Nightdive Studios, SNEG, Ziggurat, Piko Interactive and others rereleasing classic games

[tormund]

And of course, as if the price wast overblown to begin with, they went the $ = € route.

Bundle fodder.

 

[LESS T_T]

Aaand Bubsy is out there too, if anyone cares: http://store.steampowered.com/app/426630/

 

[Martius]

Eh, I still wonder whats the point of second European price point if its just the same price as first one.

 

[PeachPlumage]

For comparison sakes for those interested the n64 version and the original pc port. pc version starts at 21 minute mark. Comparison side by side at 35:40

 

[Astral Rag]

Shitsy

-multi-player
-co-op

wat

 

[Baron Dupek]

Shitsy

-multi-player
-co-op

wat

I don't get that part too. Only massive autists enjoy playing (and analyzing) this game.
Getting another living person (mostly known as a "friend") is impossible for them.

 

[pippin]

Bubsy has been turned into a meme by youtube game reviewers, so many people will buy it just for the lulz. That's why they brought him back on sale in the first place.

 

[LESS T_T]

Retroism brings Falcon games to Steam:

Falcon http://store.steampowered.com/app/374080/
Falcon A.T. http://store.steampowered.com/app/286790/
Falcon Gold (3.0) http://store.steampowered.com/app/429520/

 

[LESS T_T]

More new re-releases from Retroism:

Warlords Battlecry III http://store.steampowered.com/app/433280/
Nemesis of the Roman Empire http://store.steampowered.com/app/433290/ (coming 34 hours later)

 

[Sothpaw]

I recently played through System Shock Enhanced and it is one of the better games I've ever played. Next up is Strife: Veteran Edition.

 

[Grim Monk]

Join or Die: Classic Cyclone Studios/3DO Uprising games go digital
LOS ANGELES, CA (March 15, 2016) — RetroismTM , a leading publisher and distributor of classic and classically inspired games, and Prism Entertainment announced today a long term publishing and distribution agreement that will bring six classic 3DO games to a whole new generation of fans. The first two games in the agreement will arrive on Good Old Games (GoG) on March 17th with Uprising: Join or Die and in late April, the sequel Uprising 2: Lead and Destroy. Also planned for Spring/Summer 2016 release, Requiem: Avenging Angel, Killing Time and Captain Quazar. Retroism’s plans for BattleTanx will be announced at a future date.

“We’re very excited to have signed a digital distribution agreement with Retroism that will bring these classic Cyclone Studios and 3DO games to today’s gamers,“ said, Jamie Cook, CEO of Prism Entertainment. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Retroism and to showcase the pure passion for gaming that the development teams at Cyclone Studios and Studio 3DO shared,” added Cook.

“In full disclosure, Jamie and I spent a lot of years together at 3DO, back in the day, and we can attest to the fact that the gaming culture we both knew and loved is very much alive and well represented by these games,“ commented Michael Devine, Tommo’s VP of Business Development. “Retroism was created to bring back a lost generation of games and give consumers easy access to playing them on today’s interactive devices,” added Devine.

The first two Uprising games will have an MRP of $5.99 on GoG and will be on sale for the first week of release at 25% off.

Games Announced Today:
Uprising: Join or Die (1997) (Cyclone Studios)
Uprising: Lead and Destroy (1998) (Cyclone Studios)
Requiem: Avenging Angel (1997) (Cyclone Studios)
Killing Time (1996) (Studio 3DO)
Captain Quazar (1996) (Studio 3DO/Cyclone Studios)
BattleTanx (1998) (3DO)

For a pdf version of this press release, please download here.

About Prism Entertainment:
Prism Entertainment, Inc., based in Palo Alto, CA, holds the worldwide publishing rights to numerous video games and computer game properties that were originally published by The 3DO Company and its affiliates. Prism’s mission is to introduce today’s gamers to its classic games that put players right in the action without needing to master a manual.

BattleTanx, Captain Quazar, Cyclone Studios, Killing Time, Prism, Requiem: Avenging Angel, Uprising, and their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of James Alan Cook in the U.S. and other countries. All rights reserved.

News Link:
http://retroism.com/join-die-classic-cyclone-studios3do-uprising-games-go-digital/

 

[Astral Rag]

"Requiem: Avenging Angel"

Not the greatest FPS but it was good-looking, very atmospheric and pretty original. It also really hates modern OS so I'm actually entertaining the thought of buying their remake, if they manage to get it right that is. inb4 they put it on sale for €19.99.


