Everyone knows that Ivatani inspired the unfinished piece of pizza to create a pac-mana Ivatani. And what was inspired, for example, the developer Devil May Cry? Who is Laura Cruise and when stepped step by step Diablo ? Did Super Mario 128 ever existed? What if Willa Wright had not burned the house? Gamemany found out where they came from and how the most famous game series evolved.
Step -by -step Diablo
Seeing the phrase “step by step Diablo”, you probably thought that we are talking about the bad episode of the “twilight zone” or the comic book of the Marvel publishing house about the negative universe, where everything is like ours, only on the contrary. And in vain.
In 1994 studio Condor , Founded by Max and Erich Sheffras and David Brevik, she began work on the new RPG – Diablo. The concept of the game was born at Brevik back at school, and received development when he became interested in a text role playing in college Angband – improved version of another text role -playing game Moria. On the motives of Angband, about sixty games were already made, a dozen of which is still popular and all of them are honest Rogue Clons (a variety of role-playing games, in which a lonely text hero, hunting for text artifacts, kills a text balroe in the text. cave). In the hands of friends there was just such a clone – for DOS, step -by -step and single -user, with randomly generated dungeons. The graphics, however, was: initially the developers planned to sculpt all the monsters from plasticine, and then digitize. When the time has come to look for the publisher, friends went around a dozen companies, but they were denied everywhere. Finally, Diablo was brought Blizzard , which offered Condor $ 300 thousand. Brevik and Shefer agreed. They hoped for a large amount, but after numerous failures of the Rada were such a turn of events.
The publisher insisted on changing the operating system, but different rumors go about the alteration of the mechanics of the game. Someone says that one of the Blizzard employees proposed to translate Diablo in real time; Someone claims that this was a completely stranger who did not work in the company and at all was not related to the project. Finally, in an interview with Gamespot.COM SCHERA said that Blizzard generally forced the Condor to add real time, and the developers themselves were denied until the last, citing the fact that the alteration would take many months and fly into a penny.
Alteration took three hours. It was worth the chefa and the bravik to play in Diablo in real time, all the questions were removed. Of the four working alpha verses Diablo Stephagova, only the first, dating from approximately May 1996 (you can see the screenshots on the site www.Diablo-Evolution.Com ). All models of the characters look the same (as a warrior), there are no lighting effects, and blue skeletons are visible through the walls of the dungeon – monsters not included in the final version of the game called Ice Stalker. But the main thing is that the interface is clearly sharpened for step -by -step battles, characteristic squares for moving the character and three -dimensional frames for allocating enemies copied by https://bronze-gb-casino.co.uk/ Brevik and Erich Schaefer from their favorite game UFO: Enemy Unknown. These frames, by the way, can still be found in Diablo MPQ files.
Resident Evil and Devil May Cry
On the site P Lay S TATION M Useum.Org In the section "Gaming Graveyard), you can learn a lot of interesting things about failed games Capcom. So, after the success of the first series Resident Evil In 1996, the company was going to release a sequel. In January 1998, it really went out Resident Evil 2 , but it was significantly different from the original prototype, today better known as Resident Evil 1.5 or Resident Evil 2 Prototype.
In addition to Leon Kennedy in a much more stupid uniform, Elsa Walker, a nineteen -year -old blonde in a motorcycle overalls, lit up in the prototype. In RE2, of course, they changed it to Claire Redfield Claire. Well, the police station in the prototype was boring: continuous concrete, the same office premises, gratings and fans (in RE2 the architecture of the site became much more diverse). The creator of the Sinji series Mikami, just recently (at that time) increased from designers to producers, remained very dissatisfied with the development of the project and, when the game was already ready by 80%, ordered to redraw everything again. Now from re 1.5 There were only a dozen pictures that Capcom showed the press on the Tokyo Game Show 1996, and the videos that can be viewed at YouTube , Having typed in the search bar "Resident Evil 1.5 "or" Biohazard 1.5 ".
In 1998, having finished the Resident Evil 2, Capcom began work on the next game in the series – they were going to release it on the new PlayStation 2 console, and the development was entrusted to the director of the Hideki Kamiy and his Team Little Devil team. Kamia wanted the whole game to take place in a huge castle, and even go to Spain to inspect local fortresses. But the prototype was rejected: there was too much action in it for the game-countryer, and the series moved to the next generation platforms in a different way, through Resident Evil: Code Veronica.
