Dynamix

Founded December 1984 · United States of America

Dynamix, Inc. was an American developer of video games from 1984 to 2001, best known for the flight simulator Red Baron, the puzzle game The Incredible Machine, the Front Page Sports series, the acclaimed Betrayal at Krondor, and their online multiplayer game Tribes. The company was founded in Eugene, Oregon in 1984 by Jeff Tunnell and Damon Slye. Their first title "Stellar 7" was released before company founding and was later re-released with the Dynamix name on it. They made a number of games for the Commodore 64, among them Project Firestart which was one of the most atmospheric titles for the C64. In the following years, Dynamix created a line of action games for Electronic Arts, including one of the first games for the Commodore Amiga, Arcticfox. Later titles were developed for Activision. After self-publishing their games for a short while, in 1990 Dynamix was bought by Sierra On-Line. Once part of Sierra, Dynamix created some of their most famous games, including a line of adventures and flight simulations that included Red Baron and The Adventures of Willy Beamish. They also created the puzzle game The Incredible Machine, along with the spinoff Sid & Al's Incredible Toons. Another successful product line was the Front Page Sports series, designed by Pat Cook and Allen McPheeters which included Football, Baseball, and Golf. Versions of Red Baron and Front Page Sports Football were included as part of the ImagiNation Network. In 1994, the first game in a new series called Metaltech was released, a giant robot combat game with similarities to the BattleTech universe and games. This series resulted in two Earthsiege games and eventually Starsiege. As a side development of the Starsiege game, the successful Tribes series was created. Dynamix also created Outpost 2: Divided Destiny, the second game in Sierra's strategy/survival franchise, Outpost. The Dynamix studio was closed by its parent company Sierra Entertainment on August 14, 2001, as part of Sierra's restructuring under Vivendi Universal. Several veterans of the studio (including Tunnell), however, stayed in Eugene and founded a new studio / electronic publisher, GarageGames. After several years at GarageGames, Dynamix co-founder Jeff Tunnell and long-time Dynamix employee Rick Overman have founded PushButton Labs in Eugene, with the intent to further develop web-based video games. After over 10 years of retirement, Dynamix co-founder and game designer Damon Slye returned to the games industry to start Mad Otter Games in Eugene, Oregon in 2007 alongside several other key ex-Dynamix employees. Mad Otter Games released the online World War II dogfighting game Ace of Aces in 2008 on the web portal InstantAction, though after InstantAction was shut down the company revealed they would be re-releasing the game on their own website (as of August 2012 the game has not been re-released). They are currently developing an online MMORPG called A Mystical Land, which was released in 2011. On October 22, 2013, a Kickstarter campaign was started to fund a re-release of Red Baron.