Flashback Finally Jumps From Amiga to Atari ST, Only 34 Years Late

Developer Neil Rackett ports Delphine Software's 1992 cinematic sci-fi adventure Flashback to Atari ST and STE hardware using the REminiscence engine.

Delphine Software's cinematic 1992 adventure Flashback has appeared on practically everything over the years, yet one historically obvious machine remained conspicuously absent: Atari's ST. Neil Rackett is now fixing that omission with a work-in-progress fan port for Atari ST and STE hardware.

Rackett is already familiar with persuading Atari's 16-bit machine to perform tricks its commercial catalogue missed, having worked on ST ports of Duke Nukem and Dune II. This Flashback conversion is based on Gregory Montoir's REminiscence reimplementation of the original engine and deliberately does not bundle Delphine's copyrighted game data. Players instead need files from the original Amiga release, an approach that keeps the fan project focused on the engine rather than redistributing commercial assets. A current build is already downloadable, although development remains ongoing.

Flashback is an especially appropriate game for this treatment because its rotoscoped animation, cinematic presentation and deliberate movement made it one of the defining computer adventures of the early 1990s. The Amiga received it; the ST somehow did not. Thirty-four years later the old Amiga-versus-ST rivalry has acquired another exhibit, although both camps are now considerably more likely to compare capacitor replacements than playground sales figures.