1991 – 1993 | Morbid Visions | Psygnosis | Commodore Amiga | Role-playing game
“A hardcore RPG player’s dream.” [AMIGA ACTION]
“Well, simply put, the intro to Perihelion is the best game intro I’ve ever seen, save Microcosm.” [AMIGA GAMES DATABASE]
“I have never played a game with more atmosphere to suit the theme.” [AMIGA REPORT]
“This is the best-presented submission we have ever received.” [PSYGNOSIS about the prototype of Perihelion.]
Perihelion – a world where advanced science and malevolent Gods exist side by side; where genetic engineering and occultism evolved together; where mutation is a way of life. Oh well. The game was created by only 3 people under pretty challenging conditions (don’t even ask). Taking this project to completion while going to school still qualifies as one of the most difficult but rewarding things I have ever done.
As far as my role in the project goes: I did all the artwork, I was responsible for the concept, the rule set and virtually the entire design of the game, provided the story narrative (in the form of about 80 pages worth of in-game script and dialogue) and handled project-management duties. In retrospect, I would do a LOT of things differently with Perihelion but nevertheless, in its day it had very high production values, some pioneering technical achievements, and a highly sophisticated core rule set and combat system which we never did quite manage to polish and push to its limits.
One signature element of the game was the shared, common 32-color two-tone palette which in retrospect was a pretty bold move but it was a key element in providing a unique look and a very consistent atmosphere.
The game eventually climbed to #9 on Amiga Action’s prestigious “50 best RPGs of all time” list.
…and here’s a little surprise:
DOWNLOAD – The full, playable version of Perihelion. It even includes a copy of the WinUAE Amiga emulator, preconfigured to run the game (make sure to refer to the READMEFIRST.txt instructions).
DOWNLOAD – The soundtrack to the game separately, in old-school .MOD format.
Special thanks must go to Marek Tarnawski – apparently the biggest Perihelion fan on the planet – for providing me with all these files.
Normally I’m not into distributing cracked versions of copyrighted software over the Internet, but since Perihelion has not been distributed commercially for more than 20 years – not to mention that its publisher doesn’t even exist anymore – I’m sure nobody really cares at this point. It probably even qualifies as “abandonware”…
It’s quite amazing and humbling that even after all this time there’s still a number of fan sites and other material out there dealing with the game, like a link to this Lemon Amiga page which features numerous user reviews and even scans of magazine reviews, or this YouTube playlist of fan-made videos of the game:
I’m often asked about what served as inspiration for the look, sound, and feel of Perihelion. Well, as far as the visuals are concerned, the answer is almost surprisingly specific. The single biggest influence on Perihelion’s art-style was this painting to the right: Microdrive II by John Harris.
I was completely blown away by the atmosphere of this image: the palette, the scale, and the combination of primitive monolithic architecture with sinister technology all tickled my imagination.
Inspiration for the audio came from many places, the most significant of which must have been the works of several emerging progressive death metal bands we were big fans of at the time. Their ominous, heavily synth-infused sound mixed with cues taken from movie soundtracks, jazz or even classical music seemed like the perfect starting-point to get the right vibe. A prime example of this type of sound is Empire of the Sands by Nocturnus, embedded below for your listening pleasure.
The parallels with Perihelion’s soundscape are fairly obvious, and paying close attention to the lyrics (which is not necessarily easy) enhances the effect even further – there’s even a reference to a “fortress of steel” included in there.
Next, below is a pretty comprehensive summary of Perihelion’s PSI-power system which I recently reconstructed and pieced together from the manual and other sources.
A list like this was probably the most requested item from fans of the game, as originally the legend for the spells and required runes could only be found in the game’s manual as an anti-piracy measure (some of the delightfully bizarre and cringe-worthy spell-names are an added bonus…) Enjoy! 😉
September 2021 update: Hello everyone, two quick additions to this page. The first – shown on the right – could be considered somewhat of a “historical document”. It’s the first response we received from Psygnosis after sending them the initial game demo.
The second is a Perihelion review and a related thread at CRPG Addict, courtesy of Chet Bolingbroke. It’s a fascinating analysis, and quite possibly the best discussion I’ve seen about the game.
It’s beyond inspiring to see a now 28-year-old game kickstart an exchange like this, especially by such a committed, knowledgeable and passionate audience. Very highly recommended.
I love this game THANK YOU
I remember this game so fondly from my amiga days, but the zip archive is corrupt!
You are right – it was a side-effect of a recent migration I had to do. It should be fixed now.
“Help mí, másztö-ür… Áj felt dí börning tvájlájt bihájnd dóz gétsz of SZTÍÍÍL… Sztíííl… sztíííl…” 😀 Epic intro. Megalapozta az ízlésvilágomat ez a játék. Vagy 12 csapatot indítottam el a Sandstorm Citadel-b?l, de csak egy jutott el Fort Nightfall-ig… aztán elajándékoztam a gépet, minden szoftverével együtt. :'(
Viszont, ha meglátogatod a linkben megadott weboldalt, amit mostanság kezdtem el gyártani, akkor szerintem nem kicsit fogsz elmosolyodni. 😉 (Folytatom e-mailben egy gmail-es címr?l.)