"Killing Time" is a total garbage though, just look at it:

 

[Black]

I just want Mechwarrior and Commander games compatible with new OSs and hardware, is it too much to ask for?

 

[Don Peste]

I remember desperetely searching for a fix for Requiem to play it on Windows 7. I found this Brazilian or Portuguese "Requiem Avenging Loader XP 2010.rar" and it worked. I don't know if it's easy to find nowadays, so if anyone wants it...

 

[tormund]

Looks like those releases will be GOG exclusives, so it is possible that GOG people did some actual work in getting them to run on modern systems.
I wanted to try Requiem for some time, so here's hoping that they actually fixed it.

 

[Infinitron]

Recent interview with Night Dive's Stephen Kick: http://shaneplays.com/system-shock-...e-night-dive-studios-on-fragments-of-silicon/

Turok & Turok 2

You’re not Barney, but you’ll do. Revenge for the 90s!

How is Turok doing? Very well, response is overwhelmingly good. There is a passionate fan base that is thrilled to see Turok back.

Night Dive is currently underway on Turok 2 and that has its own challenges, such as multiplayer. Response for Turok has allowedTurok 2.

There was a wishlist of things that the devs wanted to do on Turokthat they couldn’t do that they hope to include in Turok 2, including:

• Updating 3D models
• Providing new content

There might possibly be new content or expansions for Turok 1. This idea is up in the air but is being discussed internally.

New content for old games is big right now (ala Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear) and Stephen discusses how they have level editors for the Turok games and they are in a position to create new content.

He mentions System Shock Remastered and says what’s to keep us from adding a new level to Citadel Station? What if after System Shock Remastered they released an expansion?

Night Dive has brought on some very specific personnel to updateTurok 2 to the modern age. While not exactly a challenge, one of the things they are focused on is multiplayer mode. They may add different types of multiplayer, but the original Turok 2 multiplayer modes will be there.

Turok 2 is a lot bigger than Turok 1 so they are not ready to discuss a release date. They are working on it, it will come out when it’s ready but don’t look for anything in the near future. Stephen says they knew it was bigger, but now they really know it now that they are in development.

One thing that helps is that they were fortunate to receive the original source code for both Turok games.

Turok on Xbox One

There is discussion on Twitter that the Turok games are coming out on Xbox One. Stephen declined to comment beyond what is already on Twitter.

Turok Rage Wars, Turok 3, Turok 2008?

Night Dive has had discussions about Turok Rage Wars and Turok 3but they are not scheduled to work on any of these at the moment. However the current response they are getting with Turok games suggests it would be in their best interest to do so.

They have been approached about Turok 2008 and it’s possible but there is nothing to discuss or announce.

Powerslave

No new news on Powerslave since Stephen’s last appearance on the show.

Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time

The status on Titanic: Adventure of out Time is pretty the same as last time Stephen was on Fragments of Silicon. It’s a difficult project and there are some issues, however it is being tinkered with and Night Dive does want to release it. With everything else going on right nowTitanic is on the back burner.

Acclaim Games

Night Dive previously shared they were looking at 3 Acclaim games called Forsaken, D and Machines Wired for War.

Stephen said those games are still “in their wheelhouse” but there are no new updates he can mention at this time.

They do plan on doing something with them at some point.

When asked if they have been trying to pursue any other Acclaim titles, Stephen asked if Fragments of Silicon had games they wanted to see.

Adam mentioned Extreme-G and that a lot of Acclaim titles are with a company called Throwback Entertainment.

Stephen says they have talked with Throwback before. They were talking about Re-Volt but it was sold to a Korean company.

Retroism

Night Dive is currently not doing anything with Retroism. Stephen is sure there will be something in the future but currently no active projects.

Capstone Games

When asked about the Capstone Games first person shooters that had been mentioned previously, Stephen said they had talked to the rights holders but there was a question of whether their IP ownership was absolute.

Stephen loves those games and would love to see them come back but the cost involved in having lawyers verify IP ownership precludes it for now. It may still happen in the future if they end up with “money to burn”.

Along these lines, Stephen half jokingly said if someone like Notch or Bill Gates wants to kick in a buck for game preservation he would be welcome to that.

Game preservation is very important to Stephen and it drives him beyond just running a successful business. He wishes they had unlimited funds so Night Dive could do everything people ask them to do and then some.

