#amazing studio

[retrocgads]

UK 1998

[retrocgads]

USA 1996

[retrocgads]

USA 1996

[finsterhund]

Heart of Darkness – Amazing Studios Cinematic Platfomer - Halt and Catch Fire

Es läuft nicht alles rosig in der Videospiele-Industrie. Viele Träume des großen Durchbruchs zerplatzen. Manchmal sogar schon beim ersten Versuch. Den einen haut ein Publisher übers Ohr. Den nächsten zerreißen die Kritiken der Magazine. Oder…

Rejoice! The most accurate and unbiased retrospective about the development of Heart of Darkness just dropped!

Of course it’s in German lol. What else where you expecting?

But even google translate you can get a good read and they have a video where the auto translated captions to my understanding are fairly accurate.

I like how they didn’t include inaccurate information that some of the sources they used perpetuated. It shows they actually had brains and didn’t just blindly copypaste everything and change up the wording so it sounded original unlike most youtube content. It’s iffy (because there sadly is a language barrier for me lol) but I’ll allow them saying the game studio side of Amazing was “closed/shut down(???)” because they explicitly mention that Fred lead the studio in another direction.

video is here

[finsterhund]

The internet is a good place, actually

[finsterhund]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that's the official Amazing Digital Studios (previously "Amazing Studio," you might have heard of them) twitter.

Posting a video to a fan made 3D model of Andy. This is the first time a remake has been suggested by the actual creators. It's been brought up to them but always shot down as being too difficult for the tiny separated teams or too expensive.

Oh please oh please.

[beatnikau]

Heart of Darkness 15/03/2016 Playstation One

Unfortunately my capture card doesn’t work with PS1 resolutions, so photos from my phone will have to do :(

This is one of those games I loved as a kid but never managed to finish. The great thing is that, like playing through Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles, I’ve gained a whole new appreciation for this game by coming back and playing it again. Although the resolution hasn’t done this game any favours on a 1080p screen, I could still appreciate how good the pre-rendered environments art was.

One thing I didn’t realise when I first played this is how short it was and I never realised just how close to the end I was. It didn’t feel too short though and it was a nice challenge the whole way through. Amazing Studio did an incredible job of presenting new challenges with a great blend of cinematic storytelling, solid platforming and puzzles that always brought a smile to my face when I realised how they needed to be completed.

My favourite, which I still remember 3 months after finishing it, is the puzzle in the third picture. At this point you’d been introduced to the slugs that tunnel through the walls and will try and eat you while you climb unless you shoot them (which is hard to pull off because they’re so fast). You’re also familiar with the guy at the bottom, who splits into two blobs after taking a few shots which will grow into copies of the same enemy if they’re not defeated quick enough in blob form. The reason this challenge is so genius is the usual method of slowly taking out the slugs before climbing across wouldn’t work because there was too many of them and they were faster than normal. So how can you pass? Next I tried defeating the big guy at the bottom but after botching this once I saw the slugs would eat the copies if they spawned. Then it all clicked. You had to create a bunch of copies of the big guy and then quickly climb past the slugs as they spend their time collecting the copies.

From a gameplay perspective, I think this is the best example of why this game is so great. It provides the knowledge you need to progress and then presents creative new scenarios that push the player to use the information they have in new ways. This creative level design coupled with the need for some precise platforming execution lead to such a challenging and rewarding experience.

As well as this great gaming experience is a story which seems innocent in its ‘Disney children’s show’ presentation but quickly shows you how dark it really is when you find out how quickly and easily your character can meet their death. Although it was fairly simple, I loved the story and the characters. I also have to give mention to the fact that this is the first game to ever use a full orchestra for the soundtrack and it does wonders to add to the charm of this game.

I absolutely loved going back to this, and after learning the lead designer, Eric Chahi, was the lead from Another World, I’ll definitely be jumping onto that game soon.

[themakingofgames]

The Making of Heart of Darkness