You’ve seen it on television. You’ve read it in the
zines. And, of course, you’ve browsed it on the Internet. Microsoft’s trademark
slogan, “Where do you want to go today?” is as unyielding as an everlasting
Gobstopper. Like sailor’s lice on a submarine, it has infested the marketplace, and aside
from abstinence, there is no way to avoid the itch. Shoppers spanning the globe
are flooded with the dark gray “Microsoft” printed atop keyboard boxes, mouse
packages, computer crates, and software containers, not to mention every related
peripheral in the corporate arsenal. But in addition to its function as a company
banner, “Where do you want to go today?” accomplishes more than simply pushing product.
It aims to inspire those hymen-intact citizens who stand in marveled confusion
on the silicon dust beaches of the Internet Ocean. And it’s not always easy to
persuade these tech-virgins into the water. Sometimes it takes a little coercing.
“Come on in; the water feels fantastic!”
“But I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we have plenty for sale!”
“But the sun is so hot; I don’t want to burn.”
“We’ll grease you up!”
“But I’m not that good a swimmer.”
“We can train you in the keystroke!”
“Hey! Look at me! I’m swimming! I’m swimming. But, oh dear! I didn’t
realize the water was shallow enough to stand here!”
This scenario probably isn’t unfamiliar to experienced surfers of the
Internet. And yet, even we veterans who buy Sex Wax by the case continue to drown our
pocketbooks in the shallow end of the bay. Perhaps we’re all a little wet — the victims
of our own stupidity — or maybe we simply give in to the media frenzy accompanying
the promotion of a new product (you just had to buy an MMX computer the first day
it hit the shelves, didn’t you?). We oftentimes get so caught up in the hype, we
don’t realize which way is up, until our feet are down in the sand, along with our
checkbooks. And while Microsoft continues to wipe out its business, education, and
operating system competitors, like Godzilla riding the tunnel of a killer tsunami,
there is a small yet powerful undercurrent that escapes this dominating force — the
arena of interactive games.
On all levels of this CD-ROM kingdom, from the well established to the
newly crowned, designers have continuously programmed the pants off Microsoft. Very often,
it is the fledgling upstarts headed by the next wunderkind du jour operating
from their parents’ basement who deserve the greatest praise. Like an Odyssean
tale, these pioneer creators are faced with turbulent decisions and obstacles, and
occasionally swayed off course by the siren song of corporate buyout. But for the
stalwarts who strap themselves to mastpoles in times of crisis, the success stories become
legend. These are the demigod creators who, despite shoestring budgets, limited
resources, and iffy distributors, continue to climb like hungry vines through the
crowded market canopy, and into the rich sunlight of legendary sales. Sales fill with the
winds of innovation and ground-breaking design, the highly effective rudders which
help navigate newly christened ships through Microsoft’s ominous advertising
breakers. Witness the still conquering id empire of Doom fame, Cyan’s
Myst, Blizzard’s smash Diablo, and Pulse Entertainment’s Iron Helix and Bad
Mojo. All extraordinary achievements cultivated from garage gardens, small
production houses, and lesser-known game companies.
How is that these customarily obscure, independent companies are able to
capture the market from what should be an overwhelming
Death Star-like force? Is it because Microsoft has resigned itself to
cleaning the dark side of Windows? Of course not — the global behemoth boasts at least a
dozen entertainment titles at any given moment. And yet its only consistent cash
cow is Flight Simulator, a game whose success lies more in the imagination of
its players than its makers. Accurate and well-designed, yes. Inspired by
passion, art, and true adventure, no. This is precisely why games like Deadly Tide,
Golf, and Monster Truck Madness are resigned to mediocrity. Are they truly
bad games? No, not in particular. They are all middle-of-the-road fare, lackluster and
uninspired. Is this possible? How could a company like Microsoft, with its enormous
resources, vast amounts of talent, while under the leadership of a widely agreed-upon
genius, fail so miserably in this particular niche? It’s because “Where do you
want to go today?” is the wrong question.
In the world of Internet access, office applications, and reference
titles, Microsoft deserves the praise its abundant prosperity demonstrates. “Where do you
want to go today?” is a query that tempts us, like boarding the Orient
Express with Agatha Christie shoveling coal on the fire. But in the world of cutting-edge
action, fantasy, and adventure, the question is justifiably different — “Who do
you want to be today?”
Thankfully for Austinites, we have a handful of local game designers who
ask this very question every day. Within our own virtual backyard, artists, producers,
screenwriters, and programmers go about the routine task of creating alter egos of
characters for game enthusiasts to inhabit. From a powerful sorcerer or a space ace fighter
pilot, to a teenage super sleuth, defecting military commander or a time traveler,
Austin innovators and freshman designers are creating tomorrow’s entertainment
today. And while they may not have the resources to coerce buyers into taking a swim in
their makeshift software pools, many have made up for lack of funds with ingenuity,
artistic savvy, and some very interesting websites. At the assorted addresses below,
hopeful entrepreneurs sell their wares, hype upcoming products and, in one case,
share wedding photos. Here is a sampling of what Austin-based companies are pounding under
their red-hot digital anvils.
Crack Dot Com, Inc.
Pages of wedding pictures of company employees? Is it
a misguided sales tactic? Or simply the sign of a small but growing company? Either way,
after you’ve visited with the bride and groom, you’re going to feel obligated to
help out the newlywed employees. That’s a long introduction to a website that does
just fine introducing itself. At Crack Dot Com, you will immediately sense that the
company’s charter was founded on more macabre subjects. Edgar Allen Poe has a distinct
influence in their lighting, visuals, and one of their employee’s short stories.
