Bonaventura Di Bello
Encyclopedia
Bonaventura Di Bello is the co-founder, with his wife Adelaide and his brother Massimiliano, of Brainstorm Enterprise, an early publisher
of games for home computers.
Born in Centola
, Italy
, Bonaventura was the most active Italian writer of adventure-style game
for personal computers, since 1985. For the large number of games and national popularity in the Italian IF tradition, he could be defined as the Italian Scott Adams
. Like Adams', his text adventure games used a minimal parser, recognizing 2-word commands of the form VERB NOUN and where released on most of the major home PC platforms of the day, including Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64
, and MSX
. The games were programmed using a software called The Quill
and contained a form of Vector graphics
while the MSX versions had no graphics and where programmed using the platform's BASIC
language upon a routine reprogrammed from the original code written by Italian programmer Enrico Colombini. Some of Bonaventura's adventure games where co-authored by Gianpaolo Gentili, and credits are shown in the games' splash page where due.
When the adventure games trend expired in Italy, Bonaventura became chief editor of the Italian version of Newsfield Publications Ltd's Zzap!64
videogames magazine and, one year later, of the Italian version of same publisher's magazine The Games Machine
.
In the following years Bonaventura has worked on various editorial projects for several Italian IT publishers, planning, creating, writing and translating whole magazines or single articles, both on paper (GigaByte magazine), on disc (MacPower Interactive, MacOnly) and the Web with single blogs or whole blog
networks. He's also author of the book, Internet Tour '95, which was one of the firs guides and directories about the Internet in Italy before the WWW era.
He currently owns an editorial and communications services company called MediaMagic (http://www.mediamagic.it), and writes also under the nickname Jack Ventura, specialising in contents creation and management.
Bonaventura's games are available on various Web sites in a format compatible with Commodore 64 and Spectrum emulators (see links below).
.
Video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
of games for home computers.
Born in Centola
Centola
Centola is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.-Hamlets:The town of Centola has 4 hamlets :*Palinuro: The greatest one, located by the sea...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Bonaventura was the most active Italian writer of adventure-style game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
for personal computers, since 1985. For the large number of games and national popularity in the Italian IF tradition, he could be defined as the Italian Scott Adams
Scott Adams (game designer)
Scott Adams is the co-founder, with ex-wife Alexis, of Adventure International, an early publisher of games for home computers....
. Like Adams', his text adventure games used a minimal parser, recognizing 2-word commands of the form VERB NOUN and where released on most of the major home PC platforms of the day, including Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, and MSX
MSX
MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...
. The games were programmed using a software called The Quill
The Quill
The Quill is a program to write home computer adventure games. Written by Graeme Yeandle, it was published on the ZX Spectrum by Gilsoft in December 1983...
and contained a form of Vector graphics
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
while the MSX versions had no graphics and where programmed using the platform's BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
language upon a routine reprogrammed from the original code written by Italian programmer Enrico Colombini. Some of Bonaventura's adventure games where co-authored by Gianpaolo Gentili, and credits are shown in the games' splash page where due.
When the adventure games trend expired in Italy, Bonaventura became chief editor of the Italian version of Newsfield Publications Ltd's Zzap!64
Zzap!64
Zzap!64 was a computer games magazine covering games on the Commodore International series of computers, especially the Commodore 64 . It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact....
videogames magazine and, one year later, of the Italian version of same publisher's magazine The Games Machine
The Games Machine
The Games Machine was a video game magazine that was published from 1987 until 1990 in the United Kingdom by Newsfield, which also published CRASH, Zzap!64, Amtix! and other magazines.-History:...
.
In the following years Bonaventura has worked on various editorial projects for several Italian IT publishers, planning, creating, writing and translating whole magazines or single articles, both on paper (GigaByte magazine), on disc (MacPower Interactive, MacOnly) and the Web with single blogs or whole blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
networks. He's also author of the book, Internet Tour '95, which was one of the firs guides and directories about the Internet in Italy before the WWW era.
