PR: My name is Patrick Roberts and I'm 33. My most famous
achievement is surviving making Disney's Dinosaur, were I was an
effects supervisor.
SH: Steven Haun, 35 and my most famous achievement is being able to
survive Hollywood so far.
JE: Jeremy Engleman, 29 and I suppose that would have to be working
on Riven: The Sequel to Myst.
2) How did you discovered Amiga computer and why are you still
interested in Amiga Community ?
PR: The first Amiga I had was a 500 (couldn't afford a 1000 so I
just had to drool over friends'). It was the natural progression for
me as before I had a C64, Vic20, and (at work) a PET. The Amiga
community created software far ahead of its time. Even now many of
the best applications and games on other platforms come from former
Amiga developers. I like the Amiga community because the people who
make it up were able to recognized and chose the superiority of the
Amiga platform compared to competitors who had better marketing.
That spirit still exists today in the community... we all know how
messed up mainstream computing is now and know it could be better.
JE: A 500 as well. Amigas were certainly ahead of their time.
3) Are you still using an Amiga, and in this case, what is your
current configuration ?
PR: Due to space limitations I had to loan my last Amiga to a
friend. It was an A3000/040-25/CyberGFX.
JE: I still have a 1200 actually, but do not use it at all-more of a
museum piece really.
4) Where does the name Edivision come from ?
PR: Edivision is a parent LLC for our development labels, the first
of which is called "Lower Mars"
5) Why did you settled on founding Edivision ?
PR: We had been negotiating with some console publishers and got
tired of the politics so we decided to create a company we could
control ourselves.
SH: We knew we wanted to create a software company. We were looking
into console games. Though when we got the opportunity to jump into
something new, like the Amiga DE, we couldn't resist.
6) How many people are currently working at Edivision (full time
or/and contractors) ?
PR: There are currently only 3 of us part-time. (We all have to
keep our day jobs until the DE makes us millionaires :P ) Although
many (long) weeks we all put in more time after-hours on Edivision
projects than we do at our current day jobs.
7) Where are you located ?
PR: Studio City, CA. (Part of Los Angeles County/the greater Los
Angeles area.)
8) Could you describe the "atmosphere" at Edivision ?
PR: Virtual :P ( We don't have offices yet.).
SH: Curious. We wait to see what will happen in the AmigaDE world.
JE: Hopeful. That the platforms can support and facilitate the
kinds of things we would like to do.
9) You were planning to create 3 development labels. Could you talk
about those labels ? What is currently developed for each ones ?
PR: We still plan to create 3 labels. As we grow and bring on staff
it will help organize development. "Jackpot!" is being developed
under "Lower Mars" which will primarily create first-rate original
entertainment titles. We have a utility label which will come next-
that project is currently in R&D phases and looks to be very
exciting. Finally we will put any games we license under a third
label.
10) Could you talk especially about the slot game you released
screenshots few weeks ago on amiga.org ?
PR: Jackpot! is our first title. It's a electronic casino
simulator featuring slot machines, video cards, and video slots.
There will be a total of 10 different games in the virtual casino.
We have some really really fun game designs and Jeremy has created
fantastic graphics for the machines. Our design goal was to create a
casino game that would be entertaining for both gamers and
non-gamers, and I think we've done a good job to that end. Virtual
casinos are among the most popular titles on PDAs and we think ours
will be better than any of current crop.
11) When will we see first Edivision products ?
SH: We have to wait until AmigaDE PDA hardware is available to the
public, which should be Q1/Q2 2002. Jackpot! will be released at
roughly the same time.
12) Are you currently looking for game developers ?
PR: Not right now. We are currently negotiating with a couple of
companies to license titles. When that happens we will start outside
staffing. At some point in the future we also want to be able to
serve as an incubator for garage developers.
14) What are the kind of games suited for PDA market, which seems to
be really peculiar ?
PR: PDA owners buy games that are commonly familiar (don't need a
lot of instructions) and can be played in short spurts. Current golf
and casino titles are among the most popular for these reasons.
13) What is your foresight for the development of the PDA market ?
PR: As the machines become more powerful and cheaper I think they
will be what Gameboy fans move up to when they get older.
15) What do you think about other development platform, for instance
Linux on SL-5000 ?
PR: As opposed to the Amiga DE, they lock you in to a platform.
With the DE we can create a title that will run on not only the most
popular current platforms, but also any capable platform in the
future. This gives us a tremendous market advantage over competitors
who would need to port their titles for new platforms. The Amiga DE
is also much less expensive than most commercial middleware licenses,
which provide only some of the cross-platform benefits of the Amiga
DE.
16) Are you planning to advertise for your products in a near future
PR: Yes. We will be marketing Jackpot! when Sharp releases their
PDA.
17) Are you planning to release games adapted for other platforms
that PDA?
PR: Possibly in the future, but for now we're just concentrating on
PDA titles.
18) Could you talk about your co-operation with Amiga Inc. ?
PR: Amiga has been great providing us with support. As for our part
back, we'll be giving Amiga license to distribute many of the tools
and libraries we create as open-source and free for commercial
development. We also look to grow this relationship even more in the
future.
19) "Three people from Disney" made some concept design of hardware
for Amiga Inc., some months ago. Are you those people ?
PR: I was one of them. Michael Daugherty and Archie Agote were the
other two.
21) Do you have interest in other Amiga related project (AmigaOne,
OS4, and also MorphOS/Pegasos) ?
SH: Due to limited resources, right now we're focused just on
AmigaDE and even only AmigaDE PDA. In the future if resources are
available and it makes financial sense we would.
22) A message for our readers ?
SH: Stayed tuned!
