Developing Diddly and Future Projects

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Turn your Nintendo sixty four controller into a musical instrument And we get the inside story of seventh guest with Rob Landoros podcast is brought to you every Friday with our wonderful sponsor, our friends at Bitmad books. Now. The latest volume, so many people are loving this at the moment. If you look fighting games, Fatal Fury, also known as Garo Densetsu, the ultimate history. Now this massive four hundred and sixty page volume features rare concept artwork from SNK's archives, exclusive interviews with original developers and covers of the entire series from the NeoGo Classics right up until the recent City of the Wolves. You can get your copy right now and have a look at the rest of their retro gaming collection at bitmapBooks d. com This episode number five thirty six, yourour weekly dose of retro gaming and teechnology newews with me Dan Wood. Me Rabby Abbott and me Joe Fuckx And great to for joining us for the podcast, of course every week lets you know all the big stories from the world of retro gaming and technology. bit of a round table chat at the start of the show. and then second half of the podcast is when we welcome on someone from the history of the gaming industry to tell us their story. And occasionally we get someone on the show who I think it's fair to say changed the world Because ye, I remember seeing this game that we're going to be focusing on this week with our guest Rob Landeros and this is The seventh Guessed And it is very hard to explain just what an impact that game had on me when I saw that original footage. Do you remember the seventh guest? Yeah, um There were two games that really blew up CD ROM And one my seventh guest and the other was missed as well. and Before that, people hadn't really seen the power of it. You know, we'd had stuff previously, lots of attempts at CDRM, but I think for selling them the numbers of Huge CD Rome gameer seventh guest was up there and So to your madeain copyies out a hell of a lot about that. Yeah, it was an amazing mix of ree freely rendered scenes and backgrounds as well as video on top of that, as well as amazing soundtrack and puzzles It was really cool and this week's guest Rob he's great because he comees from cinema over as well. So he's the art director of cinema a legendary company that, you know, produced like it came from the desesert, Rocket Ranger, Defender of the Crown Beautiful cinematic games and then together with Grahemam Deivine, m they found a trillery and created this this mental project. If you hear like about what they were doing. They were innovating stuff like video compression on a full screen and You know technology that really didn't exist on the CD ROM they this ambitious idea and brought it to life And it came on two CD RMs. as well which I remember a lot of people were like struggling even to fill one W way around that time. So I mean, they started working on this game in nineteen ninety one C came out of nineteen ninety three What you know' you think of the gaming landscape in ninety three systemystems like the Aiga CD thirty two They just come out. And, you know, the entire Jaguar was if not released just on the horizon. remember what a video was like on those as well. it was Yeah Either tiny or it was a few seconds of something. It wasn N a posted streen like H resolutation either was it Yeah, I mean, you remember seeing like FMV and like the the Sega Mega CD a window in the middle of the screen, wasn't it? But then I remember watching the TV show Bad Influence which was like religious watching for me when I was a kid. And I remember when Violet Berlin first previewed this game, the seventh guest and the show goes incredible. you know that swooping scene where kind of goes up the staircase Still remember seeing that And then when you get the real life. actors at the top of the stairs who play ghosts in the game I never seen, I didn't realize computers could look that good So really groundbreaking game and you got to remember the The machines were running at the time. likeike said, it kind of phed in the CD Bom revolution. But streaming video, I mean, there was single speed CD Rom drives that most people look at that. And this was full screen and much higher resolution than anything else as well was amazing. I think Graham Deivine actually created one of the video players that he put out there that became like you know, the standard for for video playback on CD, which is just amazing and you know, he went on to do absolutely amazing stuff as well. So this is a real foundation of the episode and I love these episodes like transitions with technology and embracing it. I remember we covered microcosm and that have Basic dreaming of a video onto that and this was a whole whole step up from that world Yeah, a game that definitely just felt like you know several generations in the future when it came out and actually very well timed as well because Rob actually is running tririllobike again. He's been there for the last kind of decade. he set the company up again. and there is a brand new version of the seventh guest, a remake of it Yeah just landed a couple of weeks ago on Eeam's on GOG, PS five Xbox as well. So if you want to get he basically says this is the version he wishes he could have made Well, it's interesting. I think there were lots of fun games that were being made around it, but also There was a whole FMV industry that kind of popped up after that and we've seen a bit of an FMV revival as well and you know theseese old puzzle games, we' see mist in VR as well and stuff. So it's really interesting to see this one coming back and a lot of people love those wheels and those puzzles Yeah we here about the eleventh hour, which was kind of the illfated sequel Yeah the seventh guess. Well, like you mentioned, you know, the rest of the world are kind of caught up by then, hanven't they? to come Yeah're doing that stuff. yeah So yeah, really interesting story inside the world of the seventh guest, of course leegendary game. And and you going that he's been working on well, a game he's been working on since nineteen ninety nine that is currently running on Kickstarter that he worked on with the light Peter Olipant. It's called Diddy which is currently running on Kickstarster. So I'll link that in the show notice want to cheat more about that. And of course, we'll talk to this week's special guest, Rob Landoos. if you've got the audio podcast on be coming up in partart two and if you're watching on YouTube, a separate video landing early next week The first bit of the show, we chat about the big news stories And of course twenty twenty six, everyone is hoping that it is going to be the year that of course provviding the deadlines don't slip any further. We're finally going to get GTA six that I'm sure is going to be the biggest entertainment title in history, No doubt. I also think it's probably going to be the biggest downturn in work that happens in the world. say But I mean, you might be thinking, what on earth could take on the might of GTA six What about Godzilla? Think he's up to the job Ears up to the job. I love Godzilla So I think he's up to the job. I'm personally b. I'm more excited about this than six. So to give context so it Not last week the week before It was the summer game Fast So much God annced You know, so many remasters and remakes as well as lots of new games, but that's not what we talk about here about retro, don't we? we keep it retro. and there's been so many jokes and memes going around that like No games are coming out in November because GTA six is coming out like Every single game that I got announced that actually had a release date was like September or early October. It's like all the developers are terrified coming out around GTA six because obviously there's all these rumors that it's going to be a hundred pounds You know If you're going to buy a game that month, you' got to buy GTA six Godzilla's going for it, man. so Godzilla Destroy all Monsters's melee remastered. will be coming out in November That was GameCube originally, wasn't it? It was It was a GameCube exclusive in two thousand two. And then a year or two later it came out on Xbox So interestingly, this will be the it's only coming to PS five U so it's the first time it'll ever be on a PlayStation console It's coming out on november third, twenty twenty six and Interesting to point out and this always makes me laugh. So it's Godzilla's destroy Msters' melee remastered I will point out that it isn't actually a remaster. it's a complete remake I always I find the word remaster and remake like They get blended together so much. What is the difference So a remaster is when you've got an original for me, it's when you've got an original game and you remaster it. so you just upscale it to h like tuning it up Yeah the same assets then yeah. Yeah, the same assets and stuff where this is a game and then a remake is they're building it from the ground up You know, but it uses the same story, the same plot, the same gameplay, etcetera U so This is a remake, but it is a still It is still a beat them up. So it's a a I don't if you guys have ever played the Godzilla game, but the melee one, but it is a melee. it's a, you know, you pick your kaijoes so either Godzilla or mecha Godzilla or any of the different monsters Kingadora etc from the Godzilla kind of franchise and you fight each other in a city and you destroy blow everything g. It looks pretty sick to be honest. like destructible environments and ye helicoppters and all sorts throw buildings at each other all sorts There's multiple gameplay modes. The main game is the melee, fighting each other, but there is also destruction mode where you can just play as one of the giant monsters and just walk through the city destroying everything and causing as much damage as possible Um I just think of all the games So just go, you know what? we're coming out in November Um if GTA dies or there's no like delayed or anything. Godzilla's got the whole of November. Yeah to completely shine. greater of time is coming out as well in the as we mentioned last week. Well potentially coming out in November. We don't know for sure if it's coming out in November There's only one other game at this point that has been confirmed Its coming out in November and that's a new Barbie game. Barbie rewind. Well that is going take down both Godzilla and GTA. It's going to take them down I'd like to point out As Rapph's just said, Godzilla might rise on the ashes says it's only thirty dollars as well going to be thirty dollars on PS five. I'm assuming it's a download and we've not got a physical game. at that price. And it's being developed by the original studio who made the original game as well, which is called Pipeworks studios so Yeah, I think u Interesting, but they're just like, yeah, we're not afraid of GTA. We're going to go for it U I think I just need ge They just need Jamiraci now to do the oundr Deper underground, ye. Yeah' yeah. What's he doing these days? So yeah Yeah it looks really cool. I haven't played the original, but I do quite like the look of this. So yeah it could be something to distract me from GTA six in November Um now It's always interesting to see why our good mate Rob Smith is up to We should call him professor Robs. He's