The Apogee Legacy Interview Series

[Joe Siegler]

My favorite is the picture at the bottom of the page.

[Halcyon]

Great read as usual. This one made me especially happy as I'm a big fan of Hall's work. Anachronox is still a great game, I should start playing it again....

[Joe Siegler]

I just added a bit from Tom that he sent in after I posted it for Question #6 about the Dopefish.

[Micki!]

That was a good read, as any of the previous interview of those guys, i like it...
P.S. the first pic of him, reminds me of Jack Nicholson...

[Kristian Joensen]

"And the reception for the Dopefish was so strange. One guy became an ordained priest of the church of the Dopey Fish. It's just funny that a dumb fish from one level of Keen 4 is now an industry easter egg thing. Heh."

Joe, who was that "ordained priest" isn't that mentioned somwhere in the Apogee FAQ ?

[Joe Siegler]

That's Steve Quarrella. That's been known for quite awhile, just doesn't get talked about much.

[ultra tree 85!]

Excellent interview. He worked on quite a few games of yours.

[JR Ewing]

In the picture where Tom is searching thru papers and Mark Dochtermann is in the background, what did they do? Put a camera in a corner somewhere and record themselves working? Was there a point for doing that?

[Joe Siegler]

I had put a webcam in their office. Back then on our website, we used to have a live webcam. That's one of the shots.

The ones on this page were from the webcam:

http://www.3drealms.com/camera/winners96.html

[Asmodeusz]

Joe3DR said:
I had put a webcam in their office. Back then on our website, we used to have a live webcam. That's one of the shots.

Any plans to bring the camera back??

[Joe Siegler]

Not at this time.

[laffer]

Great interview, and I agree.. hurry up with DNF for Christ sake

Btw, in that pic (the one in Joes post here) he sort of reminds me of Mark Hamill from Star Wars.

[Mr_Diffrence]

I want that ROTT poster

[Joe Siegler]

Mr_Diffrence said:
I want that ROTT poster

I assume you're talking about this?



That was something we had made up for the ROTT team back in 1994. I have one hanging on my wall at home, too. That pic of Tom was taken in his house in Dallas shortly before he moved to San Diego.

They were never made in any kind of quantity, just some for the ROTT team.

[jbailey]

If you ever decide to make more of those posters, I'll
buy one!

[Mr_Diffrence]

Yes, I would purchase one as well.

[Zztx]

Tom said:
Carmack and I had stayed up late one night making a funny joke demo of Super Mario Bros 3 and putting it on Romero's desk in the morning. This lead to a demo for Nintendo, which got to the head table but was rejected, so we decided to do our own thing.

This 'demo' is Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement - their first whack at a horizontally-scrolling platformer. To test the engine, Tom and Carmack remade the first level of Super Mario Bros. 3, and inserted Dangerous Dave.

Not too long ago, Romero finally got around to releasing DDICI to his adoring public, and you can get it here - simple and buggy as it may be, this is a real piece of PC gaming history, heralding the birth of id Software. Check it out.

[Joe Siegler]

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with its fifth edition, this time with Frank Maddin, author of a few games with us. His first game with us was 1991's Crystal Caves, and then followed it up with 1993's Monster Bash. After that, he teamed up with Jim Norwood to do 1997's Shadow Warrior. Frank also briefly did some work with is on a fourth game after Monster Bash called "Cybertank", but it was abandonded early on in development (was to be a tank game with a 3D engine). Additionally, Frank is the only developer we've had to ever get dressed up as one of their characters (see the pictures below).



Frank now works at Microsoft, and was happy to participate in the interview series. Hereeeee's Frank! <br clear="right">


<div align="center">
<font size="4" face="Verdana,Arial" color="#ffffff">The Apogee Legacy</font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana,Arial" color="#ffffff">Past Pioneers of the Shareware Revolution

Issue #5 - Frank Maddin</font>
</div>



1) How did you first come in contact with Apogee?



I met George Broussard in Lufkin, Texas. He calls it a "stinky little town". His family had moved there from Dallas. I'd lived there most of my life.



I had a Commodore Amiga (Jack Tramiel was the devil the ST was crap) and knew very few people in town with one. So I put an ad in a local trade paper and his mom called me. We became good friends - his mom and I - eventually we let George hang out with us. :-) We commuted to college together in nearby Naca-nowhere.



http://www.3drealms.com/news/2006/02...ee_lega_5.html

[Joe Siegler]

There's some good pictures in Frank's article. I think hardcore fans of ours will know what I'm talking about.

[Kristian Joensen]

That was a very nice read as always Joe.

[Micki!]

I think i've seen pics of that cancelled tank game before... I'm not sure though...
Sad it got cancelled...