Whether this is to your taste or not, Crack’s layout for Golgotha, its
front-running “coming soon” interactive game title, is something to behold. Set in the year
2048 A.D., it is set during the edge of WWIII, where superpower conglomerates wage a
hi-tech war for a mysterious artifact unearthed in Iraq. Not exactly a Gene
Roddenberry vision of the days to come, Golgotha projects that current border skirmishes
lay unresolved some 50 years in the future. Yet playing the leader of heavy
artillery battles as a renegade military commander sounds like enough fun to forgive
such a tainted view of what Earthlings can expect down the road. Aspiring game
designers should check this site for screen pics of the evolution of the game, ranging
from phases of early renderings, to shots of the software tools used to create
Golgotha.
Girl Games, Inc.
This is a game site designed by women and targeted
solely to girls. And aside from the fact the site operators encourage their clients
to perform a little free marketing reconnaissance for the company, this is the kind of
place to which every teenage girl should have access. Planet Girl is
something akin to an Internet therapy zone/venting area where web patrons ranging in age
from 8-18 get online to express themselves or just find out what’s on their peers’
minds. Site explorers will find pages devoted to book reviews sent in by girls of all
ages, inspiring stories about women mentors, and a public bulletin board where visitors can
speak out about boys and the pressures of dieting, dating, and sex. For its younger
audience, Girl Games’ flagship CD-ROM title Let’s Talk About Me offers a more
personalized platform to explore many of these issues through humor and self-styling. With
applications ranging from the Hairmaster 2000 (where visitors can practice cutting
virtual hair), to a fitness and health planner and a secret diary section, Let’s
Talk About Me offers girls a unique opportunity to build their own image on
their own schedule without the influence of that nasty thing called The Media.
Human Code
For everyone who still fondly remembers
the lyric “I’m just a bill” from Saturday morning television, this website
will be a nostalgic trip down computer memory lane. Human Code’s Schoolhouse
Rock edutainment title follows the long and winding road from bill to law. Geared
toward a younger audience, kids are faced with challenging educational activities,
fun music videos, and the discovery of interesting facts about American history,
culture, geography, and government. Although Human Code’s target audience for games like
Schoolhouse Rock, Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey, and The Cartoon History
of the Universe is a younger crowd, its website is decidedly grown-up. The
text is particularly highbrow, and the design of the site is filled with
beautiful, slick screen shots — a truly impressive advertising sphere also aimed at corporate
audiences, industry traffic, and the sale of a vast array of interactive business
applications.
Origin Systems, Inc.
As Austin’s most celebrated and established game designer, it’s abundantly
obvious Origin created this area with very specific intentions: to inform and sell,
sell, sell. Unlike Crack Dot Com, there is no peeking behind the curtain at the
Emerald City here. Despite its frilly dressings, the site is long on practicality,
offering an exorbitant amount of information on past, present, and future game titles.
From its phenomenally popular Wing Commander and Privateer series to
Crusader: No Remorse, Origin’s interactive arsenal supplies enough gunpowder to
destroy three lazy summers. But the real bomb waiting to hit the CD-ROM market has
yet to explode. If you haven’t heard of the company’s impending Ultima Online, then
you may have been hiding under the schoolhouse rock for too long. If you log on,
expect to take an extended browse at http://www.owo.com, Ultima Online’s linked
website filled with a virtual gallery of medieval-looking artwork, facts, and
features about the game, and just enough storyline to pique the interest of the most
dimwitted orc.
Iguana Entertainment, Inc.
Even though Iguana Entertainment’s webpages presently
reside amidst a wide assortment of titles at the site of its parent company,
Acclaim, it’s easy to sort out the songs of praise surrounding its much ballyhooed
Turok, Dinosaur Hunter. After a quick demo of this shoot’em-up game, which comes equipped
with a Doom-style interface, even the most avid PC user may be ready to
trade in their hard drive for a Nintendo 64 system. Unavailable in CD-ROM format,
Turok‘s first sales summer will coincide with Spielberg’s Lost World. You
don’t need an advertising degree to figure out what that kind of related marketing could
mean during the three months of the year kids are really doing nothing. Surrounded
by a dazzling 3-D realm filled with mounted triceratops, artillery-packing
pterodactyls, and alien infantry, game players use a variety of weapons to survive a planet
filled with trees, waterfalls, sheer rock faces, and all the wild life foraging
in-between. Like the game itself, at Turok‘s website, visitors are afforded a
360deg. look at what the adventure is all about. With rich, colorful graphics, an
impressive slide show of screen shots, pictures of enemies, and a full survey of
Turok‘s weapon cabinet, these pages are a visual and auditory feast for the
senses.
Steve Jackson Games
Been staring at your computer monitor for 10 hours
straight? Starting to see kaleidoscope images of flashbacks from past Star Trek conventions? Bring your soul in for a healthy technology scrubbing at Steve Jackson Games.
Here, you’re offered an alternative to the radiation-soaking your eyes sustain on a
daily basis. It’s also the perfect excuse for non-techies to finally enlist an
Internet provider and catch up on new releases for the old-fashioned roll-’em-up style
of fantasy and adventure. With its mainstay titles GURPS (Generic Universal Role
Playing System) and Car Wars giving its newer games (In Nomine, Dino
Hunt, and Ogre) a firm base to stand on, Steve Jackson Games is content for
the moment to invent in the text-based universe, although plans for switching to
PC platforms are not in the too distant future. If this isn’t enough to convince you to
take a peek at what Steve Jackson Games has to offer, at least log on to learn how
they defeated an office raid by the Secret Service in 1990.
(Author’s Note: Austin game designer Digital Anvil’s website was not online at the time of this survey. However, the company informs me it will be up and
running in the near future at
http://www.digitalanvil.com).
This article appears in May 30 • 1997 and May 30 • 1997 (Cover).