*** http://www.amigaremix.com ***

*** Orginal music by : Chris Hüelsbeck ***
*** Track name : Freedom ***
*** Remix by : D.A.Wilson ***

Developer(s) Loriciels
Publisher(s) Rainbow Arts
Designer(s) Manfred Trenz
Platform(s) Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Sega Mega Drive, PC-Engine, Game Boy
Release date(s) 1990
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s) Single Player

Turrican is a 1990 video game programmed by Manfred Trenz. It was first developed for the Commodore 64 by Rainbow Arts, but was ported to other systems later. In addition to concept design and character creation, Trenz personally programmed Turrican on the Commodore 64. A sequel, Turrican 2, followed 1991 for the Commodore 64 and other platforms.

The series started in 1990 on the Commodore 64. Turrican became very popular due to its high technical achievements, demonstrating graphics which many did not believe to be possible on a C64.

Turrican was developed mainly by Manfred Trenz and published by Rainbow Arts. A later Amiga conversion was produced by Factor 5. The following people are credited with the C64 version of Turrican:

Idea, programming and graphics: Manfred Trenz
Producer: Marc A. Ullrich
Music: Ramiro Vaca, Stefan Hartwig, Chris Hüelsbeck
Sound-FX: Adam Bulka
Sound-Routines: Chris Hülsbeck, Adam Bulka, Oliver Blasnik
Digi-Routines: Jeroen Tel

Turrican was also released for the Atari ST, Amiga, CDTV, Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy, PC Engine, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. The console ports were handled by The Code Monkeys and published by Accolade.

"Subsong 2" from Turrican is actually the song "Escape" from The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack.[1] Ramiro Vaca is responsible for the complete C64 score, including the cover of the song Escape in "Subsong 2".[citation needed] Chris Hülsbeck composed for the Amiga conversion of Turrican I, II, III as well as Mega Turrican (Mega Drive/Genesis) & Super Turrican (SNES). Subsongs 4 and 7 of the music in the Amiga version of world 4 were clearly inspired by the sound effects for Aliens in the sequence where the marines enter the colony for the first time.

The title screen for Turrican is based upon the Manowar album cover Kings of Metal.[2]

The name Turrican is based on "Turricano", an Italian name which Trenz found in a phone book. There was a rumour about Turricano being the name of a pizzeria Trenz used to visit regularly, but this has been proven false. However, he did visit a pizzeria called Katakis, which the planet was named after.

The first demo of Turrican (C64) was called Hurrican.

The Turrican series are well known for the high quality of their soundtracks. The most notable is the Turrican 2 soundtrack for Amiga, composed by Chris Hülsbeck. Music from Turrican 2 was performed live by a full orchestra at the second Symphonic Game Music Concert in 2004. The event took place in Leipzig, Germany.