Limbo of the Lost
[DQ is live on tape this week, as we are presently on The Big Family Vacation™.]Here's a feel-good story: three friends who love computer games get together and design their own game, an epic, sprawling adventure. They start working on the game in the mid-1990s, for the Atari ST, then switched platforms to the Amiga. There was some press coverage, including a magazine preview, but that version didn't get finished, either.
Three years ago, they started again, this time on the PC version. They finished it, were signed to a publisher, and the game was recently released in the U.S.
Seriously, it doesn't get any better than this. And quite surprisingly, for such a low budget project, the quality of the art work is surprisingly high. In fact, the quality is as high as many high profile games.
Mostly, it appears, because it IS the artwork from many high profile games.
How many games? Let's see: Oblivion (excellent choice), Thief 3, Silent Hill 4, Painkiller, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Diablo 2 (skulls), Pirates of the Caribbean (FMV), Crysis, Spawn, BioShock, UT2004, and Baldur’s Gate, as well as several images from my unpublished Flash game Wrecked Him? Damn Near Killed Him!
Hey, if you're going to steal, aim high.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun is all over this story in a very tongue kissy kind of way, and they've compiled most of the details into one easy reference. The full post is here, and it includes the following:
--the 1995 preview story (page 1, page 2)
--embedded trailer video as well as a "behind the scenes" trailer
--a zip file of 76 screenshots.
--a few epic quotes from the developers on their "influences"
It's an episode right out of Mr. Bean Makes a Computer Game, and of course the obvious question is how in the word did they think they'd get away with it?
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