxxon himself. The Sega cartridge version, which was otherwise inferior, had a very nice looking sprite for the robot. Blue Max - I liked this, but it always bothered me that it looked like the plane didn't have any tail wings. It kind of looked like you were flying a giant cross. I knew that Tramiel buying Atari delayed the launch of the Atari 7800, but I didn't know that he also bankrupted Synapse. That's something else I can hate him for.

[@BastichB64K]

Thx for watching and the insightful comment 👍

[@Sharptooth100]

This is why NES and Sega Master System need to have Synapse's Blue Max game for their consoles as those options.

[@kjohnson9306]

Blue Max, Shamus, and Fort Apocalypse were my favorites.

[@BastichB64K]

Fantastic games 👌 played those ones and Pharaoh's Curse so much 👏👏

[@kjohnson9306]

@@BastichB64K Also forgot Nautilus...would have been my favorite...if I didn't have to load off of cassette. LOL! Yes, imagine a little kid who had a hard time reading and writing, but had no problem typing "Cload" and waiting for several minutes just to play a game.

[@boojoo125]

Great Company great Video! Thank You

[@BastichB64K]

No problem 👍 , thx for watching

[@AnthonyBall]

SynAssember (not mentioned in the documentary) was great. :)

[@joshuascholar3220]

Everyone at Synapse used it for doing our programming too.

[@AnthonyBall]

Hi Joshua, what did you code whilst there?

[@joshuascholar3220]

@@AnthonyBall as I said in other comments on this page, that game he panned at the end. The Alice in Wonderland game that Broderbund changed into a Lode Runner game. I designed and wrote it on the Atari 800, then converted it to the Commodore 64. A couple other people wrote PC and Mac versions that were finished but Broderbund didn't release them. A couple of my friends helped with the levels, Dave Bunch and Bill Derra.

[@mikefulton1963]

The deal Synapse had was with Atari Inc. (owned by Warner Communications). Jack Tramiel did NOT buy "Atari, Inc." What Tramiel bought was the assets of the home video game and computer divisions of Atari, and the right to use the name "Atari" in those specific markets. The deal did not transfer responsibility for debts incurred by Warner. The new "Atari Corp." was actually just a new name for "Trammel Technologies" which he had started the previous January. Basically, Synapse should have gone after Warner to get paid but either didn't know or chose not to.

[@reagandow850]

Here comes another Saturday night that will turn into Sunday at!! You keep doing this to me man. Btw...William became WHO??!!!! 🤔

[@BastichB64K]

😆👍 enjoy the show! Such an underated company

[@micheleporcu2287]

Great job man ! another beautiful video ! TNXTNXTNX !

[@BastichB64K]

Cheers 👍👍 and thx for watching

[@joshuascholar3220]

I'm afraid to watch this, since I worked there. It's gonna be weird having someone I don't know document a history of people I do know.

[@joshuascholar3220]

As for my game there Lode Runner's Rescue, it was originally an Alice in Wonderland game, but Broderbund changed the name and graphics. There were also finished Mac and PC versions that they didn't release. :(

[@BastichB64K]

Well if it makes you feel better I just stick to documented facts and focus a lot on the games and how they play

[@BastichB64K]

What was your job there ?

[@joshuascholar3220]

@@BastichB64K I wrote that game you panned at the end >.>

[@BastichB64K]

Sorry about that it was just my honest opinion on the game

[@rinazzle]

I remember playing Fort Apocalypse for many hours, though I think it may have been called something else? Was it ever renamed or cloned?

[@BastichB64K]

No , It never went under a different name . Not cloned that I'm aware of , the C64 version of Airwolf is a similar style of game

[@adamv242]

A lifelong Atari 8-bit fan, Synapse has always had my respect. As a 48-year-old, I find those closing thoughts from Mr. Wolosenko extremely poignant.

[@BastichB64K]

Synapse were awesome , thx for watching

[@eliezervargas2959]

Súper fan 💪😸👍

[@BastichB64K]

Great company

[@TMS5100]

@11:58 alley cat is one of the best atari games, and possibly the most creative game in history. @16:15 i did like dimension x a lot, despite it being repetetive. but yes, encounter was way better.

[@BastichB64K]

Alley cat is a very unique game , very under appreciated

[@C64_and_Amiga_Memories]

16:54 err "dugboy" should be dough boy?

[@BastichB64K]

Its my accent lol sorry

[@BananaTV1978]

So basically, Jack Tramiel killed Synapse by welching out of a contract. Nice, way to go Jack. 🥴

[@BastichB64K]

Yeah he also pulled the same move and helped destroyed Epyx as well

[@scottythegreat1]

Tramiel had a reputation for pulling out of contracts. Contracts had escape holes in them, and Tramiel used them. Tramiel made a lot of money by having a good legal department. Part of the reason the Atari Lynx had problems was because when parts suppliers made the deals with Epyx, they were generous. Once Tramiel took over, the suppliers reneged and raised their prices and took their time delivering parts of the Lynx. Nintendo would have won the console wars anyways.

[@TamasKalman]

synapse games were always kind of lame, but they were early in the game and became popular regardless.

[@BastichB64K]

I think they were on par with what was out there at the time , early 80's stuff is still pretty primitive in retrospect

[@scottythegreat1]

When you think about all the companies that started after third party publishing became legal, Synapse were in the middle of it. There was better, but there was a lot worse.

[@RyanDanielG]

:)