Appeal

From Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

10Tacle Studios Belgium | Appeal | Art & Magic | Elsewhere Entertainment | Fresh3D

Appeal

Founded 1995
Headquarters Charleroi, Belgium
Key people Franck Sauer
Yann Robert
Yves Grolet
Industry Video games
Products No Respect
Outcast

Appeal was a Belgian video game development company established in 1995 by Franck Sauer, Yann Robert and Yves Grolet. Prior to forming Appeal, they had a 12 years experience in the game industry working together to create games for 8-bit computers, coin-op and PC. The company developed only two projects, not a widely known No Respect and the critically acclaimed Outcast. Even though Outcast didn't meet expected sale numbers, it boasted with advanced technology and has gained a loyal fan base which exists up to this day.

Contents

History

Earlier years

  • 1986, After graduating from high school, Franck Sauer met Yves Grolet. Both being huge fans of Commodore 64, they decided to develop an adventure game, No.
  • 1988, Because of the studies, it took Franck and Yves three years to develop a graphical adventure called No which got published by Lankhor. The guys got noticed and started working directly for Ubi Soft porting Iron Lord from Atari ST to Commodore 64. It's also where they met Yann Robert who was earlier transfered to Ubi Soft from Guillemot International Software where he worked as a management computing technician. [1]
  • 1990, The Commodore 64 port for action/adventure game Iron Lord was published by Ubi Soft. Yves Grolet is credited for Programming (shared with Laurent Larminier and Guy Mille).
  • 1990, Franck, Yann and Yves worked on an action/adventure game for Amiga called Unreal. It was published by Ubi Soft and became one of the best sales of 1991 in the genre. Yves Grolet and Yann Robert are credited for Programming, and Franck Sauer for Artwork (shared with Marc Albinet).
  • 1991-1992, Developed a horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up with top quality visuals for Amiga called Agony. Published by Psygnosis. Yves Grolet is credited for Programming and Graphics, and Franck Saur for Graphics. [2][3]

Art & Magic

  • 1992, Franck Sauer, Yann Robert and Yves Grolet together with micro-electronics company Deltatec established Art & Magic (as Deltatec's sister company) to develop coin-op arcade video games. Deltatec created proprietary hardware and set up a software environment to enable game development. Art & Magic was devoted to designing the multimedia contents, including the graphics and sound creation as well as software development.
  • 1992-1993, Art & Magic developed and released its first coin-op arcade game Ultimate Tennis. [4][5][6]
  • 1994, A stone-age soccer coin-op arcade game Stone Ball was released. [7][8]
  • 1994, Arcade game Western Shooting was released. Designed within three months in 1994 as a special order from the Gauselmann Group, the game presented four original scenes all based on the scrolling planes hardware. An interface with a real size rifle allowed the player to shoot moving objects in a typical western village, in a bank, in a saloon and in a bar. [9]
  • 1994, Released a coin-op arcade Cheese Chase. The game goal was to lead a mouse through a maze, collecting cheese while killing rats and beetles. The game used an overhead perspective. There were codes for each level of Cheese Chase. Most of those codes were actually titles of the games previously developed by Franck, Yann and Yves, in chronological order. For example: NO, IRON, LORD, UNREAL, AGONY, ULTIMATE, TENNIS, WESTERN, SHOOTING, and so on. The titles which consisted of more than one word were used as codes for several levels ("Iron Lord" - levels 2 and 3). [10][11][12]
  • 1994, Another coin-up arcade game called Spell Singer was being developed. Unfortunately, it never got released.

Pre-Appeal

  • 1994-1995, Research and development in the following fields: voxel rendering, game architectures, polygon rendering with advanced animations, object-oriented real-time systems and content creation of complex 3D scenery. Preproduction of Outcast.

