chatter on EAB recently, someone has found a copy of the game Monkey Business by The Other Valley Software out of Claremont, CA (Los Angeles). Here is its new entry in the Hall of Light.
It is believed that Monkey Business is the first ever commercial game for the Amiga, published way back in 1985 when the Amiga was a brand new entry in the computing world.
It is a Donkey Kong clone that is a bit of a resource hog (for the times). The graphics are more akin to 8-bit levels and has the smell of public domain software.
But the game is noteworthy for its "firsties" claim to fame and that it has been hidden in the shroud of epic obscurity for decades until now.
The game was coded by Ron J. Fortier. Fortier's credits are more well-known in retro corners for his work while at Epyx, where he the teams that delivered titles including: California Games, Impossible Mission II, The Games: Winter Edition, and The Legend of Blacksilver. Prior to Epyx he also programmed classics Zaxxon, Bruce Lee & Conan. And he wasn't purely focused on one platform, either. Formats Included: Apple II, Apple IIGS, Apple Macintosh, Amstrad, Atari 8 bit, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, IBM, Nintendo 8 bit, Spectrum, Tandy Coco 2 and Tandy Coco3.
In any case, while Mr. Fortier's gaming credits are jaw dropping, his game Monkey Business has been the stuff of mythological legend until now as a physical copy had never been sourced.
Someone recently posted a boxed copy on Ebay (for $90) and it was quickly snatched up.
In the meantime, efforts have been made to put the game in a place others could enjoy it. It was dropped into EAB's The Zone, which not everyone has access to.
Amiga ADF Downloads:
For now, here is an additional place here not behind any walls to get the game if you would like to give it a try.
In addition, here is a combo pack with Monkey Business and Delta Patrol, (also hyper-rare) which is believed to be the second commercial game ever released for Amiga. It was also produced by The Other Valley Software. Delta Patrol is sort of a Choplifter/Vanguard game. It also looks fairly 8-bit, but we'll give the game a pass due to its age.
UPDATE:
There is a bootblock menu that has been added to the ADFs. Hold down the left mouse button on a reboot and the menu comes up. Press F1 to turn off Fast RAM, then press F4 to reboot and play the game.
Game notes:
Monkey Business was coded for the Amiga 1000. As such you will likely want to disable Fast RAM before playing.
Bizarrely, it also requires 512KB Chip RAM, which 1000's did not come with stock at first. It's no wonder not many of these games were ever sold. The DK clone is also a port, which probably explains why it wasn't optimized for Amiga.
All in all, this is more a historical novelty. Pretty cool for something like this to bubble up after all these years.
In case you missed the