a nut professor, isn't he? Mad inventor who does all kinds of things on the Amiga. had him on the the podcast, didn't we whileile back I'm talking about some his crazy inventions. What is that it again Yeah, I think u u Rob's a really amazing guy like The way his mind works he's very innovative and Jay is like a mad scientist but in a good sense, you know he actually comes out with some really cool ideas. And the mind behind retrod Directory as well, which is retrodirectory ye, which I'm using. It's absolutely fantastic service. You should check that out as well looking for your retro events and tickets and stuff U But what he's been doing recently is he's been exploring other areas of the Amiga and what you can do with it. One area has been the floppy port. so recently he's been able to do sound through the floppy port. So you have the pauler chip there that was doing sound. He's managed to get the floppy controller to actually be doing sound and do it through the floppy port creating two extra channels on the Amiga, which is just bonkers. he was playing mods through there. And he had a fought the other day and he said, B Data can get transferred. through the floppy port Um why can't, why can't I do Wiifi on it? Oh whichich is pretty crazy, but it's actually really, really smart. So at the moment, WiFi solutions are stuff like I don't know if you've used it the clip box. Yes, I've got one of those in Iega three thousand? Yeah. Yeah. so you've got that probably plugged into your serial port or parallel port at the bottom. Yeah parallel, I think Yeah Yeah, well there's port for the external floppy controller And what Rob's done is he's developed U a PCB goes in there with a raspberry pie Pico on there. that actually uses the external floppy port So then use the DMA O that And that is basically at five hundred kilobits per second data transfer in the DMA, you know, because it becoming from a floppy drive originally. But he's using that WiFi transfer. Right and data. But that means that the CPU is not getting hammered at all. So You know, it's not any extra load on it. And he's created this total little device that freees up resources you can put it into the back of your machine. It's really cool actually because it's a fully configurable as well because it acts a bit like a floppy drive So you can save U WiFi networks on there It will save the password, everything. then you can just go plug it in and connect straight away. It will remember the configurations. as well and it's like he's freed up an extra p an extra. way of doing it And you know, a lot of people who use Amiga's love low resources and stuff that's not going hit certain stuff and it means you can get Wiifi and a really reallyally kind of underpowered machine a basic setup. Yeah And I think there is, I mean, people might be wondering why the hell would you want to get an ammiga But there is definite reasons. I mean, obviously not going to be watching YouTube on your Amiga five hundred but I think for files transfers to me, that is the obvious thing. you know, you there is web browsers that do you know, still updated on the Aiga. so you can download, you know, software from the internet and even stuff like IRC. that's always fun on the Amiga or BBSing, you know, there's loads of BBSs that still up and running And you're right I think most people probably don't f That external flopy drive port. I mean, there are other devices that use parallel and serial, but generally that's an unused port by most people. Not many of us have a need for two drives and I think it's a really good idea. And I think's you know five hundred kilobits per second is quite good and it's you know for an ammeiga and it's going to be a bit more efficient than using one of those kind of standard devices out there And you can get the board printed, you know, he does it on PCB way as well and you can get one of these tiny picos and Stick it on and then You know, go in your heart's content, which is it's a bit of a mad solution you know, it lies in that area and I think a Rob's really smart at thinking about that. likeike who would have fought, you know Oh, wi fi through the floppy driver. Okay. that works. yeah, it does I love one of the comments on the video announcement that he's made. Can he use Xcopy to save the entire internet That would be good. So yeah, if you want to check that out like I think all of Rob's projects, it's open source as well, everything up on GitHub. So yeah, very cool. Nice to Al was nice to couple Rob Smith and see what he's up to. He never ceases to amaz us. So good work, Rob Now we're talking about the Taser trailer that we got for. crazy taxi a couple of weeks ago. I know you're excited about this one, Ri Jetet radio Oh yes, yes, absolutely love Jets out radio. I'm not quite sure about this. It looks like it's A low R video leak. I think Joe knows a bit more about this Yeah, so I spoke about this in the patreon section last week about how a few years ago, SeGa announced a lot of their kind of like I don't want to say dead eyPs because they weren't dead, but not a lot was happening with them. But five of their I they announced that five of their IPs were getting kind of like reboots U so Streets of rage is getting a movie. Obviously crazy taxi World Tour. we caght that last week U We've yet to see much from Golden Ax. We got a new shinobi game U earlier this year and then the still jetet radio which, you know I was never, I don't think I've even ever I think I've played Jetet radio two. What was it Jetet Future On the Xbox, I played the second one But there was only ever the two jetet radio games, O of the dream cast and then The second one in the Xbox, which was twenty sayays JetsA Radio and then Jetetset Radio future. And I think the reason they stood out was because they were just so cool like way that the graphics works with that kind of shader Yeah dio and big fat outlines and stuff just work so well on the console. And funny enough, I was watching a Game sack YouTube video yesterday about games that went from three D to two D and there was a two D version of Jetet radio on the game with addvance U But when it was showing Jetet radio on the Dreamcast and Jetet Radio future on the Xbox, I thought those was graphics man like even D like that looks fantastic. you know twenty five years ago I think the music would ang it was all old school hip hop and I it was just like funky and cool and and graffiti as well. I don't think that was u that much celebration of graffiti cultures in games and then u that radio, you know, you had that and then later in San Andreas she had like tagging in areas and stuff. But yeah, it was it was really cool and it had this biger like Jackass at the beginning it had this graffini as a crime. Don't know kind of safety warning. Yeah. So yeah, so Sega haven't officially release anything. However a Alika you know, who He's a for a user X user who Brutal leaks, as he said U has leaked u The supposed trailer that should be coming out at any moment from SeEGa of the new Jetet radio game U And it's basically getting mixed kind of results, if you will, mixed comments. It's so hard to tell, though, isn't it? basically it is so low resolution. It looks like someone recorded it on a VHS tape and then filmed it off a CFT using a cam corder Yeah. and then also it's got leaks by and pom Pomy clers Yeah all over it is well watermarked U I like the music, It's funky. The gameplayer looks. You know, it's just that radio Um and the art style so You know, the look of it This is what people are complaining about It's been built in onreal enngine which you know so many games are these days. And some people are like, oh, it just looks like unreal engine slop. And I'm just like, wait, I thought that's what we said about AI I think for I think it looks fine, but I'm not a massive jetet radio fan So There is a question There is a question there, why did they not just do cell shading again with it?. We do have a big Isready a fan here though ye. we do Yeah we do. Well I can't tell because to me it's like when you got a DVD screener peopleeople were sitting there and you'd walk through the cinema and you'd get that Yeah like someone's VHS camera in a bag. it looks really bad h? Or like a real video download from like I try to ignore leaks because it justs like someone kind of spinning around us asking you questions about. This is I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna to hold back and wait think You know, only a tiny clippet as well We interviewed Richard Jques in a retro Messer as well, you know, just her radio soundtrack I don't know people who are involved, we could see reallyally interesting cool stuff and I think to be honest, like it's a brand that's more valuable to Sega than Crazy taxi you think just just in style and just it like this is such a legendary game the I don't know crazy tackive Iize. Yeah. Yeah I don't know, it's just in gaming history and cool factor Obviously Jetetset Radio up there is one of those one of those kind of titles. But yeah, let's see it could all just be AI. Yeah. Yeah Yeah. I'm looking at the thread on X someone. There's actually a couple of people in there saying that was only a concept video from like two years ago Oh, maybe it's yeah. And how did these leaks happen like what did have you found it on a paste of something or on some weird light, you know, it could be anything, couldn't it really? Yeah. So not necessarily a representation of what the full game is going to be like when we get the remaster or remake as it is. So yeah, if you want to check that out I'll link it in the show notes, but A bit of discretion needed, I think on that wonk say yeah D don't believe everything you see on the internet, I think is a lesson that we've probably learned several times over the years. U Now this is pretty cool Turn your N sixty four controller into an instrument. Now I never thought I wanted to do this A after watching this video, does look kind of cool Can you shred done Monica. I eat shreddies for breakfast sometimes What Joe, you been a rocker Does it appeal turning your N sixty four controller into a guitar pedal? U probablyrobably not for me. too I'm too much You should play it on stage, really? Yeah, I mean it's like playing guitar with the controller, isn't it U my friend John, who's a musician. He makes his own guitar pedals and stuff and you know, he's a big gamer as well. I could see something like I could see him Do doing this because he's very handy with this kind of stuff and having fun as a project, but as an actual kind of like sitting and playing it on stage, I can't I don't see it personally but as a cool little There might be certain bands certain bands where it would work, if you're like in a kind of retro You know, music band. Yeah there was one called press playay on tape and they they had a dance mat that was drums and they did like, you know, all the different controllers but they were very video game based But I feel like This has a Well I guess it is a synthesizer, isn't it? Like Yeah well what it is I'll explain. It's basically a pedal base at the moment. So ye it acts as a little unit that's a pass through for a guitar pedal now With the guitar pedal, you can put different N sixty four carts in there that do different effects. So you could put one in that connects to the N sixty four controller, that becomes the device