If you grew up playing the games of The Bitmap Brothers, then there's a good chance you'll be keenly aware of the brutal difficulty level of most European action titles in the late '80s and early '90s.
In an era when save games and multi-button controllers were a rarity, many games were incredibly difficult – which was great news if you were determined to extract the maximum amount of challenge, but not so good if you lacked the skills (and perseverance) to finish things.
Apogee Software co-founder and Duke Nukem designer George Broussard has revealed that the often unfair nature of video games back then is what encouraged the company to build cheat codes into its games.
"I was a huge Bitmap Brothers game fan (late 80s back on the Amiga)," he says on social media. "The games looked amazing and had great music. But, the gameplay often lacked (for me) and I never finished a single one of their games (Xenon, Xenon 2, Cadaver, GODS, etc). That's just how it was back in the day. Games were pretty hostile in terms of save games or continuing after death."
He goes on to explain that the controls were a major issue with many games from that period, something I think we can all agree with:
"Take GODS. Really clunky platforming movement that would not be acceptable today. Was too hard to dodge damage and when you died you just had to start over. Lead to frustration and boredom. Especially with poor control methods of the day (bad joysticks, etc). Brilliant but flawed was how I saw most of those games. Same for Psygnosis. Exact same. Shadow of the Beast and most of the other games. I didn't finish Shadow of the Beast until late 90s on an emulator!"
Broussard explains that, when Apogee was founded, they were keen to avoid the same thing happening with their games:
"When we started Apogee, a key thing early on was that we built in cheat codes and often printed them in the manuals. That was born from spending $50 on game after game and never finishing them. I figured...your money, you play how you want, and you deserve to finish the game even if you cheat."
Even so, Broussard admits that he still "loved those early Bitmap Brothers games" and fondly remembers them, despite their extreme level of challenge.