Linking Leroy

Linking Leroy
Screenshot of the demo in Legoland 2
Developer(s)	FairLight
Programmer(s)	Pontus Berg Magnus Nyman
Artist(s)	Kalle Shew
Composer(s)	Emil Helldin
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 platform game developed by Swedish warez and demoscene group FairLight for Commodore 64. The game started development in late 1991 and had two short playable demos created for it, the first of which was included as part of FairLight's demoscene release Legoland 2 in April 1992. While not officially licensed, it was one of the first video games to be based on LEGO products; the initial demo release predated the first official LEGO game, LEGO Fun to Build, by over three and a half years.

The original version of the game had players control a LEGO astronaut named Leroy through environments made out of LEGO elements. FairLight members Pontus "Bacchus" Berg and Magnus "Harlekin" Nyman developed the game hoping that the LEGO Group would endorse it. When the company was not interested, a non-LEGO version of the game was planned instead, but was never completed. Linking Leroy began receiving wider attention online in the 2010s, and FairLight released a short animation based on it in 2015.

Gameplay

Screenshot of the space level

Linking Leroy is a side-scrolling platform game. The player controls Leroy, a red LEGO astronaut minifigure 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

Background

Legoland (1991) title screen

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 IBM PC compatible software. The illegal nature of the cracking scene made it risky, however, and in the early 1990s the Commodore 64's commercial scene was declining in Europe in favour of 16-bit computer software. As a result, some members of the group began increasing focus on "legal" software development, such as demoscene releases, in 1991. (FairLight had previously become well-known for their demos in 1989, but their activity in the scene had decreased in 1990 following the departure of several members from their demo section.)

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.

Development and cancellation

FairLight artist Ogami (Shew) at the Light and Phenomena Easter Party

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 game was programmed using a number of custom FairLight programs, as well as KoalaPainter. The initial demo versions of the game 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, titled Linking Leroy, was included as the seventh of ten short sections in Legoland 2, a new release largely developed by the same team as the original Legoland. On 19 April 1992, Legoland 2 was released at the Light and Phenomena Easter Party, held at the Nolhalla ice rink in Alingsås. FairLight members attending the party wore LEGOLAND sweaters to advertise their demo. Although it was not completely finished by the entry deadline – much of the demo was coded at the party, and two of its ten sections did not initially work – Legoland 2 ranked fifth place out of seventeen entries in the party's C64 Demo competition.

External audio
"Leroy Hero" (1992) by Emil Helldin (via YouTube)

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. Musician Red Devil (Emil Helldin), who had joined FairLight in May 1992, included a track he had composed for the game, "Leroy Hero", in a collection of his music released in July 1993. Red Devil noted in the track's info that he didn't think FairLight would finish making the game. (Bacchus seemingly still hoped to release the LEGO version of Linking Leroy; in a March 1996 alt.toys.lego post he asked if a LEGO representative would be interested in contacting him about the game, which he claimed FairLight was "quite a bit through making".)

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

Harlekin resumed work on the new version of the game a few years later, once his skills in designing graphics had increased sufficiently. Red Devil was planned to return to supply 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. In its story, an antagonist named Styggos has planted nuclear bombs on all the planets to destroy them, and Leroy needs 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 after. No demo is known to have been released, and the project was apparently abandoned.

Legacy

Leroy, drinking (art by Vodka)

Despite Linking Leroy failing to attract the LEGO Group's attention, and losing Bacchus's connection with the company, FairLight continued using LEGO theming in some demos. A third entry in the Legoland series, Legoland 3, was 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 the following year, but the project missed its deadline and was cancelled. 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.

In October 2010, the disk magazine Recollection published an article on the history of FairLight, which included interviews with members of the group. In the article, Pontus Berg explained the reasoning behind the LEGO theming used in the Legoland demos and Linking Leroy, and FairLight member Vodka (who by then had become the group's leader) made a joking remark about The Revenge of Linking Leroy and Legoland 4 being some of the group's possible future projects. Two years later, in October 2012, an article about Linking Leroy was published by Games That Weren't, a website documenting cancelled video games. The article incorrectly claimed that the game was being officially sponsored by the LEGO Group; Berg later made a comment correcting this misunderstanding.

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 Linking Leroy demos, including the unreleased SpaceLand version and Drinking Leroy.

• 

  The level editor

• 

  Linking Leroy Visits Legoland title screen

• 

  Leroy bouncing into the screen borders

• 

  More SpaceLand development

• 

  Drinking Leroy reuses the space level, but without player control

• 

  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 and Drinking Leroy at the C-64 Scene Database
• Legoland 2 (emulated) at the Internet Archive