that you're playing on. one side of the Base connects to an amp. another one you can have connect it to another pedal or whatever. But then you can buy these different carts. eachach different cart has a function and you can swap the carts out, put them in. And a lot of the functions are very I'll say like chip tuny sound Yeah kind of Yeah, very, very like a bity gritty Yeah Yeah They don't sound like guitar, They sound like eight bit synthesizers, don't they? And then there's like different effects that you can get on there like a delay and ping and stuff like that. And it it's designed for a very niche thing. I think It seems alright priced. I don't know. how much in demand these would be U in the st now in the world Well, might do that ye. But I think it's like some of forty to sixty quid an individual cart. Yeah that you got ye. But the paddle is one hundred and eighty dollars, so like a hundred word Yeah, the pedal base, ye. Yeah But I think's nice. So it's N sixty four like little carts, you can swap them out, you can do that it's very niche I wonder what happens if you put in like a Starfuckx c or something because it flows off Play m foall It is cool that this is actually a product they put out there. ' originally, I thought is it just kind of some kind of homebrew kind of thing, but yeah it's actually a Chicago company called Console Pedals who specialize in this kind of thing. So yeah they have a website where There are yeah a few people of them Bought them already by the looks of it. There's a couple of money. It's three left, one left. So ye, it looks like stupid names and stuff for like the c Ay distortion. Sillcope, yeah. Grazer phaser and buuzz fuzz and stuff Yeah Yeah, I think very cool. I can imagine what's AVGN's band called Oh what are they called? Rexs crew Rex Viper. Rex Viperipers Yeahah. I can imagine them playing. with one of these on stage. Yeah, ye Yeah that would work. So yeah, cool. If you want to check that out, I'll link that in the show notes so you could maybe grab yourself one if you quick. Now we haveve got a couple of extra stories to talk about in just a minute, including another Night Dive studio PC cllassic' on the way. Castlevania Corner coming up with Joe in just a moment as well. We need a jingle for that That's going to be my job next week, Joe, in Caslevania Coege and go win aid ye Yeah. se that to the production department. Before we do that, though, let's take a moment to give a big thank you to a long running sponsor of our lovely little podcast. That is our friends at Shopify. You know them, the ones with the sound The sound of making a sale. Now Shopify is for you. If you sell anything at all Online or even in person they've got some incredible tools. It will basically take all of the headache. out of selling. And we do speak from experience here having been, you know, we are season shopified users aren't we Rabi Yes, we are and some of our sponsors are also Shopify users, you know It's amazing that you could actually be buying stuff. from Shopify not really know about it because it's so big and you know you've got the really beautifully integrated checkouts and it's just such a smooth process. I remember when we set ours up. regions and you have price codes within them when we're sending physical items out, but we're also sending out digital items. It just really streamlined everything and made it massively smooth for us being also able to check the analytics and see what was selling and what wasn't. and you know, kind of being able to connect apps up as well because it's got its own individual apps. So if you want to do like print on demand stuff, you can do that through Shopify as well. It is the commerce platform that powers millions of businesses all around the world from companies just getting started to huge companies, Mattel, Gyimhark, they use them as well. And the thing about it is I think the reason so many people use it Rbbi is because It is so easy to use. and when you set ours up, you get these gorgeous templates that like all point and click aren't they Yeah, it's really easy to do and you can you can do it with a templation, you can create your own custom ones. you can theme it within like website also works on mobiles really well. the app and the mobile app's great actually because you can take payments on there. you can have a point of sale systems as well if you're out at events or kind of away from your computer at home, it's really useful I know a lot of products use AI these days, but Shopify is actually packed with really useful AI tools that will help you with your product descriptions, your page headlines, even enhancing your photography as well. One thing I love about it is that they've got basically a marketing team But that's the thing isn't? A lot of people may have a great products, but you know if you don't market your brand, you're not going to get customers. Shopify will help you with that. easasy to run email and social media campaigns. If you ever get stuck as well, not that we've needed it, but there is twenty four seven award winning customer support available too. And basically it puts everything in one place, takes all the headache out of selling, and when you use Shopify on your website, you get the iconic purple shop pay button and that is used by millions of businesses all around the world. It's basically the world's best selling, best converting checkout on the planet. So that means stuff like, you know, less carts going abandoned and more sales for you at the end of the day. So if you sell anything at all in person or online, why don't you give Shopify a try today? Now we've got an incredible offer we can try it out for just a pound a month. So if you' got your own business, wan to try this out, It's no brain that. A pound a monumth helps out the podcast as well by using our link shhopify. coda uk slash retro hour. That is shhopify. cot uk slash retro hour. I'll put it in the show notice so you can click straight through and get ready to hear a lot more of this Now my friends at Night Dive, of course are big fans of their work. They're really been specializing in, you know, kind of updating PC cllassics over the years, haven't they And this one looks like it could be big one. coming out at the end of the year. They're going to be remastering Thf, the Dark Project Yeah, so u Bef is an absolute classic really cool game. There were quite a few bef games in the series that the Dart Project It was during a time so nineteen ninety eight it was during a time where You know, you've lots of shooters and you're just going around absolutely killing everything. There's not that much strategy You know, there's not that much kind of stealth or anything like that in first person shooters. everyone was playing quake and stuff around them weren't they Especially on the PC. Yeah. and what FIif did was FieF introduced This really stealthy kind of gameplay where you've got to hide in the shadows. you've You've got like a an element of just working out the levels yourself Um This stuff like using the lighting and the enemy NPC intelligence, the AI that they had on them. different kind of aI today, but, you know, that The way that they worked and they reacted to things was really revolutionary with it. kind of like spawned off a wholeo whole section of games later on like like hitmbers don't know reallyally stealthy kind of title that came from that. genre It's originally by Ken Lvine I've had on the podcast, you know Biohock and Right just a really, really great kind of gaming history and it's good to see Night Diver returning to this and hitting these kind of PC titles as well I don't know, they seem like they werere often a bit forgotten about the titles that they're going going to but they' Absolutely classic. I've done some huge ones think qu Quake two and Heretic and Hexon, but yeah, there's been stuff like Blood, they didn't lay in them. Y killing time Shadow Man. so there's been like, yeah, some defin cult classics they've done in the past Yeah, and the look of this as well, I've just looking at some of the screenshots Just's really nicely done because it's that old textured PC look and just seeing that in kind of high resolution is pretty good. And I think puzzle element and the sneaking element, you know, you're like a if you look at games like I Assassin's Greed nowadays and stuff all that legacy es comes from fith. U yeah, really really top game and I think a lot of people will endand up Exploring this one. Yeah, it's not a game Ive played before, I mean, I think I'll mention on the podcast. I'm aware of it, but your stealth has never really been My thing. you've just been running and kill everything. I'm aware of stealth. I know the concept behind me stef. I more like throw it through a grenade in the middle of everyone. Well, even like last of us and stuff like that, you know, have a legacy to these titles Yeah, I'm definitely aware of obviously water A huge classic thf is. So yeah, looks What I love about Night Di as well is that they they generally don't go over the top with like making the graphics too shiny and modern looking. They're definitely meanful to the originals Yeah, definitely this feels like Yeah, it's not it's not too much. It could have been like I don't know the textures, they still look old school. They're just a bit higher quality. They're not like they haven't done bump mapping or any of these kind of like, you know, mega special effects and they've still got I think sound was a really, really big thing with FIf as well. so you know, making noises and distracting people and and doing that kind of stuff. So hope that works really well Yeah, so going be another updated classic that you'll one to wishlist now that is not releas stated yet. Like I said coming out in the winter this year. That's the only thing we know so far, but it is available to wishlist on Steam. So yeah, looks really good Now let's go down there Castlelvania Cresent. Cvia president. Yeah. I see he was waiting at the end. Oh it's Joe from Castlevania News. W I swear to God, I don't just sit looking for Castlevonia resident evil newews. They just come up all the time. The big game It just finds you. It just finds me. It just tracks me down. I'll be sitting on the bus, a random stranger will sit next to you and just go, Jo. haveave you hadard this I've been on the book in ages. Yeah, so this is so Castlevanias circle of the Moon Or in the UK it was just called Caslevania was a Game Boy advced title U that came out in the summer of two thousand one And was recently released, I say recently it was probably about five years ago now on modern systems as part of the Castlevania Advanced Legacy Collection Um Really, really, really fun Detroid Vania you know, old school, I guess, Castlevia Iess say old school. Castlevania is forty years old. This game's twenty five years old. I don't know if that's class is old school U but a really good Castlevania game I don't think gets enough love because it originally came out in the game by Advance and it was around the time when the fre D Castlevania games were being pushed and they weren't as they would as well received as the original two D games U the reason I'm talking about this is this has been ported to the SegA Mega dririve U slash Genesis this last week And I think it looks wicked. U very I on there. Yeah So a home brerew developer known as