Linking Leroy

Linking Leroy
Screenshot of the demo in Legoland 2
Developer(s)	FairLight
Programmer(s)	Pontus Berg Magnus Nyman
Artist(s)	Kalle Shew
Platform(s)	Commodore 64
Release	19 April 1992 (demo)
Genre(s)	Platformer
Mode(s)	Single-player

Linking Leroy (also called Linking Leroy Visits LEGOLAND) is a cancelled Commodore 64 platform game developed by Swedish warez and demoscene group FairLight. A short playable demo was included as part of FairLight's demoscene release Legoland 2 in 1992. The game features a LEGO astronaut platforming through environments based on classic LEGO themes.

Linking Leroy is one of the earliest unofficial LEGO video games, with the initial demo version predating the first official LEGO game by over three and a half years. FairLight members Pontus "Bacchus" Berg and Magnus "Harlekin" Nyman developed the demo hoping that the LEGO Group would endorse the game. A non-LEGO version of the game was in development in 1996, but was never completed. The demos began receiving wider attention online in the 2010s, and FairLight created a new demo featuring Leroy in 2015.

Gameplay

The space level

Linking Leroy is a side-scrolling platform game. The player controls Leroy, a red LEGO astronaut from the LEGOLAND Space product line. Leroy can move left or right to scroll the level, and can jump and crawl to traverse obstacles. Touching enemies drains Leroy's energy meter, causing him to lose a life if he runs out of energy; in the Legoland 2 demo, running out of lives causes the game to end and move on to the next demo in the release. There is also a points counter, but it is not functional.

Two demo levels were created for the game, both of which are short and looping with no objectives. The first level, featured in Legoland 2, is set in a colourful LEGO environment with LEGO houses and trees and a mountainous backdrop. Collectable red bricks are scattered through the level, as are amorphous bouncing enemies. The second level contains an intro that gives it the title Linking Leroy Visits LEGOLAND and credits it as being presented by "Divine". This level takes place on an alien planet and features many Legoland Space sets in the background. The level contains more types of enemies, including ghostly flashing LEGO bricks, and lacks any collectables, but does have large red LEGO bricks that Leroy can bounce on. Pressing Ctrl+⇧ Shift+⇧ Shift in either demo opens a level editor, where the player can alter the level layout and collision.

History

FairLight was formed on 17 April 1987 in Malmö by Strider (Tony Krvaric) and Black Shadow. The two had previously been members of West Coast Crackers (referring to the west coast of Sweden) until that group had disbanded earlier that year. FairLight became known for their fast cracks of games, and went on to release hundreds of cracks for Commodore 64, Amiga, Super Nintendo, and PC software. The illegal nature of the cracking scene made it risky, however, and some members of the group began increasing focus on "legal" software development, such as demoscene releases, in 1991.

Legoland (1991) title screen

At an internal meeting on 7 October 1991, FairLight released Legoland, the group's first major demo in some time. It was programmed by FairLight members Bacchus (Pontus Berg), Harlekin (Magnus Nyman), Rowdy, and Tron. The release consisted of a number of smaller demos linked together; the developers thus referred to themselves as the "Lego Linkers". The Legoland name was chosen because Bacchus had a connection with a marketing manager at the LEGO Company, who sent the group promotional and giveaway LEGO items such as sweatshirts and bands.

Following the release of Legoland, Bacchus and Harlekin wanted to create their own video game, which they decided to make LEGO-themed. Bacchus came up with the concept and developed the game's controls, scrolling, level editor, and environment detection; Bacchus also named the character of Leroy. Further development was done by Harlekin, including the addition of LEGO graphics created by the group's graphic artist Ogami (Kalle Shew). The demo featured music by Rob Hubbard, originally composed in 1985 for a cancelled Gremlins game; Bacchus considered it one of his favourite Commodore 64 compositions. A preview of the new game, Linking Leroy, was included as one of the demos in the team's sequel to Legoland. On 19 April 1992, Legoland 2 was released at the Light + Phenomena Easter Party in Alingsås. FairLight members at the party wore LEGOLAND sweaters to advertise their demo. Legoland 2 ranked fifth place out of seventeen entries in the C64 Demo competition.

Level development for the unreleased non-LEGO version of Linking Leroy

Bacchus and Harlekin had hoped that the LEGO Company would officially endorse Linking Leroy, but they were unable to get LEGO's approval, and their connection to the company later broke. As other companies would not publish an unlicensed LEGO game, the developers planned to redesign the game to remove LEGO elements from it. However, Ogami did not want to work on the project at the time, so it was temporarily shelved. (Bacchus seemingly still hoped to release the LEGO version, posting on alt.toys.lego in March 1996 asking if a LEGO representative would be interested in it.) Harlekin resumed work on the new version of the game a few years later, once his skills in designing graphics had increased sufficiently. Musician Red Devil (Emil Helldin) was going to supply new music for the project. Titled Linking Leroy visits SpaceLand, the game was to be set in a future where people had colonised other planets in the Solar System to escape overpopulation on Earth. An antagonist named Styggos has planted nuclear bombs on all the planets to destroy them, and Leroy would have to find all the keys to disarm the bombs before they go off. Harlekin announced the game in July 1996, with plans for a downloadable demo level to be available soon. No demo is known to have been released, and the project was apparently abandoned.

Leroy, drinking

Despite Linking Leroy failing to attract the LEGO Group's attention, FairLight continued using LEGO in some demos. Legoland 3 released on 29 December 1993 at a demo party in Denmark, winning first place in graphics and music and fourth place overall. In 1996 Rowdy and Tron were developing the demo Legolize It – A Decade of Glory to celebrate FairLight's tenth anniversary, but the project missed its deadline and was cancelled. In a 2010 interview, FairLight member Vodka (who by then had become the group's leader) made a joking remark about The Revenge of Linking Leroy or Legoland 4 being some of the group's possible future projects. The two unfinished Linking Leroy levels saw a number of standalone releases in the 1990s by other cracking groups, who frequently added their own intros and trainers to the demos.

On 5 July 2015, FairLight premiered Drinking Leroy at the Edison 2015 demoscene party, held at the Eggeby gård in Stockholm. The demo consists of a short animation coded by moh, with original music by Zabutom and new graphics by Vodka. In the demo, Leroy lands his ship on an unknown planet and starts collecting alcoholic beverages, eventually entering a bar. Leroy later takes off in his ship and starts hitting debris in space, ultimately crashing into another planet; the demo ends with the message "don't drink and fly, drink and die!" Drinking Leroy won second place in the Mixed Demo competition. The FAQ in the demo's end credits notes that there were both historic and future reasons for its LEGO content.

Additional screenshots

Additional screenshots of the Leroy demos.

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  The level editor

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  Linking Leroy Visits Legoland title screen

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  Leroy bouncing into the screen borders

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  More SpaceLand development

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  Drinking Leroy reuses the space level, but without player control

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  Game over for Leroy

External links

• The World of FairLight (official website, hosted by Bacchus)
• "The Delight of Eternal Might - The History of FairLight" (2014 ed.) by Jazzcat, from Hugi #38
• Legoland 2 on the C-64 Scene Database
• Drinking Leroy on the C-64 Scene Database