Rainbow Arts
German gaming excellence
German publisher Rainbow Arts brought technical excellence to European gaming, most notably with the Turrican series and Factor 5's ambitious productions.
Rainbow Arts was Germany’s premier game publisher during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Founded by Thomas Hertzler, the company cultivated relationships with talented developers like Factor 5, Blue Byte, and Manfred Trenz. Their games were known for technical excellence, particularly on Commodore platforms, and Turrican became one of the era’s most celebrated franchises.
Fast facts
- Founded: 1984 in Gütersloh, Germany.
- Founder: Thomas Hertzler.
- Key developer: Factor 5 (Turrican, R-Type ports).
- Notable titles: Turrican series, The Great Giana Sisters, Mad TV.
- Fate: absorbed into Softgold (1991), eventually defunct.
The Turrican legacy
Manfred Trenz’s masterpiece:
- Technical showcase: pushed C64 and Amiga hardware.
- Soundtrack: Chris Hülsbeck’s legendary music.
- Gameplay: exploration-focused run-and-gun action.
- Series: Turrican, Turrican II, Mega Turrican, Super Turrican.
Factor 5 connection
Rainbow Arts nurtured talent:
- R-Type ports: astonishing C64 conversion.
- Technical prowess: Factor 5 became renowned for optimisation.
- Later success: Factor 5 went on to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
The Great Giana Sisters, withdrawn
The episode Rainbow Arts is best known for, and the period record has both ends of it.
ACE reviewed The Great Giana Sisters in August 1988 and liked it — 701 on the C64, 713 on the ST — while noting without embarrassment that Giana looked “more than a little like Super Mario Brothers”.
Four months later, in December 1988, the same magazine recorded the outcome:
A month or so ago, US Gold withdrew Great Giana Sisters following pressure from Nintendo, who felt it looked a bit too much like Super Mario Brothers.
US Gold was the British distributor, and it was US Gold that pulled it. The game had been reviewed, rated and sold before the objection landed.
And Katakis
The same ACE feature carries the second Rainbow Arts cloning story, and this one the company arguably invited:
[Activision was] extremely protective of its R-Type licence, scrutinising five games from other software houses — hardly surprising, when one Katakis demo apparently featured a message from the programmers to the effect of “thank you to R-Type and the inspiration it has given us”.
The context nobody in 1988 pretended otherwise about
What makes both episodes historically interesting is that the industry did not regard cloning as deviant. Andrew Hewson, in the same feature, on the early years:
when the first home computers were released… Everyone was doing versions of arcade games, so you just joined in.
ACE lists the British examples in the same breath — Interceptor with Krazy Kong, PSS with Crazy Kong, Artic with Monkey Bizness — companies that “changed the gameplay and fiddled with the title”. It also notes US Gold prompting Elite to “make noises about libel” over claims that Overlander resembled Roadblasters.
Rainbow Arts was doing in 1987–88 what British publishers had done in 1983. What had changed was not the ethics but the enforcement: by 1988 the arcade and console owners had paid real money for licences, and were prepared to defend them.