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Old 03-25-2005, 05:51 AM   #21
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I stumbled across this thread via a google search after realizing there was a redux version of Bad Mojo, now i can't help it, i gotta share my opinion on Pulse and what the gaming world lost with them going belly up.

Ten years ago i was a staff writer with German games mag Power Play. The Bad Mojo review made our cover when it came out, maybe Vinny remembers doing a strange email interview with me asking him about entomologists, topography layers and stuff .

Now for the interesting part: a couple of months after said cover story we visited Pulse's SF office to check out their upcoming projects. What we saw blew our minds. Presto and Flux were sparkling with great visual and conceptual ideas and the much maligned Space Bunnies must die was technological avantgarde at that time. Pulse's 3D engine may have needed more work, but what it put to the screen already amazed us. Well, we now all know the sad way it went ...

Flux was actually my favorite. It had amazing game design. It was basically a very sophisticated 3D puzzle game involving a salesman in a suit as its main character. The player had to find his way through a maze of cubic rooms that could be flipped in 90 degree angles by pushing switches on the walls. It's a bit hard to put the specifics into words for me right now, but Flux was a unique and inspired project.

I think I still got the multi-page feature we did on Space Bunnies, Presto and Flux lying around somewhere, cool screenies, maquette pics and scribbles included. Text is in German, but still interesting to check out for Pulse fans ...

I wish these games had been completed, and I wish Space Bunnies had become what i promised to become in the stage we saw it. They would have become classics. Instead they became lost legends.

I wonder: what became of you guys? Vin? Phil? Alex?

Last edited by Kornylius; 03-25-2005 at 05:57 AM.
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Old 03-28-2005, 03:34 PM   #22
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Default What Became of Us : Vinny' s POV

I do in fact remember doing this interview. The Germans were inbcredibly kind to us and have always been passionate gamers...

Now to answer your question what became of us was that we were swallowed up by mediocrity. The world, it seems, does not want what you saw in Flux, Space Bunnies and Presto. Ingenuity, diversity, originality. You see, those are naughty words. They don't sell. They are risk factors which are too great too bear. The people at Pulse at the time jumped onto the next bandwagon: the internet. Presto was cancelled. Flux enjoyed a brief stint up at Microsoft, but in time it too was canned. Space Bunnies as you know shipped with an engine so terrible that most people never got to see the incredible art and level design. After that nobody wanted to bankroll an award-winning development team who was unwilling to copy the lastest hit shooter. So we drifted apart like some flash-in-the-pan rock band only to have been reunited for Mojo redux. But guess what? We have a fabulous idea for a sequel that we are trying to get off the ground. Can we find a publisher who is not brain dead? I don't know. I'm 40 years old now. I do not play games any longer. Because there are no more Full Throttles. There are no more Out of this World's...but I am actually (and incredibly) hopeful. I still believe that we can make 'games' that are much smarter, much more sophisticated in plot and story. This medium is called games, but really it can be a new form of story-telling. There just needs to be another MYST, another Mojo...something that crosses over...We can make that game. ANyone who wants to email off-line can reacj me at serpentbox_at_hotmail_dot_com

Vinny


Quote:
Originally Posted by Kornylius
I stumbled across this thread via a google search after realizing there was a redux version of Bad Mojo, now i can't help it, i gotta share my opinion on Pulse and what the gaming world lost with them going belly up.

Ten years ago i was a staff writer with German games mag Power Play. The Bad Mojo review made our cover when it came out, maybe Vinny remembers doing a strange email interview with me asking him about entomologists, topography layers and stuff .

Now for the interesting part: a couple of months after said cover story we visited Pulse's SF office to check out their upcoming projects. What we saw blew our minds. Presto and Flux were sparkling with great visual and conceptual ideas and the much maligned Space Bunnies must die was technological avantgarde at that time. Pulse's 3D engine may have needed more work, but what it put to the screen already amazed us. Well, we now all know the sad way it went ...

Flux was actually my favorite. It had amazing game design. It was basically a very sophisticated 3D puzzle game involving a salesman in a suit as its main character. The player had to find his way through a maze of cubic rooms that could be flipped in 90 degree angles by pushing switches on the walls. It's a bit hard to put the specifics into words for me right now, but Flux was a unique and inspired project.

I think I still got the multi-page feature we did on Space Bunnies, Presto and Flux lying around somewhere, cool screenies, maquette pics and scribbles included. Text is in German, but still interesting to check out for Pulse fans ...

I wish these games had been completed, and I wish Space Bunnies had become what i promised to become in the stage we saw it. They would have become classics. Instead they became lost legends.

I wonder: what became of you guys? Vin? Phil? Alex?
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Old 04-26-2005, 07:52 AM   #23
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Vinny Alex Phil,..
Congratulations on getting bad mojo back out there!...
Man I had some good times at jinx with you guys thanks a ton!..From Lil green men to Caddies to Bloodrunner...all kinds of fun..I think I still have a key to the office that was above the "Potrero Brewing Company"..
-cas
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