This is a perfect conclusion to the GB Bioforge saga. Scoops, you've done it again.
BioForge
Game » consists of 1 releases. Released Mar 29, 1995
An action-adventure game that was developed by Origin Systems and set in a futuristic world, where an amnesiac cyborg seeks the secret of his identity.
Flutes, Big Guns, and Alien Cubes
I somehow missed the final Bioforge videos when they were made, and haven't gone back to find them yet. Thanks for linking them Patrick, it's about time I watched them.
@vinny please never stop doing full playthroughs on GB. i know endurance runs died off but watching you play deadly premonition and bioforge are my favorite moments here. never stop!
Just finished the podcast interview, great stuff. Thanks to Patrick and Ken for getting together and doing this!
@smcn: Thank you.
Bioforge is magical. I'd maybe heard about it in passing at some point, but I didn't know. It's a proper cult game that deserves to be appreciated. I thank you for excavating it out of the past and Ken Demarest for being an integral part of making it exist.
It's just so weird and crazy to first look at this thing almost 20 years after it was released. Was probably weird and crazy back then too, just in a different way.
"...given that it’s now 2013, well over 10 years ago in terms of when you conceived and worked on that game?"
Yeah like...almost 20 years? That's a really weird statement. Great weird interview though of an oddly terrible but intriguing game.
@buzz_clik: God, I love that picture. Great work.
He might be glad to know that, though it's taking FOREVER, there is a Mod API in the works for Minecraft. What it entails exactly I don't know (apparently some modders know details about it, more than me anyway).
That is one long interview, but it was worth reading. Now I want to watch the BioForge marathon again!
That is one long interview, but it was worth reading. Now I want to watch the BioForge marathon again!
Great interview.
I very much agree with Ken Demarest's thoughts on the direction creative games should take. Neverwinter Nights (1), WarCraft III and, to a lesser extent StarCraft (1) have all had robust campaign-creation tools that allowed for a myriad of user-made content to be created. The creation tools focused largely on usability: user-friendly interfaces with creation wizards for everything you could want to make, allowing total newbies to make something. The accessability enriched the community, and there is still user-made content being made for these games to this day.
Neverwinter Nights did indeed have user-made campaigns that far exceeded Bioware's own efforts in NWN.
WarCraft III spawned the MOBA genre with Defense of the Ancients, as well as many games in a similar vein such as Tides of Blood. There was also plenty of other neat custom-maps available; very few of which were focused on traditional RTS combat.
StarCraft's less-advanced map editor allowed for hugely creative custom maps that spanned all sorts of genres, and helped to pioneer some as well. Aeon of Strife in particular is noteworthy, as it was a "proto-MOBA" that undoubtably helped to spawn Defense of the Ancients.
I dearly hope there are more games that are designed in this manner, though it seems increasingly less likely as time goes by.
Neverwinter Nights 2 had a botched launch that destroyed any chance it had for a custom-content community.
StarCraft II is locked down and so heavily restricted in what can be created that there is no hope of anything truly interesting being made. I feel it was designed with monetization in mind above all else.
WarCraft IV is probably a pie-in-the-sky dream at this point...
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