Richard 'MrE' Elliott over at the Global Gaming League has an interview with Doug Zartman, now of Wideload Games and formerly of Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Software.
We have certainly talked about what we might do on another Stubbs title. There’s lots of room for fleshing out his world, as it were. But it would be a mistake to think that zombies are all we’ve got. Our interest in game development is not narrow – you might say it’s the opposite of narrow – and it’s entirely possible that our next title will be totally unlike Stubbs.
There's no solid information on what Wideload's next project will be or for what platform, but hopefully that will change soon. Thanks for the heads-up to N1NJ4, who linked to the interview in his blog at rampancy.net.
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Reiginko
Doug!
Nice to hear from Mr Zartman again!
Favourite quote from the interview:
"I was ... privileged to play a small part in the development of several well-known franchises: Marathon, Myth, Halo and of course, Weekend Warrior."
narcogen
Abuse?
In reply to: Doug!What, no love from the Zart-man for Abuse? A fair sight better than Weekend Warrior at least.
I actually had a copy of that-- though not by choice. It came with my Voodoo card. Or perhaps it was just a demo-- I don't really recall, as I don't think I let it run for more than ten minutes.
Rampant for over six years.
Reiginko
Abuse suxorz
In reply to: Abuse?The copy of Weekend Warrior that came with some Voodoo cards was the full version. If I remember right, that was the only release of the game - you couldn't actually go into a shop and buy Weekend Warrior separately.
I played the demo, and I think I let it run for 20 minutes. The concept was probably better than the execution - that whole "paste a photo of your face onto your character" thing was kind of wacky, and might have been cool for netgames.
Then again, it was probably more towards the "slightly disturbing" end of the scale.
narcogen
Disturbingly wacky
In reply to: Abuse suxorzOr wackingly disturbing.
What did you have against Abuse, though? Ok, not up to Bungie's usual standard of quality-- perhaps not even the Oni standard of quality. But as platformers go, it was decent. Reminded me of Psygnosis' Shadow of the Beast, even if that was a better game.
Abuse was certainly better than Weekend Warrior.
Rampant for over six years.
Reiginko
Well, I was mainly being face
In reply to: Disturbingly wackyWell, I was mainly being facetious. I've only ever played the Abuse demo, and far from Abuse sucking, I sucked and was therefore much abused. OK, that didn't work.
Bottom line, I didn't get very far in the demo before I gave up. And those monster shrieks were initially ridiculously startling, and then as time wore on they just became increasingly annoying. I would probably take the time to play it again if I had a machine running OS 9 hooked up to the internet, but playing games in Classic just feels wrong.
I will agree with you that it was better than Weekend Warrior. At least the control scheme for Abuse didn't make me want to break my fingers.
And now, while we play the "find the possible minor criticism of a Bungie game" game, what did you have against Oni? ;)
narcogen
Nothing really
In reply to: Well, I was mainly being faceOni's genesis was, shall we say, a little less Bungie-like than other Bungie games. Thank God for Chris Butcher, that's all I can say.
Rampant for over six years.
Matt
Little-Known Fact
Owing to a deal with Apple that bundled the game with every Mac that had a 3D card, Weekend Warrior was (for a while) Bungie's most successful game.
-Matt
PS: This was supposed to appear farther down in the thread, where it would have had some context.
Reiginko
Pangea
In reply to: Little-Known FactHow was it that Pangea landed all these sweet deals with Apple where their games were bundled with new Macs? Weekend Warrior, Nanosaur, Bugdom and Otto-Matic were all bundled with new Macs - why did Apple give this deal to Pangea? It's not like they were particularly groundbreaking games in any way.
narcogen
Re: Pangea
In reply to: Pangea[quote=Reiginko]How was it that Pangea landed all these sweet deals with Apple where their games were bundled with new Macs? Weekend Warrior, Nanosaur, Bugdom and Otto-Matic were all bundled with new Macs - why did Apple give this deal to Pangea? It's not like they were particularly groundbreaking games in any way.[/quote]
Pangea is run (and founded) if memory serves by ex-Apple employee Brian Greenstone. That might have something to do with it. Greenstone was one of the last great vocal supporters of developing Mac games using QD3D instead of other APIs, like Glide or OpenGL.
Somewhere in the archives of comp.sys.mac.games there's a big long argument between the two of us on whether or not that was a good thing. I took the opinion that Mac game developers ought to move to cross-platform standards (OpenGL) or at least to what was hot on the PC side at the time (Glide) in order to get more ports made.
Greenstone was of the opinion that QD3D was a superior technology and Apple should promote it as such.
A few years later, Apple openly endorsed OpenGL and got kudos from the likes of John Carmack for doing so (not to mention the real-time Halo demo running in OpenGL on a Mac in 1999).
Bugdom is cute, but that's about all. I think there are much better Mac games out there; just about anything from Ambrosia Software, for instance.
Matt
Cuddly Toys
In reply to: Re: PangeaPangea's games are deliberately crafted to be as family-friendly as possible. They may not break any new ground, but there's also very little risk that Mom and Dad will be horrified when Little Johnny finds Bugdom on the hard drive.
It probably didn't hurt that some Pangea games have themes reminiscent of certain Pixar movies.
-Matt
narcogen
It does
In reply to: Little-Known FactDepending on your comment viewing preferences, set at the top of the thread. If you've got it set to a threaded view and oldest first, then this comment appears near the bottom, below the other Abuse/Weekend Warrior posts.
If you have it set PHPBB-style, flat, newest first, then it would hop up to the top.
Rampant for over six years.
narcogen
How so?
In reply to: Little-Known FactIn terms of units or revenue? I always figured that publishers got less out of a bundle deal like that than from retail sales, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
Rampant for over six years.
Matt
Sorry, should have been more specific.
In reply to: How so?I meant success in terms of revenue.
-Matt