Andor has done this and he has said that he's not been able to test it and fully test it actual Sega Mega dririve hardware, but it does work. So it willll work in ROM you know, like a meegarraay out of rM emulator And if you download it onto anever dririve and play it on the NgaDrive, it will work. But he's not fully tested it. So there will be bugs, et cetera and but in emulation, it works It isn't the full game U and this was a big game. I did complete this on u The Advanced Legacy Collect a year or two ago. I mean it's a long big game, so I'll be interested to see if you can get the whole thing Ro mega dririving As I say, it is a metroid Venia style game. so it is that sixteen bit to the action platform of graphics, so it's not Fed or anything like that. So It was a game by advanced game. so I does it look to the GBA version? Are the graphics different?. So that's what I wanted to get to. So graphically it looks the same the color palette This is where it's interesting to colour a palette I would say is a bit duller than it is on the GBA. It looks a little a little bit washed out Maybe some of the brighter colors aren't as bright as they are on the GBA version However, The music I think is stunning if you watch the little trailer I think the little gameplay trailer. I think the um The music really, really, really suits that mega dririve chip Um youith know really remember the music on I did play it on Game Boy advance because my friend Matt had it at school and I borrowed it off him Th then like I say, I've played it on Xbox, so it's a bit different But I really love the sound of this and I really think it feels you know Castlevania was always kind of like a Nintendo game and then it kind of moved to PlayStation later on U the Mega dririver only got the one Castlevania game I feel like this feels really at home on the Sega Mega dririve even though It never came out on there. But it's cool to see that he's developing it and you know, it I'm hoping you'll test it more as he continues with the project And then people will be able to download it and play the full game on there. But I think go check it out if you especially if you're into Castlevania and youre into Castlevania soundtracks, I think it sounds fantastic I think the look of it could be explained by the other Mega drives got a lot less colors than the the Game Boy ad bvance. I think there's only sixty four Yeah you want on screen. So I think the Gameboy addvanced like five hundred or something. so makes sense and'd have to degrade the color palette to Yeah. But I love this path of development as well. Gameboy advanced then going onto the Ega dririve. That's really cool. I think it's interesting because if I did always see B I've said this before in the podcast. I always saw the gamepl where advan as like a handheld super Nintendo Obviously not mega dririve, but You know, there that sixteen bit relationship there so it's cool to see I guess it's kind of like backwards as you've just said, Bare Aby like It's like gone from the thirty two bit handheld down to the sixteen bit console I wonder how many home brew ports there is of Sega Mega Drive games running on Game by advance? Yeah the other way around, ye. Yeah had any way around, so But yeah, cool to see a little bit of slowdown in there at certain points, but You can play the whole first section of the game all the way up to the first bus All the power ups are present, or the moves are present. have in the game all the different enemies are there Absolutely los of different enemies in the game, loads of enemies that scream at once like I say, you get a little bit of slow down the more that's going on, but Yeah, if you're a fan of Castlevania as I am, go check it out Yeah, I love one of the comments on the article here as well. It says there are more exciting games coming out for the Megarive at moment than they're off for the swwitch too which was just shockired. Yeah. so yeah, very cool. You can download a demo of that as well for free. if you want to try it out right now. So I'll link that in the show notes as well I just want to cover this as well before we get into theatrons' bit. I think we've got a few minutes Um Metro Siege now this is a game. But of course, we have covered on the podcast quite a lot in the past. We had the guys from BitBam Canon on the show, didn't we a couple of years ago now. now Metro Siege is a really cool sixteen bit beat him up It's in development for the Amiga, the No Go and the PC as well. You play the Amiga demo, Ravi years ago. So I've played the really early version now. I think this has been in development for a very long time and I' surpris I think is. Yeah I'm surprised to see it come to Kickstarter actually. but it has absolutely smashed its Kickstarter. And it's also coming out for the NO Go, yeah. so A yes and MVS and the Abiga. Um box version. It is I the streets around, comeome on, like but it's using all the all the tricks that weren't really available back then in the Amiga U you know, you look at some of the development videos. I remember seeing them early on They were they were using every trick under the sun to get this to work. And this is why I'm probably thinking it's taken so long, you know because yeah, it's a small development team This is a going to be a full Amazing highigh level arcade standard release that we would have never have got back in the days. Do you remember any kind of c op kind of belt scrolling fighters on the Aiga. I remember the playing like Double Dragon. Double Dragon. Yeah. onene in three wee used to play three quite a bad. I fine. theiga. I think it was awful. Yeah. I remember a Polish one where people had like ten photos of themselves and you were walking through the street. It's like digitized. Yeah, yeah. it was just like gangsters fighting and so it was like a PD game but well good fun. I the Glden x version on the Amiga was pretty good, but yeah yeah, yeah that was definitely wasn't many that were worth playing. but this one, I mean, yees, so if you want to get involved in this, it is still running on Kickstarter until Saturday july the fourth, only one at thirteen thousand pounds at the time recording already over forty thousand. So definitely a big demand for it. And I'm looking at this, I'm thinking this will be There's not many games I kind of collect on physical these days This might be one that I will back and get the physical version th cos Yeah, I think in terms of It's one of those, Joe, you kind of you have preconceived ideas about what ammiga games are like I remember when you first saw this, one thing that was stuck in my mind is you you didn't realize your Miga could kind of do this kind of game that well Yeah, I Look, I always bash on the amiga with you guys and when everyone comes along like this, I'm always like, oh wow, this looks great. Yeah. There was a lot of crap on the Omega. Yeah,. But yeah, I love the look of this. you know, we've collected most of it as well. You guys had it all. Yeah, I do it just feels like Streets of rage meets Final fight, meets doubleragon bike for sure and it I think I'm always surprised when games run like a really good frame rate and don't have any slowdown. Like on the Amigam, I'm like, wow, look at that. like, you know when it's like a beat them up. It's like what could have been if if they had all these years of development to do that and yeah Rather than two weeks. And this probably wasn't programmed in easy AMosS like you know a lot of them were back in the day. No No hating on AMos. I did love it. But yeah, I think is this what you want to play, then jokes andntil you haven't got an amiga or Neo Go Yeah, I think u If it was to come out in a modern system I'd grab it, you know, if they were to release it on, you know, Xbox or Switch or something then it's coming down PC. Yeah, modern P PC. Okay. Yeah. Yeah I'm a PC gamer. see? like I feel like they're putting it on all these systems I don't have or play. But if I just toment yeah I know, if I spoted this on Xbox for like fifteen queerdads I'd immediately pick it up Well we've got a No Geo I don't have any OGO that you can spend a couple of a hundred quid and running on that. I could do, but now I don't have any OGO unfortunately It does look incredible. I did play the early demos while Rvi. I remember my brother came to visit me and I put it on and he was again, used to play Micer games when we were kids blown away by it said, God, imagine if we had this one, like you know, in the early nineties So yeah, it kind of feels like the They kind of sixteen bit beat them up that the ammigro always wanted So been several years in the making now. so we are getting close to it. want to back that. You have still got time running until that' Saturday, july fourth. So I'll link that in all the rest of the stories in the show notes. An reminder as well that we are going to be doing the Patrons hanging at the end of the month coming up On a Sunday twenty eighth of July, so that's their next Sunday. Patrons hangouts are always fun, aren't? We talk about so much on them Yeah yeah, there was some fun It's great to see everyone on that a right international bunch. It's great to see people from all over the world and different systems and also are worldwide Yeah. We also talk about all sorts talk about movies and old retro technology music as well. Yeah. Futuristic things as well. It's It's like a varied chat. Yeah. Yeah a lot of advice, a lot of game room tours, It's really friendly bunch. We all say it we made a lot of know really good friends in there. Some of our patrons actually made some each other outside to hang out, I think, you know. Gareth and Ash went a little Mand, did We're like they're meeting up on their own independent. How dare they Yeah We're a wonderful bunch. we're always welcing new people as well. if want to join us for the Hangout coming up next weekend all the details at the retrohour dot com dot You get loads with the perks as well and ad free episode of the podcast every week with a couple of extra new stories what'll be doing just for our patrons. You're a goal member you get an extra podcast as well, over fifty episodes of the afterfter hours, a little exclusive area of discord. So it's all on there. you'd like to join all the details of the retrohour dot com d All right,, thank you for check out the news more for you next Friday And next get the story of the legendary the seventh guest with our special guest this week, Rob Landos, he's next on the retro Out podcast When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant You keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns With Ganger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done Call one eight hundred Ganger, click ranger. com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant You keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns Ranger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts. You can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done Call one eight hundred Ganger, click ranger. com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done You're with the Retro Hour podcast and it's time to welcome on this week's very special guest. Now today we're going to be getting some incredible stories, I'm sure from a company that really was such groundbreaking company I remember seeing a game called The seventh guest Back in the early nineties, first