Video Games
Part of my gig at GameTap was working on the game licensing and original game development strategy. I had the pleasure of working with a bunch of cool folks and helping along some ground breaking games. My role on all these titles was, at a minimum, the exec in charge at GameTap.
Uru was originally an MMO title in development by Cyan Worlds, creators of Myst, for Ubisoft. Ubi had second thoughts though, and the game was released as a single player title. Big fan disappointment and an underground effort to keep the dream alive via open source server code that re-created the beta MMO experience.
Years pass and I had the opportunity to green light the re-birth of the game the way Rand Miller, the creator, originally intended. My influence was to push the content releases into an episodic format, so that gameplay updates were released on a regular schedule.
Sadly, even the second time around, we couldn’t quite make it work and the world was shut down a second time. The sordid history can be found here.
Sam & Max are a sociopathic detective duo of dog and rabbity-thing created by Steve Purcell. As a comic, it had a huge underground following. As an animated series, a less hardcore, but stil dedicated following. As a LucasArts adventure game called Sam & Max Hit the Road, well, they achieved legendary status.
After LucasArts abandoned their plans for a sequel, Tell Tale Games picked up the franchise. They were already working in episodic formats, though not quite the way I needed content delivered, and the prospect of bringing back S&M in episodic format was too alluring to pass up. So GameTap funded development and was co-publisher of two seasons of the game. I think I had an Exec Producer credit or something, but my real contribution was to drive the idea of a monthly release with a pre-published schedule.
Katamari Damacy meets American McGee’s Alice in 24, half hour installments. A bold experiment in art, gameplay, and delivery method. And to my mind, a hugely addictive game. I had some small influence on gameplay (very small) but established some of the tenants of delivery, including releasing the game in three mini-seasons and releasing each game for free for 24 hours to promote interest and site traffic. Working with American was a huge plus.
One of the most interesting things I got to work on wasn’t a specific game, it was a way to deliver games, episodically, like a tv show. I came up with some rules, each episode is of relatively short duration, each episode stands alone but is part of a larger whole, and episodic games had to be delivered on a published schedule. Seems obvious, but no “episodic” games followed these rules prior to Sam & Max Season 1.
