SerratedBiz
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2009
- Messages
- 4,143
If I made a Hero-U game in the style we made Quest for Infamy, it'd be pretty cool.
You know we're looking forward to the next thing to pop out of your crazy brain.
If I made a Hero-U game in the style we made Quest for Infamy, it'd be pretty cool.
Uh...Jane Jensen's game?
They were pretty explicit that the QFG games were compromises and that Hero-U is the game they always wanted to make.
Yep. They did a lot of shovelware in addition to the Jumpstart games. Let's just say a few of them are strange choices for children's games.Reading up on them, this seems like a fascinating company that I know nothing about, despite having a longstanding interest in edutainment (I'm about 8 years too old to have interacted with their very specific demographic targeting). Based on what I've been able to glean it seems more like they don't realize they hold anything of value rather than they don't want to support a back-catalogue. This is a company founded by an apparent altruist that then (the company, not the altruist) very quickly pivoted towards being a cashcow after stumbling on unexpected and outsized success. This in turn led them to explore the F2P MMO edutainment market (which is apparently a thing?) before ultimately being bought up by a Chinese megacorp
Its better than that. Because the first two Dr. Brain games work in Sierra's SCI engine, there are two frontends they could use for them. DOSbox and SCUMMVM. After that, they've got problems. Early Windows games I'm sure crashes in Win10 easily.Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anyone is going to rake in millions selling copies of The Island of Dr. Brain at $10 a pop, but the front end cost of making it run on modern machines is negligible; it works great on DosBox already (afaik, haven't actually tested it, but every other Sierra game of the era does and they all use the same engine so I can't imagine it's any different), and paying someone to make a wrapper for the launcher is a couple day's work tops.
Now, I didn't realize this at the time, but later on I realized that KA is the new company, which means the third puzzle game, the action-adventure and the FPS should all be good for Jumpstart to distribute these days. Barring some weird licensing issue. The FPS should be easy, since its Unreal Engine 1, I'm sure there's something they can do to fix that for modern PCs.It feels much more like they just don't realize they could make a couple thousand bucks on it OR *dons tinfoil hat* they're not actually sure that their acquisition of the IP entitles them to the distribution rights of the older entries and have just decided not to risk possibly being taken to court.
Yep. They did a lot of shovelware in addition to the Jumpstart games. Let's just say a few of them are strange choices for children's games.Reading up on them, this seems like a fascinating company that I know nothing about, despite having a longstanding interest in edutainment (I'm about 8 years too old to have interacted with their very specific demographic targeting). Based on what I've been able to glean it seems more like they don't realize they hold anything of value rather than they don't want to support a back-catalogue. This is a company founded by an apparent altruist that then (the company, not the altruist) very quickly pivoted towards being a cashcow after stumbling on unexpected and outsized success. This in turn led them to explore the F2P MMO edutainment market (which is apparently a thing?) before ultimately being bought up by a Chinese megacorp
Its better than that. Because the first two Dr. Brain games work in Sierra's SCI engine, there are two frontends they could use for them. DOSbox and SCUMMVM. After that, they've got problems. Early Windows games I'm sure crashes in Win10 easily.Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anyone is going to rake in millions selling copies of The Island of Dr. Brain at $10 a pop, but the front end cost of making it run on modern machines is negligible; it works great on DosBox already (afaik, haven't actually tested it, but every other Sierra game of the era does and they all use the same engine so I can't imagine it's any different), and paying someone to make a wrapper for the launcher is a couple day's work tops.
Now, I didn't realize this at the time, but later on I realized that KA is the new company, which means the third puzzle game, the action-adventure and the FPS should all be good for Jumpstart to distribute these days. Barring some weird licensing issue. The FPS should be easy, since its Unreal Engine 1, I'm sure there's something they can do to fix that for modern PCs.It feels much more like they just don't realize they could make a couple thousand bucks on it OR *dons tinfoil hat* they're not actually sure that their acquisition of the IP entitles them to the distribution rights of the older entries and have just decided not to risk possibly being taken to court.
Did you ever reach out to the Coles?
To be honest, this seems like such a natural proposition -- and perhaps a way to bring a little light into dark patches for you and them.
You have my sword!I'll get back to you on this.
I just hope they're able to recoup whatever investment they had and move on, even if that's simply back to retirement.
I just hope they're able to recoup whatever investment they had and move on, even if that's simply back to retirement.
They split up the Summer Daze spinoff into two separate games, one for each main character. I hope at least they can finish the second game and not leave my man Ifeyo hanging without his degree.
Hero-U 2: Wizard's Way probably won't happen though. I'm curious if the Coles made enough to pay off whatever they borrowed against their house during Hero-U's development.