got a glimpse of that on a gaming television program and it looked like a video game from twenty years in the future. It was that early era of CD ROM and full motion video and it's very well time we're doing this interview because the legendary seventh guest is now back. It has had a complete redesign and relaunch and is available right now, but all the modern platforms will' hear all about that, off course the making of the original game and's something really interesting in a game called Diddy that is currently running on Kickstarter. Again that's been twenty five years in the making So to get the story of that, we're going to hear some inside tales from the legendary tririlobyte software as well with this week's very special guest, Rob Landeros. How's it going, Rob Very good Thank you and good morning or good afternoon or whatever it is in the world. Yeah. Well I appreciate you coming on to chat seven guest and all of your career history as well because you've worked for some amazing companies. I mean, why don't we start right back at the beginning? I mean, do you remember when you first discovered video games? What was kind of your earliest memory of encountering a video game I think anybody old enough it's gotta be ong I don't know, does that qualify be yeah I had a little prong thing, It was a little device you put it in the back of your TV, you know, Well why than my TV. did that? But you know, that was a novelty, but I'm sure you're talking more about You know, Atari stuff and whatnot. ye know, space invaders Yeah, Commodore sixty four U and yeah, I was a commonore guy I sixty four And uh yeah, got a uh one of those I don't know eararly eighties. And um, Yeah. you know, played some games and that on it and u didn't In fact, I collected a lot of games. didnidn't play a lot of them. In fact, I just played maybe two or three, you know But my favorites H had a nice collection on the shelf though, did you? Yeah. I guess there wass a lot of piracy going on or something. I don't know. I had a stack of the discs, but Yeah, u So that was my first experience and just like, you know, it's thousands millions of others. guess because I think with the Commodore Um Money I kind of got tired of playing games or, you know, a little bit I mean, I've never been a huge gamer Uh, and, uh when I discovered that there was this de basic, you know, common or basic let's go sixty four cometers Anw V two wasn't it on the sixty four I remember? Yeah. Codile basic Yeah, I discovered that and it was like I was kind of intrigued by, you know, that So I actually delved into that more than played games I wondered were you doing any art on there as well, then because you had an art background and you were doing some like underground comics and stuff stuff as well Yeah, I guess it was kind of started with us. There was a drop in at UC University of California at Riverside to Southern California Yeah, I was hanging out there, you know, just kind of hanging out. I wasn't really enrolled, but And friends slept in dormitories, even though it wasn't a city, it was just kind of a fun place to be And I met this Girl Heate my girlfriend who was from the Bay arerea And shes kind of like really hip and really liberal and Yeah, she was kind of a strange creature to find in Southern California that time Oh and she introduced me to like underground comics, you know, it happen Rber Krum stuff And, you know, I've been I've been doing some cartooning Um, Not very much at all And And So Yeah, I was just fascinated kind of mind blowing stuff of the time. so u U revolutionary Yeah And disrupted Certainly at the time it was like quite disruptive and I can imagine like underground comics as well they were quite a bit edging and stuff like that Well, that was the thing to do. You had to break the boundaries. you're going to do a Cics, right, you had to push it hard. Yeah, you just there was not no room for mediocrity hereg Sieago. Yeah, standandard fair Well, it's interesting you talked about the Commodore sixty four before and you that you couldn't really do graphics on that machine you know without having kind of some expert knowledge you could say. But then other machines came along in the mid eighties in particular. I mean, anyone watching the video version of this podcast, you can see behind me, I've got two Commodore Amiga computers still set up in my office because' my all time favorite machine And I know that you got your hands on Amiga won thousand. So I'm interested in kind of why did the Amiga stand out to you? and also I think that was over a thousand dollars, wasasn't it? I mean, did you have to scrim and save to afford one of those about then Well yeah, I mean, you know, that was another period. That was like maybe the third period where I was dead broke. And it was after the scrimshaw thing, right? So Id kind of gotone to back to my hometown This kind of kind of you know, just figuring out what to do. and I heard about the Aga I seen the Aga in a magazine or something. and I knew, you know, I was aware that they could do these graphics. deep there And u, It just so happened. It was the summer of eight eighty seven. that In my hometown there was this little It's a very small indoor mall that just opened. shhops are new. we're inv to many people in there very many shops in there and But there was a store that was selling Aiga stuff, you know, software and I just happen to be in there one day strolling through and There was a gentleman outside that. Software store B than Eia did graphics and I looked over his shoulder the screen and I was blown away. I said, you know, this Here it is. you know, this kinda what I was hoping. Um that's accessible. And then that gentleman may not be Jim Sachs Wow. Yeah what a person to meet, you know, one of the best ammiga artists out there as well The best. I think that's ye. Yeah. thenen and now nobody has sur passed st So obviously again, my mind was blown and No know exchange T words Yeah And yes I went to I didn't have Anybody And I went to my mom and I said Mom, can you front me whatever it was? eight hundred thousand dollars you know? And That was a big deal. you know, at that time. just seemed like todayod's dollars would been like asking for eight thousand dollars. Yeah. But she said, okay, yeah, okay,. I guess she had some faith in me. and Oh G got the Amiga I got do you think and spent that summer Um just When I wasn't ye swimming and jogging and being in stage productions, which was something else I was doing at that summer. It's kind of a weird thing. But yeah I have time to sit down and learn deeply. And I'd already seen Jym Sack, what Jyim Sack could do? So I was inspired. And so you know, I created about, I don't know Th, four Jesus five somethingomet like that And um, So I took it to you know, these user groups, special interest groups Commodore beinga U and there was one this was happening nearby in San Marddino, I think. U And I attended couple of those and I shared my work had it displayed And a gym. Sx. Yes Sow my stuff And u Yeah, out of the blue one day, you called gave me a call Instead You know, ye, I'm as you know, I'm doing now defender of the Crown And cinemaware, they're They're looking for somebody to finish the project. and maybe to be a art director because Jim Sachs, you might know the story that he was offered He was offered that. Job by Bob Jacobs Head of far. Sinere But he turned it down because I guess there was some dispute Al Jem just didn't want the job. didn't even want to finish the game So the game was unfinished and and didn need to be done by Christmas. and I think this is already October or something like that So yeah, he told me Gotact I Jacob went over there had the meeting Job. Bob was you know, desperate for somebody. So you hired me? Game M Yeah. I was wondering then like Did you have much of a history of like watching films and stuff? and you know, the cinematic background and the vision of Robin Phillllis as well Jacobs, did you kind of take that on board and you know, moveving on to further projects as well Yeah, I think you know, I love movies, love film. I reference them all the time They've always been part of you know, me and what I do. Ething I created's, you know, and I carriry that. on to, you know, some of the guests and other projects. as you know that, you know The whole push that we're doing childal life was trying to do interactive storytelling and bring some, you know cinematic u language to to game which You know, that was The mission and mandate of Sinemore So I was no Yeah, I' been landing in Cinemar that was I adopted that mindset and approach to gaming And I think, you know, obviously, You know, it was do. I mean, now that the capabilities are there Of course, you're gonna, you know, what beautiful graphics, and you want a told story and you're gonna want to, you know, not only have just beautiful still graphics, but you want to have beautiful animation and eventually, you want to have video All right, so it's just one thing leading to the other And u Yeah, so u Yeah, I kind of u touchstone for about everything I do. I always reference. Movies basically. You know. Well, at this stage when you arrive at Cinema We then, and you mentioned that Defender of the Crown was already in development, d teething troubles and obviously it was a bit of a rush to get it out for the Christmas market as you said, I mean, what was the what kind of state was it in then when you arrived there and how did you make sure that it kind of got over the line? then was it was it quite difficult few months Actually it was not there was only a few things. In fact, I only contributed. I think there was like like maybe threeks. items that needed to be complete completed And uh so, you know, u Yeah. got finished and out on time fairly quickly. because there wasn't much to doing. And my contribution to defender of Crimown was very minimal The same least I always thought, you know, the meticulous graphics and stuff would have taken a really, really long time. but if you arrived and that hadd already all been done then it's It' kind of sewing the pieces together And yeah, and just like I say, completing some scenes that had not been that were needed, that had not been finished. mayaybe there are three of them. Yeah, mighty eightighty percent of the work had been done, so I Oh It was, but that was just not the only project that needed to be done here. You know, Bob was trying Wish out like two or three other projects the same time. So it was like you know Yeah. Dender didn't take too much my time. It was the other projects that U really, you know, we were in there. Yeah, I was in there many extra hours over time And u was trying to get u You know I don't remember the projects were, but Yeah, he worked he worked this pretty hard that that first year. And and part of my job was just to build a well, I got there and gosh, you know, they needed Somebody There are all these floppy discks It's all over the place I mean I chaos. You know, I went in there and he says, we need, you know, and I I had to go through every desk Open it up, see what it is, you know, and then rename files and organize it. you know And it was just and I was just the only artist there. so I needed Delt So the part of the Part of being an art director is, you know, putting alcohols for artists and, you know hiring So I was doing that at the same time. So