Love this game, too.
Playing it as a kid, i really was afraid all the time just because of the thrilling atmosphere!
I think its very tricky but that motivated me even more.
Played it till the end now 10 yars later.
Thank you three and gratulations for this creation.
Legend! I loved this game. I never did finish it because of a save-game bug, but would love to now! More exclamation marks needed! 🙂 Anyhow, the infinite walking bug was hillarious. Thanks for your work on the game.
I looooved this one so much but I never played it. I didn’t have Amiga back then. I only saw it at my friend. Somebody please send a walkthrough…
Gratula a készít?knek nagyon igényes kis cucc ez. Hajrá magyarok. De az a leírás tényleg kéne, mert ha jól emlékszem a 2. városból sehogyse tudtunk tovább jutni.
Oh wow! If it weren’t for the fact I was constantly getting lost, this would probably be one of my fav games. The atmosphere was fantastic – I wonder what are the guys that worked on the game up to now?
I mean the rest of the team obviously 😉
Hát ember, nagyon köszönjük!!!!!
Emlékszem, még NAGYON régen sokat nyomtuk osztálytársakkal, bár akkor az Amiga már kifutóban volt így csak egyvalakinél tudtuk tolni ezt a remekbeszabott játékot.
Mondanom se kell, azóta se találtam sehol, mert nem emlékeztem a címére.
Úghogy millió köszönet a felöltésért is!!!
Super game for super computer. I still have an A1200 and I like play this game . I finished this game with human character only and without spells 🙂 BTW I own original this game 😉
An extraordinary great game. Thanks for that.
the game is legendary. unfortunately those days have passed forever. Now they do not make such timeless games. I take my hat off.
I love this game ! The Intro from this game is awesome and music too. I agrees with penszo. Nobody makes games like perihelion now. The games developers makes colorfull but boooring games. Is there any tutorial or manual about this game in polish language ? What happens at the end of the game ? Did Unborn dies ?
Greetings from Poland 🙂
danzieger@poczta.onet.pl
Tha graphics to this game were super awesome. One of the best works I have ever seen on the Amiga. I didn’t play the game much, though, since I don’t like RPGs that much.
Thanks edvard, it’s great that people like me who missed out on the Amiga scene can now experience some of its greatest moments 🙂
Oh. My. God.
I can´t believe I stumble upon this after all these years – I LOVED Perihelion, played it back in school and immersed myself in its´ very distinct and unique world even though I probably didn´t get half of the fiddly details (such as the runic system). My old Amiga 500 and all my games – including this one – was lost in a burglary ages ago, so this is a godsend. Thank you for this game, and for the memories!
Probably the computer game in the world, that I would most like to see remade or made a sequel for!
Love it! The most intense atmosphere and storyline ever written. Goes from suspense and excitement to downright fear.
And I just love the turnbased combat system mixed with the suspense of (almost – atleast for what was possible on the amiga at that time when it came to first-person) realtime movement.
You did a legendary job on that one Edvard, and Zoltans music was just the coolest!
It was one of the best games i ever played. My question is:
Why you guys ever did a remake?
This is a help site in polish:
http://www.ppa.pl/artykul-Perihelion.poradnik.gracza-7_13_1223.html
Saw this game in some old polish computer games magazine my uncle gave me (I’m against throwing away books) and… I’m speechless.
Truly amazing game, thanks for letting me feel the old-school charm again!
Thank you for this note and the game. This was/is game which fueled my imagination when I was a child (and this was not easy feat for the small piece of software). You should know that still there are people who are chatting about “those times” and name “Perihelion” was mentioned more then once during their nighttime conversation.
I love this game, but never i can played because the copy that i founded years ago in Italy there was all broken of full of bugs.. Thanks again.. finally i can try a play this beatiful old school rpg.. 🙂
long ago, when I was still in old europe I discovered your game with my A600. Loved it
I am sure I will re enjoy it today while living now in Asia.
It’s because of people like you, who gave me dreams with a computer, that I am now in the IT industry (dreams == yes, we can)
This is by far the best RPG game ever. Thanks for sharing files. Now it is like dream come true I can play Perihelion again !!!
I remember when I finished the game almost 20 years ago, I made myself cup of coffee and stared all again.
Thanks.
Hi Edvard
Perihelion was an interesting game back in the Amiga days, and the graphics were (and are still) beautiful. Since you worked on the game, how about a “making of” article that tells the story of how the game was made? That would be very interesting to read about.
Thank you
David
Brilliant game, stunning artwork! Edvard Toth is THE MAN!!! 🙂
Love this game ! thanks ! 😉 Amiga ruleezz 😀
I also loved this game, it was beautiful and catchy. And the ending, my God, I was sad and happy at the same time, immersed in that wonderful music playing over and over, I was unable to turn off my pc for hours! Thank you for this wonderful experience.
I would love to port this game to Windows/Linux. Guess it was developed in 68k Assembler? Would
I just found this. No sleep tonight , I promise. I’m going to play this absolutely FANTASTIC fame until my eyes bleed from sleep deprevation.