Appeal

  • Summer 1995, Following a need for freedom in the content creation and the wish to use their coin-op experience in the consumer market, Franck Sauer, Yann Robert and Yves Grolet formed Appeal S.A. with Infogrames Entertainment joining them in partnership. Inforgrames owns 49% of Appeal. [13]
  • 1997, In order to validate rendering technologies and a new production team, Appeal developed a futuristic action game using voxel graphics called No Respect. The game was released on PC CDROM and published by Ocean Software.
  • 1995-1999, During the course of four years, Appeal developed Outcast, company's flagship title. Published by Infogrames. The game met a huge success and boasted mind-blowing visuals as well as unique gameplay.
  • 1999-2002, Soon after releasing Outcast, Appeal started working on the sequel, Outcast II: The Lost Paradise.
The following information on the Outcast II was provided by Franck Sauer, co-founder and art director of Appeal, in his unofficial statement. The PlayStation 2 version was planned to be released late April 2002 with PC version to follow. Although Appeal wished to keep the game code for both platforms as similar as possible, it preferred the PlayStation 2 code over PC one. After releasing the game for PlayStation 2, developers planned on working on necessary code modifications specific to the PC version, thus having a later release date for it, probably September 2002. Xbox version was not out of the question as well. [14]
  • July 2000, Yves Grolet left Appeal after having disagreement with two of his partners, Franck Sauer and Yann Robert. According to Yves, while working on Outcast II, he wanted to invest more time into developing an improved gameplay, when Franck and Yann were set on improving graphics. Unable to settle their differences, the long-time partners decided to part. [15]. Carlo Fabricatore was hired to assume the roles of the lead designer and project manager of Outcast II. [16]
  • November 5, 2001, Yves Grolet and a group of people from Appeal created a new video game development company called Elsewhere Entertainment together. [17]
  • February 2002, Carlo Fabricatore left Appeal. In his open letter Carlo explained that even though the plot of Outcast II was completed, he left a lot of unfinished work behind. The reason for his departure from the company was explained by the difference of opinions on the vision of the game. Mr. Fabricatore didn't want Outcast II to be much different from its predecessor, when Appeal tried to make it into a regular arcade game. Several Appeal employees followed Carlo Fabricatore.
  • August 5, 2002, Appeal declared bankruptcy and closed its doors.

Games

No Respect

Published in 1997 under Ocean Software trademark (already a subsidiary of Infogrames at the time), No Respect is a futuristic action game.

The game offers 16 selectable fighters, each having one of four possible hovership types. Each type of ship has individual attributes: primary and secondary weapons, amount of armor, speed and handling rating. There is no ship management, and attributes can't be altered at any stage of the game.

You have to go through arenas facing other fighters, one at a time, in a deathmatch. The match continues until only one ship is left standing. To proceed to the next stage, you have to win 2 out of 3 fights. Danger comes not only from your rivals, but environment as well. There are geysers and shooting towers, among other things. Each arena offers plenty of power-ups lying over the place. There is ammunition for both primary and secondary weapons, shield boosters, fuel and so on.

The game doesn't feature any story progression and comes down to repetitive arena fights. There is a short explanation for those fights nonetheless - your final goal is to overcome enemy infestation at the mining stations on four planets of sector E3.

No Respect was meant as a test run for Appeal's proprietary game engine. It boats with beautifully crafted landscapes and neat ship models created using voxel graphics. The same engine can later be seen in its full glory in Appeal's second title, Outcast.

Outcast

Outcast is Appeal's flagship title. Four years in development, it boasts not only with a descent story and a detailed game world, but also incredible visuals.

Credits

Executives

Franck Sauer ... Co-founder/Art director

Yann Robert ... Co-founder/Director of development

Yves Grolet ... Co-founder/Director of development

Art department

Iwan Peter Scheer ... Animator (credited on Ultimate Tennis and Outcast)

Catherine Marechal ... 2D Artist (credited on No Respect and Outcast)

Adam Conard ... 2D Artist (credited on No Respect and Outcast as Adam)

Renaud Dauchel ... 3D Artist (credited on No Respect and Outcast)

Filip Camermans ... 3D Artist (credited on No Respect and Outcast)

Veronique Lerminiaux ... 3D Artist

Michael Defroyennes ... 2D/3D Artist

Research and Software department

Vincent Penquerch'h ... Voxels engineer

Christophe Chaudy ... Voxels engineer

Christof Jans ... Tools engineer/Game programmer (credited on No Respect and Outcast)

Gil Damoiseaux ... CG engineer/Game programmer

Stephane Champailler ... CG engineer

Christophe Bauvir ... Game programmer

Mickael De Ruyter ... Game programmer

Douglas Freese ... Game programmer

Keith Friedly ... Game programmer

Administration

Michele Lanoe (credited on No Respect and Outcast)

Links

Retrieved from "http://www.ebobber.org/wiki/index.php?title=Appeal"
Personal tools