you know, like I said, the first year was just a rutal D G through it. Yeah. I think it's really interesting that kind of cinematic link as well with seventh guest, you know and CD Rom coming in and also the kind of cinematic feel of cinemaware games and stuff. Yeah, did you kind of Naturally move on to that with that kind of cinematic feel Yeah, kind of moving on away from cinema for a bit getting head to the next stage where I got had an opportunity to explore that kind of stuff was, you when I moved on to Virgin. And u Like I say, after the first year cinema where I was, you know, brutal and I worked hard and A A a year I asked for a raise. And there seemed to be a problem with it. And I kind of felt underappreciated.. so At that point I was kind of looking to an opportunity to move on. Unfortunately, a girl who had worked at cinema where she had moved on and had started working in marketing version and she gave me a call and said they're looking for a carructor over there And somebody who U could bring these and were kind of sensibilities to do their products So yeah. I got that call, went over to talk to you Martin Eper. It was just incredible gentleman He was very appreciative He, um obbviously, you know, just kind of, you know, just I was very open too I guess he saw something in me that, you know, it was They light and was impressed by Um He hadd already hired Graham Devine, you know, and brought him over. And I think he saw me is that second part of the puzzle that you needed U And so, you know, he hired me on And the with the express purpose of, you know, doing bringing to h productros one I helped bring to with Sinemore which was minute. the whole cinematic thingang and just stepping up the game getting into an ay game seven. It's their kind of. lost in the U a bargain bin in software. Do' not search sell on. Yeah. cheheap names And he just wanted, you know, yeah. so of just game. so Um yeah, and so I got that opportunity and Well you mentioned Meting M Gram there as well, obviously the co designer of seventh guest along with yourself. Now I'm interested in kind of the this era of the game because I did hear there was deal with like pitching the idea of seventh guest? What happened was I say Graham and I, you know he was head of programming, I was head of art department and And we had Martin who' kind of like Consider like the third beetle or whatever is is an important element in the whole thing because he facilitated the whole oppunity in relationship, but I e Yeah, Grab and knife for some reason, you just kind of headed off. You know, grandma's just like in their early twenties You know, with his kid. been imported from England, Yeah, UK Your country Yeah over here and u And u He kind of I don't know, was going off I was twice his age, you know, I was already approaching forty. still young guy. He was mature for his age. and And I was immature from my age. so k it off that way And so we we kinding to put our heads together and we're just thinking in terms of you know, what we were doing there and being critical of the kind of games that we're being assigned to do Um, because it was my understanding and it was Brands's understanding they wanted to, you know, like I say, u Th But they were still had a certain mentality of kind of licensing products and putting out You know, quick and cheap Yeah. And The gra and I won't really We're interested. do we do saw what was happening with CD and multimedia? And u We decided to form Our own n of division of, you know, new technology division of resolving. Yeah. this start printed up for ourselves as such And told Martin, yeah, we should look into that stuff. and then there were conferences happening. so Um We said we should go to some of these attend some of these confereces see what's going on. And again, it was multimedia CRM and everybody was pushing. into that hole. Snick And the question and the buzzword was multimedia Yes, And so we attended several conferences. I mean, Martin Fewis here and there, you know, maybe fork I've confnce to this And the one that was really most important was the last one I went to it was in New York. Um And that was in nineteen ninety and On the way back to New York, where Graham and I are sitting in the airport going Well, you know, there's another conference we've attended and what what are we going to, you know, what are we going to do when we get back? We should report, you know, we should have some kind of a And file some kind of assessment or report for Martin U and let us let him know what we what are Conclusion is out of all this, what have we got? What have we learned? what are we thinking And so we sat down and said, Well, we should probably just we should. bring Damie to U The technology,? This is something going be Most of the people attending these compnes were business oriented, you know, there weren't very many gamers I mean out of all these hundredundreds of people. in the crowd could spot the gamers because they didn't they weren't wearing suits and everything. you know, t shirts and jeans anduff. So we kind of gravitated toward them and we're just hanging out. But yeah, so we saw an opportunity. It's like, well, you know, not verying it wasn't much of a gaming presence at these play things and we could You know, take advantage of that get in on that niche thing, be the first So we came back while we were sitting in an airport and we sketched out some basic thoughts we needed to do reallyally back of the napkin b And when we got back, we wrote up U proposal about what version Should do U in fact I read it the other night was presumptuous of us, you know, You' tellelling Martin what, you know, what the companyed to do U And we just laid it all out various reasons why we should get into C her O technology part of it. And and our initial idea about what could be done in that work. And we had the bare bones idea of Well it turned out to be the sudden gess originally it just called a guest. And It's kind of like we're thking a ghost that movie Give me more and do I always just keep it short Yes And, so we proposed, you know, u we we gave the u rough outline of the game and a proposal mine . we do and how we do it and what basic pay would be and principles behind it. He read it I think we gave it to them like in the morning we came in nine o'clock, ten o'clock and We read it may even o'clock, so let's go lunch We were ha for lunch and he said he aggreed Any you like the idea And he thought we should do it. He kind of green lighted it There basically, you know. lot because it's amazing. Yeah Thats that's one of those incredible parts with the whole thing U doesn't happen, right? I mean that's why Martin was just so and it was just part of his faith in us, you know U I don't know what you know, how c where you got that from, but you know whatever we told them I think he have a lot of respect for Graham and I and I think, particularly Graham, you know, I was just the kind of bly graphics guy, right? I wasn't game designer or even, you know, or you know Martin's obviously really behind the idea, then obviously you actually formed your own company though to make the game trial and Bte. So how come that happened then? I did read that Martin Cany, you know in quitees fired you. so they could basically help you, you know dedicate your time solely to developing the game. How did it turn into like you setting up your own company to develop it then. Yeah, it sound it sounds like a good story when say, you know, we got fired and we went on to, you know But he helped us Andondria It's not quite that j like I say. I always I read the proposal that we N gave Martin and it specifically and suggested that we Do it off site You know, but somehow that we could either be continue to be employees Virgin J work offsite O we could dism all together. company with a contract Ciration And, um Yeah, but So that was, you know, that was our proposal. And again, he agreed to He said, Yeahah, you know. That's what you want to do Yeah, I think it's u It's a very ambitious kind of project that you guys had laid out and I was wondering where that came from because Was that your like confidence in Graham's programming? because looking at some previous multimedia CD ROMs and stuff like that. they weren't really these full cinema like, interactive experiences. No one had really done that before or planned for anything like that Yeah, I guess when he made the proposal We just I don't know where we got that. I don't know where I got that ambition. you know, think that I could actually pull it off. But it just we had the I guess the vision But it should be we didn't really have the complete knowledge about how it would be done U we just work with the tools that we had, the knowledge that we had U yeah, that's why the whole thing was u I don't know what the word is just, u Yeah For I some short or You know? Ambitious, maybe. Yeah ambitious. And we, you know, we formed a company and we moved out. we called our wives up to Southern Oregon to formed this company. It was like, yeah, because it' say, Hey, we got a contract and we got some moneyre we're going to do this thing And yeah, the whole thing is based on a hope and a prayer kind of thing, you know in a way justust in kind of work in ourselves so we can do it. And and enling the kind of technology as well. lik Playing video but on CD Rome hadn't been done to that level before, especially the compression U so it was it was two CDs and I think it was like five or six CD's worth of footage And I'd managed to kind of get compressed down with grams coding What was that like when when you guys got that working? That's reallyally significant thing We didn't know how we were going to represent the the mansion. Our first thought was that we would find a large house, a mansion somehow We get under the camera. We do. three hundred and sixty scamans And You know film stuff, you know basasically put it on Paper videootape and but once we got into the largest house in this area, it was just like this this is too small. This isn't going to work, you know, it's just This is not happening. We're going to have to figure out a way to recreate this match, or create this match It so happened that one of our artists that we came along, Robert Stein, the third He was kind of he had been, um E've been diddling around with that the studio on his own We didn't know it He came in one morning. And he said, Hey, you know, I've been messing around with this three D studo. It's kind of cool And He had just put together a small room. It's a full room, a bar, a fireplace, I think' a chair and a A laugh or something And we go, oh yeah, it's kind of nice kind of bear, you know, cool. Yeahah It's ye ra. And he said, Yeahah, watch it and he animated it. We saw that air and the furniture was rise in the air B been around and lam Oh go w, you know, wow Okay. that's Okay, that's pretty cool. Um, and I was skeptical. I said, we're going to be able to build an entire mansion with all the Furniture in Dang all the Kutrean neck and accent you do that. It's got to be int it and enamel sticks. I mean, just And G I guess we're going to have to, you mean, because this is the solution we're looking for Um, but yeah It only three D Cal would render, I think any resolution The animation it was able to do He was s threeree sixty by two hundred forty You know And it came with a little player, I