Video Gadgeteer
Q1 Winter, 1989
HQs: Medicine Hat, Alberta (CA/US)
$42,750,000 (was $44,000,000)---
Gadgeteer Kitten released!Video Gadgeteer presents......
Gadgeteer KittenTopic: Cartoon, Sci-Fi
Genre: Action (2D Puzzle-Platformer)
Price: $30
Platforms: PC
Audience: Rated E for Everyone
Languages: English, Spanish, French, Japanese
Markets: North America, Japan
- Amazing 16-bit Graphics
- Over 30 different weapons and tools to navigate stages! Earn them as you play and keep them permanently!
- Navigate your way from the high-tech city of Mechanopolis through the forest, grasslands, mountain, desert and ocean to the Stone Sorcerer's evil floating castle lair!
- Stereo Sound
- Multiple routes to your destination! Over 5 hours of area to explore!
- Custom control options!
- Tutorials for learning the ropes of the game!
- A "normal" and "good" ending! Collect the 10 Platinum Cogs to get the secret ending!
Plot: The evil Stone Sorcerer has always been envious of the amazing non-magical devices that originate from the city of Mechanopolis. All the more irritating is that Mechanopolis was founded by the former animal residents of the forest, whom he used to rule over with an iron fist until they overthrew him with the first of those very technological instruments.
Now, the Stone Sorcerer has kidnapped the 10 Master Machinists who keep the city running, and stolen the 10 Platinum Cogs that keep the city's Perpetual Motion Power Generator running! Without any alternative, the inhabitants of Mechanopolis have turned to using coal to power the machines, knowing all the while that the surrounding forest is being choked by the fumes...
Galvan K. Windup, or "G.K.", a cat who was the apprentice of one of the Master Machinists, is the city's last hope. Taking his teacher's prototype Extend-O-Punch machine and heading into the forest to find the Stone Sorcerer's golem minion, G.K. must defeat the granite giant and free his teacher if Mechanopolis is to have any hope of surviving.
But it won't stop there, because to truly fix THIS problem, he'll need to locate the other 9 Master Machinists and the Platinum Cogs that the Stone Sorcerer has hidden across the continent. Only then will Mechanopolis and the surrounding landscape be in harmony once again!
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Aquatopia marketed!Three months ago, Video Gadgeteer announced a side project which has tested so well with focus groups that the project has been greatly expanded. Aquatopia will be a infrastructure management simulation for the PC in which you are in charge of constructing an undersea colony for Canada's underfunded Ministry of Oceanic Resources & Subaquatic Prospecting. It will have a map editor and a random map generator, and randomly generated events both good and bad will affect your colony or even give you a choice between different bonuses and/or penalties! It will also have a two-player mode that requires a pair of PCs networked together, allowing two competing colonies to attempt to outgrow each other and gain as much resources as possible!
City simulation fans are hyped over the descriptions and screenshots in the latest
Pixel Power magazine issue! Video Gadgeteer's Lead Developer says that the game will not be the last, with hope to improve on the formula in future sequels! The game has been given a Mini marketing campaign in North America and Japan.
Here is some concept art seen in Pixel Power Magazine:
(Real life credit goes to James Carson)-$500,000 (x2 Mini Marketing campaigns, Normal Sales)
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Fractalspace released!Video Gadgeteer has also inherited the rights to the vaporware arcade cabinet Fractalspace after purchasing the failed start-up "nPC Games" last year. Video Gadgeteer says they have been looking into potential interest in Japan and have decided to complete the project. A somewhat typical Shoot-Em-Up or "Shmup", the game sets itself apart for having a detailed story (based on the Victorian novel Flatland) that is integrated with the gameplay, complete with RPG-style text window conversations. The game will involve you having to dodge patterns of bullets which split into smaller bullets at regular intervals, but the game allows the player to insert quarters for extra lives (which should give them points with arcade owners too, the press wryly remarks). Beta screenshots have already made it into publication in last quarter's
Pixel Power issue, though the graphics looked simplistic and were reportedly close to final (supposedly a "stylistic choice").
Though opinions are mixed, the game is certainly already being talked about by arcade owners looking to end the slow decrease in customer turnout that has been noticed in the past few years.
Video Gadgeteer presents......
FractalspaceTopic: Abstract Shapes
Genre: Action (Shmup)
Price: $3000
Platforms: Arcade
Audience: Rated E for Everyone
Languages: English, Spanish, French, Japanese
Markets: North America, Japan
- Runs at an amazing 100 Frames Per Second!
- Over 15 different types of projectile power-ups!
- Stereo Sound
- Put in a quarter while playing, get an extra life!
Plot: In the 2nd Dimension, there is a strict hierarchy amongst the shapes. Circles are at the bottom for "having one side", followed by lines for having two. Triangles are lower than quadrilaterals which are lower than pentagons, which are lower than hexagons, and so forth. But no matter how many sides a shape has, they all must bow to the fractals, who have "infinite sides".
Now, a team of two triangles and a quadrilateral have had enough, and are waging a three-shape war against the entire social structure. Destroy the arrogant and greedy fractals, and save the 2nd Dimension from this dystopian society!
-$750,000 (base cost)
Note that arcades are released in 1 quarter, so I'll do this instead of announcing a game.---
Oliver Zehn, "Artie" Leonardo, May Ramona and Jerod Hayvins were in the office late, discussing how to introducing the games to the public.
"The arcade owners were practically begging to order the machines in advance! I know how that sounds too good to be true, but what worries me is the moral implications. We're essentially asking kids to throw away their allowances to be able to win this game, and you know they won't say no." Oliver said, hesitant about the idea. "Are you sure we can't put in a mode where they get infinite lives but don't get a recorded score?"
"We're too far into production for that. The circuit board blueprints are already sent out to the manufacturers, and the designs won't have enough memory." said Jerod.
"Okay, what have we got for Aquatopia?" Oliver asked.
"My team are almost done the sprite tileset." Artie explained. "May says the programming team can have it coded by the end of the week, but..."
"But?" Oliver asked.
"There's never been a game like this to date. We have no basis for an 'Infrastructure Management Simulation', so we'll have to create a framework from scratch." May explained. "Shmups and Platformers have been done before, but we're stabbing in the dark with this one."
"And our 'mascot platformer'?"
"There's been no hiccups. The games are shipping to stores tonight." Jerod recapped.
"Good. Ladies and Gentlemen, I brought you here tonight for more than just a routine meeting." Oliver said. "Now, you've all expressed concerns, doubt and hesitation to trust me when over 80% of our original investment capital was recorded by accounting as being used to fund 'Project Timepiece', which I refused to elaborate upon for almost a year now. Now I'm finally going to put those fears to rest..." he said, taking a small object from his pocket.
"What is that thing?" Jerod asked, unsure what he was looking at.
"This, my friends, is the future. A prototype of the world's first portable games console. The secret development team working in the basement has taken to calling it the Game Pocket. Just one catch... We're out of funds for the project."
"You BANKRUPTED US?!" Jerod said, exasperated.
"No, of course not. We've got enough to release Gadgeteer Kitten and finish the two other games we've got lined up, the sales of which will give us the funds to finish this little beauty. And then? We hit the big time. I've already had a reporter in to look at it, the word will be out by the end of the week. The Game Pocket is going to change this industry, I can feel it!"
