International Karate conundrum.
I picked up the first complilation of Games TM Retro sections a few months ago and notice they claim IK was originally released on the Spectrum and Amstrad and was PORTED to the 64 by one Archer Maclean. Didnt Archer write this originally on the 64?

While I wouldn't stake my life on it, I was sure he did it on the C64 first.

IK+ was on the C64 first - IK however was not - so there, I rule all PLEH!!!!

Actually, what happened was that another team were writing International Karate, inspired by the Karate Champ arcade game. When that version was not finished, Archer was brought in to create a new C64 version. The interesting thing is, Jon Hare was asked to do some graphics for IK but they were never used - they ended up in Galaxibirds. Of course, IK appeared in the shops some months after Way of the Exploding Fist, so a lot of people assumed that Fist "inspired" IK... but it was actually in development before Fist

That doesnt answer the question though, was it on speccy or C64 first....or were they released same time? huh?huh?huh?

That maybe helps answer something I've never bothered to look into. I assume it was International Karate that had the Sydney Opera House in the background and IK+ that didn't. Why didn't Archer create more than one background?

Coz hes a lazy sod? ;)

Basically he wanted to do something different, rather than creating another set of "international" backgrounds. So IK+ got an animated background (the water ripples, the sun reflects) with little spot animations (a spider in the tree/hanging off the gateway, the inchworm inching its way across, the fish jumping out of the water, the birds flying by...)

Merman youre so knowledgable, you should write a bbok about it ;)