Bitmap Brothers

Founded in 1987 by Steve Kelly, Mike Montgomery and Eric Matthews the Bitmap Brothers were the original ‘rockstar’ developers – a small, but highly successful development team that prized quality over quantity, and depth over glitz. Continually striving for originality, attention to detail and new levels of playability, the company has been responsible for several of the games industry’s most memorable titles, released on a range of formats that have included 8, 16 and 32-bit home computers and consoles - from the earliest days of the Commodore 64 through to today’s high performance PCs and consoles.

The first game from the Bitmap Brothers, Xenon, was released in 1988, a sophisticated shoot-‘em up that, through a combination of cutting-edge graphics and challenging gameplay, became the first Amiga game to enter the UK top 40 charts. In the same year, the Bitmap Brothers followed up the success of Xenon with the futuristic beat-‘em up ballgame Speedball, a mesmerising arcade sports sim praised as one of the greatest two-player games ever designed. Eight further games: Magic Pockets, Gods, Cadaver, Xenon 2, Speedball 2, The Chaos Engine, The Chaos Engine 2 and, most recently, the top-down, arcade strategy wargame Z, complete the company’s award-winning back catalogue to date. A sequel to Z was released in June 2001, and a third Speedball title, Speedball 2100, was released in September 2000.

Split into two studio sites – one in Wapping, London, the other in Harrogate in the north of England – the Bitmap Brothers continue to produce original, quality titles for today’s computers and consoles. In 1998, Kelly and Matthews both stepped down from the board to concentrate on games design and programming respectively, Mike Montgomery took on the role of Managing Director and has successfully driven the company forward, investing in personnel and equipment that will enable the company to develop a new range of next-generation games software. Employing over 20 designers, programmers and artists, the Bitmap Brothers remain fiercely independent and entirely privately owned.

Software Highlights from Credited Titles

Bitmap Brothers's first work that SPOnG is aware of is the 1988 title, "Xenon" (Amiga).

The company has been involved titles released on the PC, Xbox 360, PS2, Power Mac, Xbox, GBA, PlayStation, Nuon, Saturn, Sega Megadrive, SNES, Amiga, Amiga AGA, CD32, ST, Sega Master System, C64 and Archimedes.

The company's most recent involvement was on the 2008 release "Speedball 2 Tournament" (PC).

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