Stephen said that recently Night Dive was characterized as the Criterion Collection of video games and that made him feel good.

This November will be Night Dive’s 4th year in business and there were people who said you can’t do what you’re doing but he is very happy with how things have gone.

Any Other Acquisitions?
Stephen has some stuff he has been pursuing for a very long time.

Games on his wish list, decide on your own what this means:

• Blade Runner
• Discworld games
• Doom 64

So many games. They receive 3-5 emails a week requesting games and it goes in an Excel file for the never ending quest.

Atari

Adam of FOS says that Atari is the most corporate interview they have ever had on the show.

Stephen says that “Atari is a strange beast” and that even though Night Dive had nothing to do with it, you can thank them that Atari released Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of Ice.

He said that when a major corporate entity has an IP in their closet but it’s not released, they say it’s worth X amount of dollars. But once it comes out, it is worth what the retail price is. So sometimes for the larger companies it’s a smarter business move to keep them tucked away so they can assign whatever business value to the property they want.

Atari has exploited their catalog to the point where they are in an interesting position because they don’t have a lot of IP of value in their back catalog now.

The ways that Atari is supporting (or not) their games is going to lead to a negative perception of certain old games. Blood 1, for example, has shoddy DOSBox emulation and no one is providing upkeep for Blood 1 and Blood 2 when newer versions or Windows come out so they become unplayable. So these games are not receiving the support they deserve in relation to what they contributed to gaming.

LucasArts / Disney

Stephen also discussed the need for games like LucasArts to receive a lot of love. It’s more than just getting an older game out there just once in a somewhat playable version for modern audiences.

Stephen crashed a Disney party at E3 to talk to them about LucasArts games and showed his deep understanding and love of the games and industry and even presented things he would do for free to help get the games out there in a quality manner.

He is disappointed with how they finally came out and laments Disney’s decisions and how some corporations are treating their properties.

Adam and Stephen discuss how certain games like LucasArts have a pedigree to the point where they deserve to have quality, modern playable versions.

Stephen obviously has a passion for these games beyond just the business aspect, you can hear it in his voice.

Wrapping Up
There’s some other discussion such as scouring the Internet for old games in original boxes and etc., and discussion and lamenting among everyone that despite best efforts some games are just going to die. It’s put forward by Adam that sometimes piracy is the only way to save games, and Adam will choose piracy over oblivion. Adam hopes we get better preservation so piracy isn’t necessary.

But don’t be sad. There’s a lot of good stuff happening as well, thanks in no small part to folks like Night Dive Studios and theFragments of Silicon crew.

 

[grudgebringer]

So, no news on Powerslave release date? A year has passed since initial announcement.

 

[LESS T_T]

From Reddit AMA with Stephen Kick of NDS: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4pbc01/iama_founder_of_night_dive_studios_stephen_kick/

What was the hardest game you ever encountered to get running in modern hardware?

Like which title gave you the hardest time? Where there any that you ran into that were just totally "nope" when it came to running on modern setups?

Currently the hardest game to get running is The Residents' Bad Day on the Midway. We tracked down the rights, even spoke with The Residents! Unfortunately, the game requires Windows 3.1 to run - anything that is Win 3.1 is out of our realm of expertise. We were able to speak with the programmer in an attempt to secure the source code - but in a bad stroke of luck had just purged the contents of his storage locker which contained the code.

Games like Dark Seed II can run on modern machines but require a copy of 3.1 in the DosBox package.

Since Win 3.1 is not open source we can't legally distribute it.

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is currently giving us fits!

What license did you have the hardest time getting? Which was the easiest? Which game that you haven't yet gotten would you like to?

Turok was a pretty difficult title to secure. It took the most amount of time to work out deal terms but being one of my favorite games I was willing to go the distance.

Another good one is Killing Time - we thought we had the rights, but it turns out another party owned them leaving us empty handed. We lost a considerable amount of money on that deal that still stings. I'd love to get that sorted out one day, we have the source code and had plans to release a remastered version.

One game (out of many) that we haven't secured is Blade Runner. I've made a ton of progress but with the new movie being announced it's been increasingly difficult. It took MONTHS just to track down a member of the Blade Runner Partnership and I know almost every original team member from Westwood by name.

Turok 2 enhanced when?

We're making great progress but that's all I can say!