think, and you could play that anything larger than that, it's just, you know stutter or just So yeah, so We said, no, this is too small, you know you You see each fill here. It's like, gotta make a f the screen. It's going be So it's got to be at least twice there And so yeah, that's where grand came a al. He said, okay, well Nes some compression. So you developed what it called the groovy engine And well ye he made the player he gave it to Autodesk. I mean, he showed it to him, he just kind of put it out there And A of us was thrilled. You know, I said like, Ohh yeah, that's cool So we were able to play, you know Like was then high isolation Animation And you can't underestimate how impressive that was. I mean at the time we're talking about, most people had like single speed CD RM drives in ninety three. Oh yeah. it couldn't have happened without all these thingsink happening. You know We couldn't have done on the usit three D studio hadn't come along. Grand man had been able to do the compression. I mean, we could have done something, but it have a tiny thing been ridiculous I then integrating the But, you know, the the prrimer key And super VHS footage over the top of it. it's pretty amazing and innovative. Yeah. Again, we're just flying by the seat of B Dance doing all this stuff. We you know, we again, we Y ask about my interested mo interest in movies. I never made a movie I never directed a movie or anything like that. You know, I ha didn't even shot any much video And so This one of those things were u We just , we got to find somebody who didn't do this. we happen to live in outside of Well in southern Oregon, the nearby Tos It's called Ashland, Oregon It's the home of a Shakespeare festival Ver procedures, well known, people come from all over. And it's a very theatrical town. There's several U Wife theatater. So there's the productions going on a lot every season So there are a lot of actors here and a lot of media people So, u Yeah, we found a guy who a videotpper and And those actors showed up and, you know, casting and But we said we told them what we needed and then they were just, you know, they hadd never done this kind of stuff before have green spreen on it. but in fact, we use blue screen for whatever reason Yes we hadn't heard a green Yeah, a lot did back then, didn't it? I think Blue was a standard back then for some reason Yeah. ye So we had r she'sa bl paper and whatnot. And it was just terrible. It was just no The we hired two guys and bless their hearts, man. they needed to work and we hired them to clean up all the video And they had to go in and talk be frame by frame you know, M Chroma keed stuff that we managed to get and just It was all pixelated and they just were they just cleaned up stuff clean my hand. all my hat Yeah I'm interested in the cast members you had as well because I mean, that must have been quite unique for an actor to come in because I mean, they'll be used to being on stage or television, but having to work on a film motion video game That must have been something brand new to them having all the The different reactions of the player might choose the different actions in the game and even looking at the camera, you know and talking directly to the player. Was that quite difficult for the actors to get their head around then? Do you remember much about that Yeah, I mean, it was so new. Dep boys. And someone that this Cid provincial area although it kind of is provincial U It's not a highly sophisticated place. I mean they weren't used to having a technology company, you know, in in in the Rogue Valley here in southern Oregon. And a lot of people are just confused about what we were doing anyway You know, there were rumors about, you know, we werere up to there a lot of them Very nice They thought we were doing pornography ora. It's like He let their imagination run wild So you know, we tried to explain what they're doing they probably didn't know about the internet and email or any of that stuff, right? So Yeah, there was a So yeah, everything we did and and, you know, actors or whoever Oh yeah They were just, you know, everybody was kind of confused and Curious Remember we did some presentation with a likeike a film and video group U that had regular meetings and we did a presentation showing them about three year end rang and whatnot. And yeah, everybody was like then you know, it's like, wow So everything we're doing is amazing. So the actors, when they came in Yeah, they end it Ebody nobody knew, you know What was that happening? I think it was All the different elements coming together as well. So you had the rendering in there, the great puzzles, the VHS footage as well as MIidDI with a great soundtrack, you know, George the Fatman sanga as well involved Do you remember when you first heard that and you saw it all Yeah, I know, it's like I'm just I don't know if it's answering your question, but It is ringing, George. and project I mean, that was a big deal peopleeople just inhle I think' certain guess, I they think the music. U sometometimes that's one of the priming things. other People think about graphics and some people Maybe fewer people think about propuzles, but, you know yeah, so it was serendipitous, I guess, you know? I mean we'd seen that he had Well, you know George Sanger, the fat manan Bger life. Its he's hard to miss So if you have gone to a conference or anything, you say, oh that guy there's the fat man. And oh yeah, he's he did the music for a wing commander in almost whatever And yeah, hes he's pretty good And So yeah, we just Hey Mcall Al some who was interested in need know. And than God, he said, yeah Same with Matt Castello, who did the script Um any, let's just say know, Again, I goinging back to the fact that I am not a director, I'm not a writer. you know, I was and graphicarts basically. and who can do some game design Think about a kind of r Um, so Everything we did was kind of like we just have to Find people, you know, put together teams Binnamach Costello, a guy who writes horror He's really interested in games. You know, doess gaming And we heard about that.body They referenced him. said, Hey, you guys look looking for a writer and there's this guy on lookkay found Matt and Sa Fat man Uh, you know, found some actors actors always willing to Did I join Do something get some work. and yeah. so and and we found some video people and what So Yeah, and artists too, you know Um ourur team in Talumi, I think back on it, it wasn't large. We had like three artists in there During the whole thing But most of it was jobbed out We just it's no it is There were very few people were doing three D And u And eventually found people from all over the place, you know. over the country and maybe even in foreign lands But and we just job out stuff. here's a here's a room. you know, heres we're doing this and And we show them examples the kind of rooms that we've done and And we just, you know assign people to do variious things and remotely, that's in the models But we usually just take with the three D meshes Can them up, placeac them due to lighting extxtra wraps and all that stuff. so yeah Yeah, so matter putting teams together. When the game was released s april nineteen ninety three, it went on to sell two million copies and I think it was, you know, definitely one of those games that kind of bushered in the the CD Rom Revolution. people look at the seventh Cest and mist as been the two games that really inspire people to upgrade their machines back then. even I remember Bill Gates called it the new standard in interteractive Entertertainment. It was a massive success. Yeah, I've got a quotite from him here. yes, which is pretty good praise. And obviously after that huge success, you wanted to work on a A follow up game. So the eleventh hour, which was planned for the following year, but ended up getting delayed until the winter of nineteen ninety five. I remember that game wasn't quite as successful. I mean, you remember kind of what the story was with the sequel We knew that we had to do a sequel And even before the second guast had been we start working. So ye, Grand was busy finishing up some guest I was busy starting in love flour. We kind of expanded the whole scope of being one expand the scope of the the storytelling. And up the video production You know, trying to get a better cleaner video A the more I guess, u Cohesive story. Um with actual You know, drama and character arcs and things like that We' I se guestl was U kind of You know Bory. bought a billion, I mean over rot. U over the top kind of acting, you know Yeah, but hamy in some places. Yeah. Yeah, it was handy Yeah We just wanted to change that a little bit Uh and because I always felt that we're making stories and games for the adult more adult audience. U So, u We brought in David Wheeler. U, he he'd moved he moved up to this area and he was slightly a professional guy had done serious work and making documentaries and films And he came in and he worked on We got a script from Mat Costello. Dave Wheeler reworked it and u It began But I guess the problem was gettingetting down to the the one of the big bigger problems with B L the Fower was the Whereas su the gas compression was easier because it wasn't not, you know, a lot of moving parts. it was just Gost straight, everythingverything else is static. so it's easier. It's compressed. And the way we shot the eleventh hour it was just like it was full video, right? It was like on location and whatnot. And And Graam's going like,, what are you guys doing? you know? it's like You know, you really thrown this Thing it man much proro doing that. And and then, you know, Windows three came along and all of sudden he had to be adapted for that U could see six Iven guesses of DOS game. And u Yeah, there's just technical difficulties and And I think there's another problem By goes back to me as What I want to do is But with any sequel, right, it's going to be hard to please the fans of the original Right. I mean, no matter what you do. If you do it T much the same, criticized for just doing the same thing over again. And if you change your too much, it doesn't like the fans don't like, you know, hey, you know, we'se what's about the music? What about stuff? What about, you know, you know whatever it is So You know, and the puzzle the gameplay, you know, I introduced different kinds of more like a treasure hunting element where you had to follow clues and decipher riddles and things like that to lead you around the house to solve it a puzz. And so it was a different design And so the whole thing we're going had, you know And then when it was released, there were some, you know, it was hard for people to We didn't happen whatot. And and it was late and everybody was mad about that And I guess other players were entering the game as well at that time you had a Sierra with a Phantasmagoria like coming out about a year later and you know, there were a lot of FMV titles suddenly in development and a lot of companies went straight ono that, didn't They kind of converted and changed to becoming prettyt much like filmms studios at one point Yeah I guess that's part of you're saying there's more competition and Yeah part of to. Yeah. Yeah. even though definitely did have some technical firstough mean it was still, you know, like you said, a very ambitious game U yeah. so I