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What a great read. Thanks for posting this! > Pirates essentially changed the studio's whole identity, something that was incredibly hard to do even in those d
by trencedamp 27d ago
What a great read. Thanks for posting this!
> Pirates essentially changed the studio's whole identity, something that was incredibly hard to do even in those days.
There are indeed very few examples I can recall of a game that completely changed a studio, but one that comes to mind is Worms. Team 17 mostly made top down shooters and fighting games, until they released a silly trajectory shooting game inspired by the ancient basic game, Gorilla. That was such a massive success they mostly only made Worms games after that
- krige 27d agoNitpick: not Gorilla.bas; it was the actual OG, Artillery. Prototypes, which used sprites ripped from Lemmings, were even named "Lemartillery". And the creative bankrupcy of T17 is a whole another topic. I would rather suggest that they lucked into Worms when Davidson approached them by happenstance, and would not survive otherwise.
- whywhywhywhy 27d agoYeah Worms was coded on Amiga computers in a part of the world that was extremely Amiga heavy so it’s unlikely Gorillas.bas is the reference point.
- a96 27d agohttps://www.lemonamiga.com/game/tanx https://www.lemonamiga.com/game/tanx 1991 is what came to mind for me.
- somat 27d agoScorched Earth always comes to mind as an influential early artillery game, but it too was PC, so hard to say. I actually remember it's stupid tagline better than the name, "The mother of all games" indeed. But that is what I was searching for to get the name.
- krige 27d agoAt least some reviews for Worms mentioned Scorched Earth (in superlatives too). It was big enough that systems that didn't have it, wish they had it.
- Gareth321 27d agoWorms were such great games. I just had a look at what Team 17 is up to now and [they're doing surprisingly well.](https://www.team17.com/ https://www.team17.com/) Some great games in their portfolio. Epic also did really well changing with the times. From Jazz Jackrabbit to one of the largest developers in the world.
- CocaKoala 26d agoThe author, Bruno Dias, has a blog[1] where he often discusses games and game design, especially from a narrative perspective; he worked as a Narrative Designer for Failbetter, the studio that did the Fallen London/Sunless Seas/Sunless Skies games. I check in on it somewhat regularly, he organizes his thoughts on the topic quite well. [1]: https://azhdarchid.com/ https://azhdarchid.com/