Does Night Dive try to re-release the most popular and the highest rated games?

I'd say there is a healthy mix between releasing popular, highly rated games and those who may not share the same distinction. I do my best to give every game a chance, especially if it's available. Just being able to secure the rights to a game that isn't well known is a victory in itself and can yield surprising results.

Some games hold a special place in my heart, like Timelapse which is a game I'm guessing many people haven't played. It doesn't sell well but I had to add it to our archive.

How long does it take, on average, to restore a game to run on current hardware?

Are there any games that it would have been easier to just rewrite from scratch than to restore it?

How much help do you usually get from the original creators?

There are some games we're able to package using DosBox or ScummVM - it takes about a week to wrap them up and test on our machines and port to OSX and Linux when possible. If we go through a remastering process like we've done with Strife: Veterans Edition or Noctropolis it can take 6 months or more.

Turok is pretty much rewritten from scratch! We use a proprietary in-house engine that houses the content ripped from the original game. To get the results we were looking for this was our only option. Fortunately, one of the original creators wrote us an email and attached the source code! This sped things up considerably.

We were provided the source code to Noctropolis by the original designer who also helped us translate the assembly language code into, I believe was C++? He had all the original source files which is rare to come by,

What made you guys want to remake Turok?

When I was a kid my parents didn't allow consoles in the house. Of course all my friends had N64 and Turok which was the most impressive game I think we all experienced back then. When I found out Turok was released for PC I went to my local Babbages and Electronics Boutique, but as I've come to find, the big box release was very rare. However, a copy of Turok came bundled with one of the first Voodoo 3Dfx graphics cards. I must have mowed 20 lawns, but it was worth it. I spent all my money on a 2MB 3D accelerator. My jaw hit the floor the first time I saw real time 3D on a computer and I became a fan for life.

How did Night Dive Studios come to acquire the licensing rights to Turok Dinosaur Hunter, from Disney and Touchstone?

I can't get into the specifics of this question - sorry!

Does Night Dive Studios own the rights to Turok in video games, or are you guys being allowed to make it with the approval of Disney and Touchstone?

We have licensed the rights to re-release the classic Turok titles, but we don't own the rights to the franchise.

Will your company be remastering the sequels?

It's my hope that we get the opportunity to work on Turok 3, Rage Wars and Evolution but right now we're focused on Turok 2.

Will your company make an original Turok game?

We would love to!

Video game preservation is a topic that concerns me. We have a lot of trouble with it today, but what about 50 or even 100 years from now?

We can listen to/look at music/paintings from centuries ago, but video games are different.

Do you keep source code for your remasters? Or source code that was provided by the developers?

Steam versions may run for next 15 years for sure, but what about something like 30-50 years into the future? You should have a well backed up database of source codes for all your games for very distant future.

You're definitely not alone! We've been contacted by David Gibson at the Library of Congress who has started an initiative to track down and collect code, art, and anything else in hopes of preserving it. Lost source code is one of the things that genuinely depress me and we're currently evaluating the idea of releasing the code we've discovered and restored to anyone who wants to store it or modify it.

We've heard stories about the fate of Shock 2's code - apparently someone found a dreamcast disc in a trash bag that contained the code, but what became of that is anyone's guess.

If you want a little bit more information about the Library of Congress and where they currently stand with their collection/preservation philosophy feel free to check out this interview David Gibson recently did with David Wolinsky for his Don’t Die oral history project

http://www.nodontdie.com/dave-gibson/

Here is another great resource:

https://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreser...disc-preservation-at-the-library-of-congress/

Any news on No One Lives Forever?

No, sorry - Cate makes a very small cameo appearance in our Kickstarter video though! See if you can spot her

Any idea if Chasm: The Rift will ever be re-released?

I know the rights holder and as it's a personal favorite of mine I'd love to re-release it. It's definitely in my backlog, but no guarantee that it'll happen.

If you had $50 billion, would you buy the Blood rights from Atari?

For $50b I'd buy ALL the rights :D

Is there any plan to do a source-code release of any of the games you've re-released?

We have released the source to Strife: Veteran Edition and we are planning on releasing more code in the future. Good luck with your dissertation, hope this helps!

What other obscure PC (or even console) games from that time period do you want to remaster and rerelease?

I would love to release Drowned God, The Dark Eye, Obsidian, The Space Bar...as for console games...Body Harvest!!