However, it was a pity to part with the idea of the Kamiy Castle Castle. Just at this time he was testing Onimusha: Warlords – The first series of Franchise Onimusha, whose history is also far from cloudless (the original game was developed for the first PlayStation and was half completed when the development was suspended and the game was transplanted to PS2). Kamia found an interesting bug in Onimusha: continuously striking with a sword, enemies could be juggled in the air. The course of the developer's thought from here to the final version Devil May Cry It is easy to trace ..
Gladiators in The Elder Scrolls
It sounds very strange, but The Elder Scrolls: Arena its existence began not as a role -playing game, but as a simulator of gladiatorial battles. In the early 90s, Bethesda SoftWorks specialized mainly in sports games, and its new project was just called Arena. The gladiators team was sent on a trip to the empire, along the way she fought in stadiums, and in the end she got to the capital and earned the championship title.
But as the project develops, the developers (young Todd Howard and Ted Peterson) were increasingly fond of sidestics, which the gladiators performed along the road, and less and less – the actual tournament system. As a result, they first decided to simulate not only the arenas, but also the whole city, then – also the dungeons outside the cities, then they abandoned the idea of a traveling team (they decided that it was poorly knitted with the first -person view) … As a result, from the original gladiatorial simulator Only the word Arena remained in The Elder Scrolls, which appeared in all advertising materials and which was too late to remove from the name of the game in the 94th.
In search of Super Mario 128
In the second half of the 90s, the grandson confrontation of Nintendo and Sega and their characters-dalismans Mario and Sonica was nearing the end.
In 1996 he went out (and enjoyed a crushing success) Super Mario 64 -And already in January 1997, the creator of Super Mario Brothers Siger Miyamoto told Nintendo Power that the development is a sequel, which may be called Super Mario 128. Since then, at least two full -fledged sequel Super Mario 64 has come out – Mario Sunshine On GameCube and Mario Galaxy on WII, – but, according to Miyamoto, not one of them is Mario 128!
The only video of the game was shown in August 2000 at the Spaceworld exhibition, at that time regularly arranged by Nintendo in Tokyo and Kyoto. Actually, it was not even a demo version of the game, but a demonstration of the technical capabilities of the new GameCube console. You can see the video at YouTube by the keywords of “Super Mario 128 Demo”: first, the image of a giant flat mario laid out of many boxes is shown, then from each box it crawls out through a small three -dimensional mario, there are more and more (demonstrated the possibilities of rendering) while the rendering) The total number of plumbers on the screen does not reach one hundred and twenty -eight. One hundred twenty -eight mario busily roll each other into the abyss (the capabilities of the physical engine are shown), then Miyamoto shows tricks with lighting and morphing, begins to shake in every possible way and rotate a giant plate on which all these men are … The material would be enough for a dozen smart and interesting games – and this is not counting the last chord when the “plate” turns into a disc and fits into a giant GameCube.
As a result, in July 2002, Super Mario Sunshine was published: Miyamoto explained that Nintendo was separately engaged in the development of a game based on the Mario 128 demo version and separately experiments that were ultimately taken by Super Mario Sunshine – a game about Mario with hydraulic water. In December 2002, Miyamoto again confirmed the development of Mario 128 by the Japanese Japanese magazine Weekly Playboy; On E3 2003, the game was not shown allegedly because it was “too innovative” and at Nintendo was afraid that they would steal ideas; In 2004, everything overshadowed the development announcement The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess ; In 2005, the president of the American branch of Nintendo Reginald Fiz-Emi said that he saw “fragments of the game” ..
In 2006, Nintendo WII was declared, and Miyamoto said that the game Mario 128 played a crucial role in the formation of the concept of a new console. And when they announced Super Mario Galaxy, he said that this is an independent project from the creators Donkey Kong Jungle Beat And there is nothing to do with the elusive Super Mario 128, for ten years now in development, it has no.
The final of the story is unexpected. In 2007, Miyamoto officially stated the GDC that Mario 128 never went beyond the technical demo version for GameCube. But the concept of managing many three -dimensional characters pushed Miyamoto to develop Pikmin (Now it is a separate series on GameCube and WII), the idea of spherical levels was used in Super Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess, and physics found application in Metroid Prime.
