TBA are proud creators of a powerful 3D graphics engine called TAG, with the current version imaginatively known as TAG 2. Demos of it are on Acorn's StrongARM CD, and the first major TAG 2 release is due to be a 3D racing game entitled Brutal Horse Power (originally provisionally referred to as Rally), loosely based on Sega's smash-hit Sega Rally coin-op.

TAG 2 includes real-time lighting algorithms, and features a pleasant WIMP design tool which makes it easy for games to be developed, designed and modified. Third-party developers can apply for use of TAG 2 if they so wish.

Figures released by TBA's Martin Piper claim performance of over 1,000,000 clipped four-sided 3-by-3 pixel polygons per second, with 1.2 million each second when using a clipped 1x1 four-sided polygon. This performance is claimed to exceed that of any unaccelerated PC software.

TBA have been on the verge of releasing Merp and Mirror Image, a two-game pack, for what seems like years, although I think they are now, finally, available. In Merp you must bounce a ball around whilst collecting flags, and Mirror Image is a puzzle-type game.

TBA also announced last year that they are to publish Peter Otterman's highly promising Proposal game (see the Proposal news story), although no news on that has been forthcoming for some time.

About two years ago TBA promised Axis 2, a game which apparently used a VR headset, and even went so far as to say that "technical aspects of coding are now complete". Nothing has been heard since!

Other games promised over a year ago included Game of God, a sort of chess game with combat elements, and Trecka, a Lemmings-style game where you must save the 'blobs', but these seem to have died a quiet death.

TBA can be emailed at tba@tbalond.demon.co.uk and have a web site at http://www.tba-software.co.uk/, from where you can download some interesting game demos, including a TAG 2 version of two levels of their Cobalt Seed into-the-screen 3D shoot'em'up game (well worth the download time, by the way!).

Brutal Horse Power

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