After Knightmare, Dinc left Electric Dreams. At the time, System 3 was struggling to convert its game The Last Ninja from the Commodore 64 to the ZX Spectrum. With Activision as its publisher, Cousens landed Dinc a job with the company to handle the port. However, Dinc did not want to work off someone else's code and instead suggested that the company formally cancel The Last Ninja for the platform and instead announce that the sequel, Last Ninja 2, would be simultaneously released for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum. As the company followed this recommendation, Dinc worked on the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum versions, alongside artist Hugh Riley and programmer John Twiddy, who developed the Commodore 64 version. After the game's 1987 release, Dinc decided to start his own company. Twiddy and Riley joined him, and they established Vivid Image in September 1988. The company's debut game was Hammerfist, released in 1990 and followed shortly by Time Machine. Dinc considered both ambitious projects, but he ultimately was not satisfied with either. He further developed a version of Hammerfist for the Konix Multisystem, a console Dean was involved in. Dinc completed this version before the platform's release was cancelled, to his disappointment. The studio's next game, First Samurai, was what Dinc thought "finally hit the level" that Vivid Image's founders had intended for the studio. Inspired by the Last Ninja series, the game starred a samurai in place of a ninja and changed the isometric perspective to a side-on view. The game's name was chosen as a parody of Last Ninja. First Samurai was released for various platforms in 1991. An expanded sequel, Second Samurai, came out in 1993. During the development of First Samurai, Vivid Image ran into financial hardships following the death of Robert Maxwell, the owner of Mirrorsoft's group of companies. Mirrorsoft had gone into receivership and ceased further payments. Their agreement entailed that Vivid Image retained the intellectual property of the game and that the contract could be terminated in the event of receivership or bankruptcy. Looking to generate revenue quickly, Vivid Image struck a deal with Ubi Soft to publish First Samurai on personal computers and developed a port within three months. Furthermore, the developer reached out to Cousens, who was now heading Acclaim Entertainment's European branch, for help. Through Acclaim, Vivid Image was able to work with Japanese publisher Kemco to secure a deal for a First Samurai port on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. After several meetings with Kemco's managing director, Masahiro Ishii, they reached an agreement crucial to the Vivid Image's survival. Riley eventually left the company in 1993 and John Twiddy returned to System 3 shortly thereafter. Vivid Image collaborated with Ubi Soft on two racing games: Street Racer and S.C.A.R.S.. The former, published in 1994, was designed after Super Mario Kart and incorporated original characters, including one based on Nasreddin Hodja, a historical satirist well known in Turkey. Dinc had envisioned a 3D adventure game for the PlayStation revolving around Hodja, which he was to develop with Raffaele Cecco, the Rowlands brothers, and others. However, the game was never released and led to Dinc falling out with some of those involved. S.C.A.R.S. was released in 1998. According to Dinc, the game's graphics, including the race track designs, were produced in-house by Ubi Soft, making them "too short and too difficult", which "ruined the game". Also in 1998, Vivid Image began work on Actor, a 3D game demo, using the Dynamic Toolkit by MathEngine, an Oxford software company. The demo was first shown off in 2000 as part of a promotion of the Pentium 4 line of central processing units. A "mystery-and-adventure game" also called Actor was to be released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. By 2000, Dinc felt as though he had reached the peak of his career in the UK. Eidos Interactive had decided to cancel all of its PlayStation projects, resulting in the cancellation of Street Racer 2. Dinc had to decide whether he should take on further projects and raise his family in the UK or return to Turkey. He chose to return to Turkey, which at the time lacked a professional games industry, and believed that establishing a games scene there would make him "feel proud again". Vivid Image became formally based in Istanbul and developed Dual Blades for the Game Boy Advance, published by Metro3D in October 2002.