How Revolution Software held my childhood ransom
Just the other day, I was thinking, “I’d better retire that Tumblr blog of mine. It just doesn’t see enough action.” Well, that may still happen, but there’s one thing on my mind that just begs to be explicated in great detail. So here’s another spasm of activity, just so I have enough breathing room to exhale a sigh of remorseful hatred upon you all, dear readers.
Let me tell you the story of an impressionable youth (me) and his love for a very special, at the time not-well-known, adventure game. No, this time it’s not
Space Quest. It’s that
other game I always rave about,
Beneath a Steel Sky.
Whoops, spoilers.
You may remember the creators of the game, Revolution Software, because they went on to create the very successful (but not, in my opinion, as enjoyable) game series,
Broken Sword. Let me preface all of the following by saying, I really have nothing against
Broken Sword … that is, the first game. The second one, whilst enjoyable, was a by-the-numbers linear cash-in; the third was a
Tomb Raider clone disguised as a
Broken Sword sequel; and the fourth one I haven’t played because the other two sequels were so fucking disappointing.
Now Revolution Software is begging for your money, just as I was begging for yours a while back, by doing a Kickstarter to create fifth instalment of their prized cash cow
.
Now, there are many
Broken Sword fans. In fact, many more than there are
Beneath a Steel Sky fans. And, by golly, they deserve another
Broken Sword game. I could just ignore this and let it slide into oblivion, as I have done so far … if it wasn’t because Revolution seemingly felt compelled to drag my ass into a fight I don’t want to have to fight. They leave me no choice, however.
Here’s the reason my piss is currently at boiling temperature: As part of the so-called “stretch goals”, Revolution promises to create
Beneath a Steel Sky 2 … IF they reach $1 million.
Edit: I initially misquoted the stretch goals as being $2 million. This post has been edited to reflect actual truth.
Before I tell you why this is so fucking infuriating, let’s go back briefly to the story of the impressionable teen: I was, as you may have guessed, a major fan of
Beneath a Steel Sky. When it was released in 1994, I played it obsessively, enjoying every inch of its sarcastic, downtrodden, cynical cyberpunk pixel perfection. It was, and still is, one of the best adventure games I have ever played. I rank it right up there with
Space Quest, the game series I’m known for fellating on a regular basis, and for those of you who are familiar with my dubious legacy, you know how much that means.
It even got to the point where I decided to make a fan site for
Beneath a Steel Sky back in, I think, 1996 or 1997. I contacted Revolution Software and got in touch with president Charles Cecil and programmer Tony Warriner, who also – in a move they must be regretting by now – put me in touch with the designer of
Beneath a Steel Sky, a certain Mr. David Cummins, who left Revolution under mysterious circumstances immediately following the game’s release.
The Revolution lads were courteous to a fault and endured my barrage of questions with humor and levity, even when the subject matter was a game they obviously hated working on. Yes,
Beneath a Steel Sky was, by all accounts, a living hell for Revolution to develop. When I asked Tony Warriner what the daily routine for a Revolution programmer during BASS development was like, he dryly replied, “Contemplating mass suicide.”
The game was overly ambitious to begin with, and the more I talked with Dave Cummins, the more it became obvious that the team didn’t see eye-to-eye with him at all. The plot and story of the game ended up being changed considerably from his original design (by Charles Cecil), shortening it considerably, and getting rid of some elements that other members of the team felt were barbs directed at them personally. I’m so not joking. Small wonder, then, that the game turned out to be as fantastic as it did.
Back then, I made a deal with Mr. Cummins that, as I built my BASS fan site, I would write up the story of the first game in novel form (as I had done with the first Space Quest game, The Sarien Encounter, some years prior). And he would – this is the part that really made me, forgive the expression, rock hard – write up his proposed plot to
Beneath a Steel Sky’s sequel that would, sadly, never get made because Revolution hated his guts. (Also part of the deal was that he would supply me with the original soundtrack he wrote for the game, before it was, and I paraphrase, butchered by some dork who translated it into General MIDI.)
Sadly, the website never materialized and I lost contact with Cummins after a hard drive crash. Revolution, apparently realizing their mistake, never responded to my repeated requests for reestablishing contact with Cummins. He has slipped completely off my radar and, despite my best efforts, I have never found him again.
So you know how much
Beneath a Steel Sky means to me and how much I have wanted to see the story continue, ever since I was an impressionable 14-17 year old boy. So why aren’t I jumping up and down enthusiastically, now that Charles Cecil and his intrepid band are promising to bring the cyber back if they hit the $1 million stretch mark?
Because this is tantamount to holding my childhood ransom. I have no interest in another
Broken Sword game. In my not so humble opinion,
Broken Sword has been beaten into the ground, exhumed, reburied and polished off so many times, it’s starting to smell like a coal miner’s feet after a particularly long summer day. I played the iPhone version, I played the Game Boy version, and I even gave the “Director’s Cut” a chance by purchasing it for my Wii – all of which only confirmed my suspicion that, somehow, shit’s gone to Cecil’s head.
Foster’s shocked, and you should be, too.
But all of this I could really care less about, if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re now dangling the carrot of returning to Union City under my nose … IF they get a chance to beat their dead horse one more time.
And here’s what really pisses me off: it’s not going to be a true
Beneath a Steel Sky sequel. It’s going to be Charles Cecil’s version of a
Beneath a Steel Sky sequel. Charles Cecil, who somehow went from being a nice, humble guy to a guy who couldn’t get his name in a big enough typeface for the intro credits to
Broken Sword: Director’s Cut.
Here’s what I want to happen: Either Revolution get their shit together and make a Kickstarter to make a proper
Beneath a Steel Sky 2 – because I happen to know there IS a proper sequel out there somewhere in David Cummins’ head – or they pull this ridiculous stunt from their
Broken Sword stretch goals. In the meantime, I encourage everyone who backed this venture to withdraw their money until Revolution and Cecil learn to play nice.
Please, look beyond what I have said regarding my PERSONAL OPINIONS about
Broken Sword. I know there are many of you who love the games and would die to see George Stobbart and his girlfriend Nico traipse around some otherworldly locale and annoy native inhabitants. You deserve that game. This is not about me preferring one game to another. This is about Revolution Software pissing down our necks because they want more money in the bank and Charles Cecil wanting more recognition for something he didn’t create.
I think it’s despicable, and if I
had given any money to the
Broken Sword Kickstarter, I would have withdrawn them instantly. I hope you will, too.