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Necronom

Sep 12, 20242 min read

Necronom

Case Study Article: Case Study: Necronom (Lunatic Software/Linel, 1991, Amiga) – Confoederatio Ludens

Journal

2023-11-28

  • Michael Tschöggl is probably an interesting lead to interview, since he worked on graphics.
  • There is a whole lot of design going on, but not very specified what it means (design, additional design, intro programming, alien wave design, and graphics)
  • I prepared a small corpus of images to analyse with Gilles through a Auslegeordnung. I choose the HOL screenshots and produced additional ones from the intro and the ending to have some typography and paratextual in-game material. I’d love to have a collection of all bosses.

Notes

Gomander, the final boss, is far less Giger-esque than the Dobkeratops, the first boss or the Xenomorph shown on the cover of the package. But Giger-esque might maybe not be the right word, regarding R-Type, and even less so for Necronom. What both games reference, to more or less extent, is the diegetic creatures of Alien. There might be something in here about hentai culture and the tentacular aesthetics of Alien… but more importantly is the observation, that R-Type and its shmup clones merely applying Alien’s aesthetics as style, without dealing with the larger work of Giger. Referencing these aesthetics was an established part of the expectations of authenticity of the genre. They are recognised, and are perceived as good by people in the know.

See also

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