Beam Software

Krome Studios Melbourne, originally Beam Software, was an Australian video game development studio founded in 1977 by Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen 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 names of the founders: Naomi Besen and Alfred Milgrom.

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.

In 1988 Beam's publisher, parent company Melbourne House, was sold to Mastertronic for £850,000. Subsequently games were released through varying publishers. The 1988 fighting games Samurai Warrior and Fist +, the third installment in the Exploding Fist series, were published through Telecomsofts Firebird label. 1988 also saw the release of space-shoot'em-up Bedlam, published by GO!, one of U.S. Gold's labels, and The Muncher, published by Gremlin Graphics.

In 1987 Nintendo granted a developer's licence for the NES and Beam developed games on that platform for US and Japanese publishers. Targeted at an Australian audience, releases such as Aussie Rules Footy and International Cricket for the NES proved successful. In 1991 they released the original title Nightshade, a dark superhero comedy game. The game was meant to be the first part in a series, but no sequels were ever made; however, it served as the basis for Shadowrun.