Laura Kruz and Lara Croft
When in early 1993 a British company Core Design She began the development of a new three-dimensional action game, she had neither a name nor a hero (not even more than a heroine). Over time, the name Tomb Raider – We decided to make a game clone "Indiana Jones". But they did not have time to confirm the concept, like the protagonist, a gloomy man with a whip, rejected: the main designer and animator Toby Garda noticed that in the Saturn in the Sega Saturn Virtua Fighter His colleagues play for female fighters, not male. Gard thought that the heroine would look more appropriate in the game, where the emphasis is not on battles and shootings, but on a leisurely study of levels and solving puzzles – this is how a person of South American blood named Laura Cruz was born. The British surname "Croft" was hastily pulled out of the telephone book so as not to scare away compatriots, and the name "Lara" was chosen as an impressive American audience.
In the original, the developers imagined Lara as a cold -blooded hunter for their heads, all other types of clothes preferred camouflage … But in the process they came to the image of a sophisticated British millionaire, Duchess of Abbingdon, leading a socially active lifestyle. And it’s good – in camouflage, Croft would not be allowed either in The Sunday Telegraph, nor on the cover of The Face magazine, and Angelina Jolie probably would not have become.
The invasion of Sonikov
Sonic3. JPEG And Knuckles. JPEG ,- The ill -fated Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles – still the best games (game?) in the history of the company.
In the nineties, SEGA managed to make many controversial solutions – from the release of additional blocks to the Sega Genesis console (Sega CD and Sega 32X) until the attempt to transfer Sonic into three measurements.
In 1993, Eugi Naka, one of the creators of the famous hedgehog, and his Sonic Team worked on a boldly conceived, unprecedentedly long and complex platformer under the working name Sonic 3 , But they did not have time to pass it on time, by February 94th. Moreover, the production of cartridges, which the whole giant game would have climbed into the entire company would cost the company too much. As a result, the project decided to divide into two parts: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 And Sonic & Knuckles.
Love Sega for all sorts of canopies on the console led to the invention of completely crazy technology. To the cartridge with Sonic & Knuckles could be inserted with a cartridge with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (or even Sonic the Hedgehog 2) and play an earlier version of Sonic – for the Red Echidna Nakls. In such an intricate way, the developers hoped to appease the audience, who actually bought half the game.
The last game about Sonic for the Genesis console was to be a certain Sonic Crackers. Officially, she never went beyond the stage of beta version collected from several hastily riveted levels, but many prototype materials were included in Knuckles ’Chaotix , released on Sega 32x.
In the two thousandths appeared ROM’S Sonic Crackers: there Sonic and the Miles fox are connected by an elastic elastic band – if one of the heroes falls from the platform, the other can pull it back. In addition, pulling the elastic band, a partner can be launched from a slingshot to hard -to -use areas. You can look at Sonic Crackers with your own eyes: just get a Genesis emulator and download ROM, say, from here: http: // info.Sonicretro.Org/Sonic_crackers.
Command & Conquer Fantasy
Fifteen years ago, Westwood Studios almost did Command & Conquer And Dune 2 In fantasy-setting. It was quite logical because the barbarians and wizards were much closer Westwood Studios , than science fiction: the career of the studio began with Eye of the Beholder , Computer adaptation of the Dungeons & Rabbed Role -Rray Game & Dragons, then there were quests Legend of Kyrandia And role -playing games Lands of Lore. Even in the original Dune 2 prototype, there was a place for sorcerers and medieval castles – a license for the books of Frank Herbert appeared later, at the insistence of the publisher Virgin Interactive.
In the case of Command & Conquer (pay attention to what a neutral and universal name) “helped” the burdened war in Iraq: the founder of Westwood Brett Spirri decided that the fighting in a parallel universe was an excellent setting. Healthy futurism leaked to the game from the books of the same Herbert, and Tiberium was added almost by accident: the idea was taken from the film The Monolith Monsters (1957), which talked about the meteorite with predatory alien crystals.
Halo
Not many remember that Halo It began as a real time strategy for PC and Mac: Bungie Studios They released a series Myth , They were very fond of the RTS genre and did, in fact, myth in a science fiction performance. On familiar hills, men fussed in armor, rode tanks and bugges ..
In the 99th, the early builds were shown to journalists on E3-in the atmosphere of strict secrecy, forcing to sign a non-disclosure paper-and already on the next E3 they rolled out a video in which Halo turned into a third-person shooter (look for YouTube at the request of “Halo E3 2000 Trailer "). Earthly soldiers there are attacking multi -level aliens dungeons, ambushed, and at the end a master of chief appears and pierces the enemy with a plasma sword. Interestingly, in the demo there were large herbivorous dinosaurs and small tyrannosauries, which were crushed by the brave guys in the jeep. Subsequently, the whole fauna was removed so that she "did not distract from the fight against alien invaders".