He currently owns an editorial and communications services company called MediaMagic (http://www.mediamagic.it), and writes also under the nickname Jack Ventura, specialising in contents creation and management.
Bonaventura's games are available on various Web sites in a format compatible with Commodore 64 and Spectrum emulators (see links below).
Author Credits
NOTE: All these games are in ItalianItalian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
- Dimensione Sconosciuta (c. 1986 ; Sinclair Spectrum)
Explorer #1 (Nov-1986)
- Amos Newton - Mente aliena (Parte I)
- Roger Barrow - Il Triangolo Maledetto (Orrenda Scoperta - Parte I)
- Terry Jones - L'Occhio del Condor (Furto al Museo - Parte I)
Explorer #2 (Dec-1986)
- Amos Newton - Mente Aliena (Solo Contro Tutti - Parte II)
- Clive Sullivan - N.N. dal Campo Base
- Terry Jones - L'Occhio del Condor (Il Tempio - Parte II)
Explorer #3 (Jan-1987)
- Frank "Hero" Russel - Unico Sopravvissuto
- Nigel Stevenson - La Rosa Scarlatta
- Roger Barrow - Il Triangolo Maledetto (Missione Finale - Parte II)
Viking #1 (Jan-1987)
- Murray Shannon - I Semi del Male
- Roy Norton - Terrore al Castello
- Ted Barret - Naufragio
Explorer #4 (Feb-1987)
- Frank "Hero" Russell - Nel Campo Nemico
- Magnus Tanner - Dov'è Mark Williams?
- Nigel Stevenson - La Valle Incantata
Viking #2 (Feb-1987)
- Dick Ironside - Attacco al Bunker
- Morgan Tyler - Il Pianeta Maledetto
- Yarhko - Il Cobra di Cristallo
Explorer #5 (Mar-1987)
- Douglas Perkins - Computer Killer
- Magnus Tanner - Virus Delta II (Ultimo Atto)
- Phebos - Mythos
Explorer #6 (Apr-1987)
- Kurt Warren - Missione a Bangkok
- Roy Norton - I Misteri di Villa Parson
- Trevor Scott - L'Isola della Paura
Explorer #7 (May-1987)
- Kenneth Johnson - Wild West
- Morgan Tyler - Eclypse
- Roy Norton - Fuga nel Tempo
Explorer #8 (Jun-1987)
- Amos Newton - Incubo
- Dick Ironside - Underground Killers
- Murray Shannon - L'Orrore di Goldmine City
Explorer #9 (Jul-1987)
- Gordon Smith - Metal Crunchers
- Jeff Waldon - Green Dimension
- Morgan Tyler - Naufragio su Guyot
Explorer #10 (Sep-1987)
- Charles Bryan - Prigioniero del Futuro
- Elrick - Il Ladro di Camelot
- Jeff Weyss - Moonbase Delta
Explorer #11 (Oct-1987)
- Burt Everett - Primo Caso
- Kim O'Bryan - Professione Spia
- Lucius - Aut Caesar...
Explorer #12 (Nov-1987)
- Kenneth Johnson - Desperados
- Roy Norton - Missione Mistero
- Zoram il Guerriero - La Prova
External links
- http://www.ifitalia.info/Lazzaro/
- http://www.xgd.com/publisher/Di+Bello+Bonaventura/Commodore
- http://ready64.org/articoli/leggi.php?idart=56
- http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/backissues/spag51.html
Interviews
- Intervista a Bonaventura di Bello - Di Giovanni Riccardi - Terra d'IF Numero 2, February 2004.
- Interview to the noir writer Marco Vallarino - Di Andrea Rezzonico - Terra d'IF Issue 6, June 2004.
- Intervista a Bonaventura di Bello - Di Stefano Guida - ZX Notizie Numero 6, January 2004.
- International IF Special - by Paul O'Brian - SPAG Society for the Promotion of Adventure Games Issue 40, April 12, 2005.