Are you working on looking into the revival of "Stay Tooned!" Published by Sierra Entertainment and Developed by Funnybone interactive?

I've spoken with the developers and last time I heard from them they were looking for the source. Because the game relied heavily on...I think it was either Macromedia or Quicktime the work involved to port it to newer operating systems would be intense.

I loved this game growing up, definitely a weird title but tons of fun. For the uninitiated, here is a song from the game. There is a mini game where you shave a cat layer by layer, all the way to the bone and even a parody of Mortal Kombat!

Hello, Stephen. Have you looked into some of these oldies. 1. Psygnosis PC titles? I'm talking about games like Drakan: Order of the Flame, Bloodwych and Discworld games. 2. Dune games? 3. The Neverhood?

And if you are up for console titles i'll add Eternal Darkness by Denis Dyack.

Drakan: Order of the Flame is definitely high on the list! Discworld is a bit tricky and something we've been working on for a long time. Spoke with Brian Herbert and there is currently no interest in reviving the Dune games. The Neverhood rights are split up between EA and Doug TenNapel - it's doubtful anything will come of that, but thankfully we have the spiritual successor Armikrog!

Eternal Darkness is one of my favorites! I'd love to have a PC release of that though I believe Nintendo owns the Trademark.

Another title I'd like to see is Metal Fatigue!

Any talk of reviving the Backyard Sports games?

The Humongous rights were split up after they were purchased from Atari. The Adventure games went to Tommo and the Backyard Sports games went to a company called Epic Gear. I bet it wouldn't take too much work to get the originals back out there! 1st pick Pablo Sanchez!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

So...for preservation purposes, every game that requires Windows to run is shit out of luck because the OS can't be shipped along with the game?

This is something I should have realized years ago, but...damn, that's gonna be painful down the line.

 

[Infinitron]

So...for preservation purposes, every game that requires Windows to run is shit out of luck because the OS can't be shipped along with the game?

This is something I should have realized years ago, but...damn, that's gonna be painful down the line.

What are you talking about - a future where Windows backward compatibility for, say, Win95/Win98 games completely breaks? I'm not sure that's ever going to happen, but even if it does, those games are already available on digital distribution. I don't think they're going to take them away.

Actually, even now, there are games available for sale on Steam that don't work on Windows 7, but did work on XP.

 

[Astral Rag]

I wonder about the legality of this IMO great project: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_win3_games
MS doesn't seem to mind in this case. Maybe it's because money isn't changing hands?

 

[tormund]

It seems like they never announce any concrete news in any recent interview. They are always "looking into" same games, are "excited" about possibility of rereleasing others, but it doesn't seem like they are going forward with any of that. I take it that they will be fully focused on System Shock remake and Turok remasters in the foreseeable future, rather than on re releases...

 

[Astral Rag]

BTW, The Dark Eye and Bad Day work perfectly fine on Windows Virtual PC + Win 98SE.

Fun fact: MS(!) Virtual PC can't be installed on MS Windows 10, at least not without jumping through hoops, thanks MS.

I'm sure both games will run just fine on VirtualBox too.

 

[Infinitron]

It seems like they never announce any concrete news in any recent interview. They are always "looking into" same games, are "excited" about possibility of rereleasing others, but it doesn't seem like they are going forward with any of that. I take it that they will be fully focused on System Shock remake and Turok remasters in the foreseeable future, rather than on re releases...

I think GOG have kind of usurped their position as old IP rescuers. Many of the recent old game rereleases are published by GOG itself.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

What are you talking about - a future where Windows backward compatibility for, say, Win95/Win98 games completely breaks? I'm not sure that's ever going to happen, but even if it does, those games are already available on digital distribution. I don't think they're going to take them away.

Actually, even now, there are games available for sale on Steam that don't work on Windows 7, but did work on XP.

This is probably a case of severe optimism vs severe pessimism, with the answer somewhere in the middle. The only certain thing about the future is that it's uncertain.

MS holds all the cards, it's totally up to them what happens with games that are dependant upon Windows. And I'm talking about ALL Windows versions, and I'm looking several decades down the road, not just the next couple of years.

MS-DOS was simple enough that it could be reverse-engineered, currently Windows needs to be tricked with a simulated environment to get a number of early/mid-90s titles up and running. And while MS is being forgiving and offering support for backward compatibility right now...how long will that last? Actually...reading Astral Rag's post, that time may already be up.