And in June 2000, Microsoft bought Bungie Studios, and Halo became an exclusive game for Xbox-the developers rewrote the entire engine, changed the graphic style a little and turned it into a first-person shooter with an emphasis on multiplayer.
About sims and houses
In 1991, on densely populated hills near the city of Auckland, California, there was a fire: 25 people were killed, 3,800 buildings burned down, an area of six square kilometers suffered from fire. Among others, the house of Will Wright, the founder and chief designer of Maxis, known for his SIM games about everything in the world, burned down to the ground. Having recovered after what happened, Wright took up the construction of a new house, and during the fuss with the wallpaper, of course, it occurred to him to make a game about the construction of houses (this is related to Wright with Sieger Miyamoto, who could not calmly walk with the dog, without coming up with Nintendogs, Go to the gym without coming up with WII FIT, and pick up a musical instrument without inventing Wii Music).
But the concept of the virtual puppet house was still far away: Wright wanted to make a much more hardcore housebuilding simulator with an awesome name Home Tactics: The Experimental Domestic Simulator , Something like Simcity at an individual household level. Wright at that time read many serious manuals on architecture and construction of houses, and once accidentally noticed that professional computer programs for architecture and design diverge annually. Wright realized that architects are unlikely to design houses in so much. Most likely, people just need a builder simulator ..
By 1993, the Sims prototype was ready, and it was shown the focal group Maxis along with other games. Wright’s new game turned out to be the only one that the focal group rejected unanimously. But Wright did not abandon the development.
For a long time the first and only object in the game was the toilet. Walls, road coverage, land – and toilet. Interactive. Wright chose him because “the toilet is an interesting object, you can interact with it differently: wash, close, open, use it for its intended purpose …”.
We will not be able to step on the genesis of the ideas of The Sims: there was no design document, Wright did not conduct diaries. But when in 1995 Electronic Arts Corporation invited Wright to continue the development for EA, the game was already called Sim Doll House. Wright connected his own architectural and design knowledge with ideas Simant , Not at home came to the fore, but people in them, the focus of the game shifted from construction to socialization. In 1997, the name of the game was changed from the next worker (Project X) to The Sims – the so -called residents of Simcity virtual megacities, the nameless ants, whom Wright made the main characters of the new game in a fit of their usual genius.
Eleven years old with Prey
None of the PC or consoles of games underwent such a number of painful transformations as the good old Prey , Whose name along with Duke Nukem Forever Surely familiar to every player as a historical joke. The fact that the game nevertheless released in 2006 is little known and practically does not apply to business.
In 1995, Prey was one of the shooters on the inner engine 3D Realms. The first to take up the project was Tom Hall, dismissed ID Software in 1993 and just finished producing Rise of the Triad. All forces were thrown to create an engine, only a common plot canvas was required from the Hall: the heroes abducted by aliens, make cyborg and work out various combat tactics on the poor fellow. Hall worked on the game for a year, but when the projects were about to connect artists and designers of levels to the project, I left Ion Storm with former colleague John Romero.
In October 1996, in an official press release, it was announced that the developers' team would lead Paul Sourity, who had previously worked on Mechwarrior 3 and who taught in college the foundations of literary creativity and three -dimensional animation. The Hollow idea of abduction by the aliens was preserved, but they came up with a huge living ship inhabited by different races, and the main character was made by an Indian named a bold claw.
The technology of portals and the destroyed environment appeared, the new engine was to be used in Duke Nukem 5 (which they planned to release immediately after Duke Nukem Forever). In 1997 and 1998, the buildings showed the game to journalists behind closed doors on E3 (the 1998 version can be viewed on YouTube by recruiting Prey E3 1998 Infinite MHZ Interview.
The second version of Prey was stalled for technical reasons (the chief engineer William Skarboro blames the portals in everything), the Jokery team broke up. In November 1998, 3D Realms took to help the former Ion Storm programmer Corin Yu (who worked, in particular, on Anachronox ). Yu was engaged exclusively by the engine, without touching the plot part, and in the year not a single official press release or screenshot appeared. In 1999, the project was frozen, but not officially canceled, which was especially emphasized in the press release. From 2001 to 2005, the game was almost not heard about the game, and only on April 26, 2005 it was officially announced that the development of Prey on the engine ID Tech 4 (and “based on previous designs”) is engaged in Human Head Studios. In a form familiar to us, the game was released on July 11, 2006, after eleven years of development.