know like you said, you know, Windows not if five come along by then too. So yeah, but I mean, so Obviously after the eleventh hour, I know T toike continue for a few years. But you did actually bring the company back in twenty ten, which is kind of where the catching up to the story now because in the last couple of weeks Now the seventh guest remake has landed at the start of June. you can get that on as steam. GOG, the epic game starts on PS five, Xbox as well. So this is a brand new ull ground up rebuild featuring reimagine puzzles, new environments, new video performances as well. you're in charge of Tilerte again now and you license this to the team at XQ and made this game. So what's kind of the story with this this new version coming along then what's it like to see the game back You know over three decades later Yeah. Oh well, it is, I think basasically that Ultimately, I in my mind, is a fulfillment of the vision of what seventhiest. should have been or could have been, you know, in an ideal world they had the tools, technology and whatnot. I think Paul Vandemer, who' spear headad of the project from Perttigo and B ski. Game Oh, I mean, you know, I just couldn't didn't ask for more really, you know, Because I had regooted the company as you say, and I kind of kept it alive and it was kind of on lifeport in a way Be what well, we didn't get around the fact that I was Go bye . Board of directors decided do better without So I was, you know Um, I lo covy kept my shares the ownership And they let me take the game game I had been working on at twelve ten eleven carar. I took that with me. And we managed to get that out. Yeah, but E so the In the years that followed I might u pressure from drile by and the end of driing by I was just noticing that, you know, there were intellectual properties that were just being redone, you know, in one form or another, you know, everythingthing was being cartoons or comics or what you name it? You know, they're all being made into movies and repurposed all in other media And I said, God, we had this you now. we have this IP. The officers And here the and here it was just languishing Nobody knew anything about it Um. The trial might have been pretty much abandoned So I just, you know, I kind of contontacted Graham Well, I had Two people here in the area. It wasn't just my idea U one of the premier programmers in this area had gotten together with an entrepreneur friend who was good at and help startup companies And he still looks that to this day And they got together in they They suggest that, you know, he he should, you know Three You should bring some gass back for the, you know, touchs screen devices And I was all for that, right? Be, you know, I've got my own iPad iPhone of slick and Y This is an ideal, you know. I can Go and click kind of thing your fingers, this kind of thing that I mean, seven guests was made, so anybody bl even grandma. Yeah, you know. The iPad was something anybody need to use, including kits. So it was just like, yeah, it's the interface, you know that we arere looking for the platform We're waiting for and yeah, we should bring it back. We should resurrect Tron theight. the rights to Publish again And so we yeah, that's what we did. we resident Creect comppanyed to bring it to to your iPhone It's going All right, dad So that's how that started. And that was the purpose until, yeah, and then just skipping ahead when Paul Vandamer I went to work for Paul Vandimir was know I knew him as bones When he was a younger man, he was one of these fan fiction guys who had been partroud of a team that was You know, um trying to actually re do their own version of something Yes Right. They did the fend ict and they actually gotten out. It's called the thirirteenth doll. But he was part of that team long ago in it' early days. and I had been in communication with him We kind of came, you know, unli friends. And when he got to work for Berttigo, he said, you know, hey, I'm working this three D virtual reality company I got them interested in, you know, getting the VR version of the su Yes. And go how do I go Yeah. So that's basically that happ I mean, I mean was was the whole thing with me, you know, going through the whole process of real resurrecting trialobite asssuring that you know, he had And they do do due diligence You. making sure that there are no outstanding people Claim interest and prevent us from So it was a whole process and and it gets so it gets outth of bad. But then then then the virtual reality thing happened And And that was kind of a fulfillment not only of what we're trying to do way back in nineteen ninety one Um It was kind of ffillment of what I wanted to do. I tried to do a fundraiser to do a seventh guess three Yeah, which failed. I was asking for a lot of money And but I had all kinds of ideas I've been thinking about What to do, how to do it and you know, making a longer choice Sure. Prety going came up with It was kind of like, yeah, I mean That's kind of what I was trying to do You wanted to do it th if I was gonna to do my own version some just three So again, I couldn't ask for more. It was a fulfillment of not only, you know my vision and Graam's vversion and everybody else workkingcept yes, but you know It was a kind of miracle, you know, and that happened. It was great. And now No, it's and then the idea actually Paul called me after We virt reality version had been out for a little while He says, Well, what do you think about? you know, doing this for flat screen h yeah U yeah, I was hoping you'd say something like that. And at first there was resistance U it wasn't happening and then something happened And somebody came along and one of the people there Vertigo was in charge of ent into product development. and again got on board and decided it was were something they should do. I think there's a hesitation for a three D company to kind of fall back on flat screens. Right But that's what's happening in the vir reality because it's a tough business and, you know, not very many people are putting on headsets. And so Yeah They're doing that. And yeah, and so now some guesss's going to have think huge broad audience but it's being never. Well I had And it's original You know, Releaseed some out now it' it's like a chance. secondcond life Yeah, you needed a very expensive PC to play it back in the day, but now really accessible. I think the fact that if you do buy the version on Steam as well, you do actually get the VR version for free, which is amazing as well. If you have got a VR capable system, I'm looking here at the moment, you can get it for fifteen pounds twenty nine. A great homage to the original and like you said, you know kind of what you envisioned it could have been, you thirty years ago. So it is amazing to see it back So that is available right now. You can go to the seventh guuestreemake. com. All the links are on there.'ll put in the show notes as well. One final thing we have to cover, Rob, because I think this is a really interesting story is a kickstarter that you're running at the moment. We did kind of touch on you work with Peter Olifant before who suddenly did pass away a couple of years ago. But this is something that you and Peter designed all the way back in nineteen ninety nine. now obviously Word games have been massive. I mean, everyone will know Worddle, you know, one of the most famous games around right now. everyone plays. But this is a really ambitious really interesting title as well. that if you love quQiz shows, you love Wd games, lots of elements of famous TV shows like you know, Jeopardy and even stuff like wheel of fortune and elements of sccrabble and the New York Times crossword puzzle as well. This is something running on Kickstarter right now called Diddy and people can still back this there is a couple of weeks left on it when this podcast comes out. so I'll link this up as well. Pe want to check it out. but can you give us a background on Diddy then? because this has been like twenty five years in the making. What's a story with it Yeah And maybe even more in the making than that because it goes back way back to a game called Lexacross that Peter had published by Eterpllay. way back when? Yeah It was like a quiz show band of game, wasn't it Yeah, I was uh, yeah, it was u Yeah, wor gos H's a game show. Um yeah quiz word play hang them and, you know, have complete letters is unlike a wheel of fortune We had a Vana White kind of robot character would fly around the screen tap on the tiles to flip them like Van White did on, you know on the game show Anyway. Peter, Olphin and I We worked on that Even when I was at u m A virgining damns. Oh He because I met him at when I was working at A Syinemore and we became Good friends, played tennis a lot together. we just hangg out, had good times and collaborated. He was very creative guying. He was just, you know, an OG man of the whole m gaming W it's likely be no Uh and u Yeah, he came up with this idea of Llexcross and I go, yeah, cool. and I did all the graphics. we just kind of did over the modem. And you know, shared files and put this thing together He presented it to Brian Fargo Interplay because you know, he'd been working on, I think, a project with them different project And u Bryanton kind of is it first but then Brian's wife flayed it. she loved it So thanks to her you know, Brian decided, well, I got to do wife said so he took it onic c shit. and it did pretty well. I think it was well received by the few people who played it Um, then so that was that and then years years later, Peter would um s actually been It's kind of between thingsings I guess even between residences. so he came to Stay with us in my house And we set them up. You know, with the computer and all that stuff M. And at that point we started reimagining lelectrons and revising it and kind of correcting all of You know, makeaking it enhan it, making it better finding out the flaws of the original And so yeah, we refined it, refined it and But you know, so we got it well developed. We had the working version. It's pretty well tuned U and then it Peter just kind of like had he kind of left He left in He really had a personal Dreaming about something, you know I I'm not even sure but he He kind of had a grudge, I guess, and he left and he kind of stayed away And I lost track of them And so the project just kind of h. Linger there. undone Unfinished we We put in a lot of work on it Um, And so Yeah, it was until just recently By the way, I had been I did get in touch with Peter. w a couple years ago or three years ago And we got a happen w exiting. That was nice. But then I lost track again, I didn't know what he was up to. I knew he'd moved to Las of Vegas, but I lost touch for them So just recently U not too long ago. U I was talking to a friend of mine who ' kind of into the old, you know, AI coding stuff And u He had proposed that we do this version of a game that workon that was more just straight trivia Mike you don't know Jack, Karen, something like that, right And but I said,, you know, instead of that, I' not get out here. was just kind of X Cross derive game it would called Diddily also. let's take a look at that. And mean we can revive that And he said, Yeahah, and you know, consulting with my own A, I said, Hey, what do you think of that? And my own A, I said This is a perfect candidate for Yeah.