Yesterday, Revolution made the announcement that it will be bringing out not one but two new Broken Sword games. So, to coincide with the news, Revolution's co-founder and CEO Charles Cecil met with the publication Polygon to discuss the upcoming projects.

Cecil spoke to Polygon's reporter about various topics throughout the feature, with the first half of the article, focusing on the use of AI in the upcoming remaster Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged. As Cecil states, the decision was made to use the controversial technology as it would have been "impossible" to make the game otherwise. This is due to the hourly costs that would be involved in paying an increased staff to remaster its low-resolution animated graphics.

Read the full article on timeextension.com

Writer, consultant and game designer Steve Ince has announced that he is retiring after 30 years in the game industry – and he has stated that he's fearful of the impact AI will have on game development (thanks, PC Gamer).

Ince started his career at Revolution Software, the home of the Broken Sword series, and worked at the studio until he went freelance in 2004. His credits include several Broken Sword outings, Beneath A Steel Sky, Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado, The Witcher (2007), Beyond a Steel Sky and Resident Evil: Village.

Read the full article on timeextension.com

When you consider the sheer volume of games released every year, it should come as no massive shock to learn that a staggering number of projects get shelved or canned before making it to market, and each and every one of these games has a tale to tell.

The story behind an unnamed PlayStation RTS title from the late '90s is especially interesting, as it involved Nintendo indirectly funding the development of what could have been a groundbreaking release on a rival console.

Read the full article on timeextension.com

“One man's trash is another one's treasure” is how the saying goes. For Assembler Games forum user tdijital such was the case last year, when he stumbled upon an individual in possession of a substantial amount of diskettes and CD-ROM filled with video game source code and Sega development tools for Mega CD, 32X and even Sega Saturn. Like any good digital Indiana Jones, tdijital set up a post with his findings along with his efforts to recover all the code that was precariously stored in those diskettes and discs.

And recover them he did, sharing his findings with other digital Indiana Jones until figuring out that this IRS liquidation lot was from the late Foley Hi-Tech Systems. Among the source code were a bunch of Spider-Man game versions, a set of Sega Channel ROMs and even a unreleased Playstation game called Razor Wing. There was also a disc with Super Strike Trilogy source code, a title that was known to exist in some form previously confirmed by David Foley himself.

Enter Tanglewood creator Headcrab, who was more excited about the found “SEGA.EXE” file, something he had searching for years:

It uploads SN68K-built ROMs direct to a Cross Products kit without going via the debugger, something I need to set up my automation system for Tanglewood development.

Read the full article on timeextension.com

]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-69893 https://www.timeextension.com/news/2017/07/mega_cd_super_strike_trilogy_prototype_reaches_a_playable_state Mon, 14 Apr 2014 15:00:00 GMT Four hours of Kouichi Yotsui, Ryuichi Nishizawa, Yuzo Koshiro and many more.

Those of you with keen memories will recall that we covered a Kickstarter campaign last year by western video game journalist John Szczepaniak, who was looking to raise £50,000 (around $75,000) to cover a trip to Japan to interview veteran developers for his book, The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers. More than £70,000 ($117,000) was raised eventually, and Szczepaniak spent September, October and November of 2013 travelling around The Land of the Rising Sun conducting interviews.

To accompany the book, Szczepaniak is releasing a DVD package which contains four hours of footage. Included are video interviews with the likes of Kouichi Yotsui (Strider, Cannon Dancer), Ryuichi Nishizawa (Wonderboy) and Yuzo Koshiro (ActRaiser, Streets of Rage), as well as footage of artwork, rare gaming hardware and much more besides. You can check out the full contents here.

Read the full article on timeextension.com

]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-39139 https://www.timeextension.com/news/2014/04/untold_history_of_japanese_game_developers_dvd_now_available_for_pre-order