Anyways, nice read...

[ultra tree 85!]

That was cool to read. Great update.

[Frenkel]

That couch in the Cybertank screenshot looks exactly like the one in Monster Bash. (Which makes sense, as both games have the same programmer and artist.)

[Joe Siegler]

Frenkel said:
That couch in the Cybertank screenshot looks exactly like the one in Monster Bash. (Which makes sense, as both games have the same programmer and artist.)

It is the same art. This was a very early build of Cybertank, and as such a bunch of art from Monster Bash was used.

I was curious if anyone would pick up on that.

[ShadeEX]

As always i have enjoyed reading this...

and i agree i would love having that poster....

( Would it be legall for me to re-create it Joe?? )
if not thats okay too..

[Frenkel]

There is also the "Great Romero Misunderstanding"..

My best work was probably the snake in Crystal Caves. There is a story about that. At one point during development we'd flown to see id software (involved with Apogee) for business reasons and I'd shown CC to them. Later, I heard that John Romero thought I had stolen the snake from one of his earlier games it looked so similar. The truth was that I hadn't seen that game and that it was the only way I could figure out how to do a snake in 16x16 pixels. But it kind goes to show you the limitations can really influence what the art is. So John, REALLY, I didn't steal your snake! Swear to GOD mode. I just know this will get back to him.

I'm pretty sure he means the John Romero game the Pyramids of Egypt.

[Joe Siegler]

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with its newest edition, this time with Mike Voss, author of the 1994 game, "Hocus Pocus". Mike only did one title with us, but it was a memorable one; it was a great entry in Apogee's long line of sidescroller titles. Mike (who we have no pictures of) no longer works in the game industry but was very happy to be interviewed about his game with us now 12 years ago.



<div align="center">
<font size="4" face="Verdana,Arial" color="#ffffff">The Apogee Legacy</font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana,Arial" color="#ffffff">Past Pioneers of the Shareware Revolution

Issue #6 - Mike Voss</font>
</div>


1) How did you first come in contact with Apogee?



I was playing around with the idea of writing a shareware game around 1991. I started with a graphical adventure style game that ended up tired and boring after a while. Then I was inspired by Duke Nukem! I studied the game and figured that I might be able to tackle a similar style game. I was somewhat pessimistic about the idea of the shareware marketing model paying off until, in a local specialty magazine store, I came across "shareware magazine" and thumbed through it. I read in an article that Apogee was receiving about 300 orders per day.



http://www.3drealms.com/news/2006/02...ee_lega_3.html

[Halcyon]

"My deepest appreciation goes out to everyone who played and enjoyed Hocus Pocus. Even the ones who enjoyed the pirated copies. (George will hate me for saying that.)"
lol

As usual, a very interesting read. I didn't play Hocus Pocus till now, maybe I'll give it a try the next time I order something directly from 3D Realms.

[Joe Siegler]

Well, Hocus is only available as a registered download, we don't ship that one out anymore.

[Micki!]

Never tried that game...
It looks funny though... (damn, the final version is a GREAT improvement compared to the early builds....)

Anyways... You know what my opinion about todays interview is... So this time i won't even mention it...

[tpz]

The "Hocus Pocus" link is faulty.

[mirwais57]

Hocus Pocus has always been one of my favourite games. I've always wanted to play the Clyde games to try out Mike's other games but the timer runs down so fast on my computer, only giving me about 45 seconds to collect all the dots.

[ShadeEX]

i have never tried hocus pocus... ill try the shareware when i get home...

and interesting read as always...

[Joe Siegler]

I found the old archive with the Crystal Caves betas today:

[IceColdDuke]

Of course asking you to release that would be trivial and pointless right

[Joe Siegler]

Correct.

[Violet CLM]

*stares happily at Hocus prototype shots* Wow... I had no idea Hocus was ever anything like that, although I guess it makes some sense. Awesome, if admittedly not as visually appealing. Is there/are you willing to show any more from that build? Those pictures more than make up for the outdated betaish "final version" screenshots.

[Micki!]

Just read the 7'th issue...
nice read as always... Too bad i never tried Alien Carnage, because it looks funny...

[Ras]

There's an error with the latest edition. I thought I was experiencing deja vu when I read the second paragraph of the first response:

I began to devote a large amount of time to programming. I created a game called Clyde's Adventure and tossed it into the shareware arena. The game was a modest success. I could almost make a small and very modest living. Very very modest. After a few months I received a letter from Scott Miller suggesting that possible fame and fortune was on my doorstep. Apogee offered to publish my next game. I said okay.

This was actually Mike Voss's response to the first question, as presented last week.

[Kristian Joensen]

Interesting he actually announces a game in there.