Krome Studios Melbourne, originally Beam Software, was a video game development studio founded in 1978 and based in Melbourne, Australia. The studio operated independently from 1988 until 2000, when it was acquired by Infogrames, who changed the name to Melbourne House. In 2006 the studio was sold to Krome Studios.
The name Beam was a contraction of the initials of the founders: Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen.
History
Home computer era
In the early years, two of Beam's programs were milestones in their respective genre. The Hobbit, a 1982 text adventure by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler, sold more than a million copies. It employed an advanced parser by Stuart Richie and had real-time elements. Even if the player didn't enter commands, the story would move on. In 1985 Greg Barnett's two-player martial arts game The Way of the Exploding Fist helped define the genre of one-on-one fighting games on the home computer. The game won Best Overall Game at the Golden Joystick Awards, with the company also picking up Best Software House.