page_title: Switchblade II
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Switchblade II / Development
caption_attribution_description: English&#x3a;&#32; Commodore Amiga 500, 16-bit computer (1987)Post Processing: BG, B/C, spot, composite picture.The Amiga 500 personal computer system, pictured with a monitor, a mouse, a keyboard, and a floppy disk drive.Français&#x202f;&#x3a;&#32; L'Amiga 500 est un ordinateur personnel 16 bits fabriqué à partir de 1987 par Commodore International. Sur la photo, l'ordinateur apparaît avec ses accessoires&#160;: écran, clavier, souris et lecteur de disquette externe. La photo originale a été modifiée à l'aide de différents filtres logiciels.Polski&#x3a;&#32; Komputer Amiga 500 wraz z akcesoriami: monitorem, stacją dysków i myszką.
context_page_description: Switchblade II is a 1991 side-scrolling action-platform run and gun video game originally developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in Europe for the Amiga home computers. It is the sequel to the original Switchblade, which was solely created by Simon Phipps at Core Design and released earlier in 1989 across multiple platforms. Despite being primarily developed in the UK, its graphics had a distinctly Japanese style similar to anime or manga.
  Taking place several centuries after the events of the first game, the story follows a descendant of the original protagonist named Hiro, as he embarks on a journey to defeat Havok, the original main antagonist who has returned from his previous defeat in order to bring chaos upon the land of Cyberworld and its inhabitants after the Blade Knights ceased to exist. Its gameplay consists of run and gun action mixed with platforming and exploration elements, with a main single-button configuration. Originally released for the Amiga microcomputers, Switchblade II was later ported to the Atari ST in May 1991 and the Atari Lynx handheld in 1992, with the latter being published by Atari Corporation in North America and Europe.
context_section_description: Switchblade II first began its development process on the Amiga in August 1990 and it was solely written by programmer George Allan over the course of six to eight months, who previously worked on Venus The Flytrap alongside artist Paul Gregory at Gremlin Graphics. Both Allan and Gregory had free rein on the project and were influenced by various arcade games such as Midnight Resistance, Shinobi and Strider, as well as the first Switchblade in order to give the project a "home console" feel. In a February 1991 issue of The One, Allan stated that "The idea behind the new game was to give it more of a coin-op feel, so the gameplay is a lot faster."
  Allan stated that they planned on using the system's EHB Mode early in development for backgrounds and sprites, while the project as a whole bears resemblance to Japanese-developed titles from the era due to Gregory's fascination with the art style. The game runs at 50 frames per second and its maps were created as 16x16 pixel tiles. Several gameplay elements and ideas, however, were scrapped due to memory and time constrains. Original Switchblade author Simon Phipps had no direct involvement in the development of the game, although Allan has claimed to have briefly met with Phipps in a 2012 interview with the website Amiga Lore.
caption: Switchblade II was first developed for the Amiga hardware over the course of 6-8 months.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:07:21 17:28:39", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5302", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2531", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1965"}