Huge respect for visuals, music and gameplay. I’ve never seen similar style game. And I still have to find my way to finish Perihelion.
I remember there was a “cheat” for it. Your stats went up through use. Find a safe spot, in a fight, and have your characters run around and do stuff, stats went up all the time by 10%. Eventually you could walk and run unlimited… Yeh. you had to be careful or you became way too powerful…
I never played the game beyond the initial screens, but after so many years I remembered and typed it into google. Great theme and atmosphere and music. The story/theme is very imaginative/creative.. I don’t even remember why I couldn’t fully play it. I remember char creation was very detailed and interesting. So.. hello from a past player. 🙂 I read the story of how you developed it.. so few people.. but so much creativity in a short time. Interesting 🙂
I have to confess I have (unintentionally) hacked this (beautiful) game…
During my first fight, mobz were blocked outside the room, so I could run for a long time and gain absurd levels of speed. As a result, I never get hit by my opponents and could made the entire game with nunchakus and not using any spells.
Stumbled over this via the CRPG Book Project (crpgbook.wordpress.com) last year and finally started playing. Good stuff so far, the atmosphere in particular is on point.
Although it’s great that the game is available for free I wouldn’t mind actually paying a little something for it (if it were on gog.com for instance) at all.
It would be interesting to port this to modern systems (Win/Linux/Mac)… is the source code available somewhere?
I had Atari ST back in the day and the only time I wished I had Amiga was when I visited my friend and he showed me Perihelion. It was jaw dropping experience and to this day the game holds well. Please consider a Kickstarter and remake. There’s so much rpg dross on the market these days, and 95% of the rpg titles (if not more) aren’t even worthy to be mentioned in one sentence with your legendary game. Regards from Poland.
Yeah. Kickstarter would be great.
I loved this game, art and music were fantastic, so atmospheric. Lots of similarities in atmosphere and originality with first Fallout. Not once I got jump scare beacuse enemies would pop up on map with screams – headphones were killing me. 🙂
There was one exploit to the combat system that allowed me to kill Unborn in the first round – if you paralyze last enemy, you could prolong the combat and move around. Since skills levelled up with usage, I got bunch of movement points.
Still, one of top ten RPG’s I played.
Always wanted to see more of this setting, but that never happened. 🙁
Would love to see this ported on modern resolutions.
I played Perihelion ages ago on My Amiga 600. It was great and atmospheric game. I only played a copy-of-a-copy game; that time in Poland it was pretty difficult to get an original game (any original game). I could never work out the spells, as I did not have a manual, but I was pretty advanced in-game until I lost my save-game disk. Anyhow, many thanks for making this gem of a game; I just downloaded the files and I also found the original game on eBay which I intend to buy. I will be more than happy to try Perihelion once more. As my Amiga is long gone, this time it will be FS-Uae on Debian…
This along many other Amiga Games where the weird and creative splinter of madness and genius that composed the Amiga library. Nowadays the industry is “safe” and the games published are endless copies of American and Japanese formats. Back in the day, Amiga was the creative outlet of the UK, France, Poland, Italy, Germany, Spain even Croatia and Sweden published games for this great computer. I miss all the variety of cultures and quirks reflected in their works.
Cool old game. Very creative.
Thank for you inspiration and effort many years ago, and for this very nice web site.
I’ve created a font of the 40 runes. It can be downloaded here:
fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1965097/perihelion-1
I used this to update your spreadsheet to make it the fonts more visual.
The fonts correspond to your numbers as follows:
1=A, 2=B, 3=C, etc. … 27=a, 28=b, 29=c, etc.
We need a wiki with the full Lore of the game
I loved Perihelion back in the day. It was incredibly atmospheric. I never realised that it was so much the work of one person!
Sadly I can’t get this version to work – apparently my laptop doesn’t have the right system ROM (I bought it last year). If anyone knows a way around this, I’d be very grateful – I’d love to play Perihelion again.
Hey Toby, an Amiga emulator would do the trick, it should work in a new laptop in an emulator. You can also rent a remote gaming desktop for very cheap in a site like Paperspace.
Did the original Perihelion disks (there were four !?) have some kind of copy protection ?
Or why isn’t there any four disk (.adf) versions available (anywhere ?!) ..?
Is the 5 disk Skid Row cracked version 100 % ok working ?
Just wanna say that I love this game very much! Will be replaying soon.
I managed to compete the game without any walkthroughs or cheats.
I do agree with someone who wrote earlier,
that the final battle with the Unborn is a joke.
I feel empty and happy at the same time.
I think the game is easier to complete than
I thought. Also, when began playing Perihelion,
I thought there would be more places to explore etc.
Without doubt, you get that belief when entering the
Map screen.
Despite the game not being perfect per se;
I think Perihelion overall is a great effort and one of
the best Rpg games I have ever played.
When I know that Perihelion was written
by three students, I begin to understand that
the game is not “larger” than it is.
Anyway; This Is a game that definitely screams
for a remake, add-ons of some kind and even
a sequel !!
I take my hat off. Respect.