Vulcan Software:- A name surely known to all Amiga Users and soon to be Recognised by PC users as Vulcan start to Move into the PC Gaming Scene.
In this Issue our own Dual Editor ..Ian C Fyvie (The Ferret)Poses a list of Questions to Paul Carrington (MD Vulcan Software) Regarding both the Past (Amiga Games) and the Future (PC New Games and Re-Releases of the Vulcan Classics)
RIYAN Production would like to thank Paul for his frank replies to these Questions, They make facinating Reading :)
(Q) Vulcan Software was set up to release the first in the series
of the Valhalla Games, Obviously the name Vulcan and the fact you
did use the Quote "Live long and Prosper" would indicate that one
of you are strong "Trekkie" fans. Spill the Beans :) Is it you,
Lisa or both? (A) Yes, Vulcan was established in 1994 to release our very first
game Valhalla & The Lord of Infinity for the Amiga. At that time
we had no idea it would be the first Valhalla game in a series.
We primarily chose the name Vulcan based on the Greek God of
fire, the metal forger. But it is true that both myself (and
Lisa) are Trekkies :) And over time, as we adopted a more logical
approach to running a software development/publishing company,
our identity geared itself more towards the Trekkie reference to
Vulcan. Although our company logo still remains, as the symbol of
a hammer head, hitting an anvil, creating sparks. (Q) When the first instalment of Valhalla (Lord of Infinity) was
released the Magazine Games reviewers, Could not seem to make up
their minds, I have seen VERY Low review scores and reasonably
high ones. Did this bother you or did you have complete faith in
the Valhalla series? (A) Don't forget this was our very first game, it was created in
12 weeks and written in Amos! So we had no idea of how it would
be received by the magazine press, let alone that they would even
contemplate reviewing it. It did have one thing in it's favour
and that was, it was the first ever speech adventure for the
Amiga. It was a new and exciting time for us, I remember going into my
local computer shop on the day of release and seeing the boxed
game on the shelf and thinking 'wow', simply that, 'wow' as I'm
sure all developers of commercial product say, the first time
they see their baby on display. Soon after we had a visit from one of the Amiga magazines (I
think it was CU Amiga) and they fell in love with it, giving us
rave reviews and a 90% score. Soon we had cover disks and
magazine reviews and another magazine (Amiga Action) went a bit
loopy giving it 94%, sales went crazy and we where soon on the
Saturday morning television shows promoting the game and in the
daily newspapers. Then the funniest thing happened, the magazine called Amiga Power
(which I always loved) gave it a score of 14% and hated it! It
was such a strange thing, as our publicity was from one extreme
to the other. This in turn actually did us a great favour, as we
had so much publicity around the drastic reviews from one magazine
to the next. The saying, 'all publicity is good publicity' actually came true
for Vulcan and our sales achieved the retail best buy awards for
that year. So looking back I think the diversity of opinion
helped our cause and made Valhalla a bit like Marmite (you either
hated it or loved it). (Q) When you released the second game Valhalla Before The War,
you actually took the story back in time (To before Lord of
Infinity). In reality, If you wanted to play Valhalla in sequence
You would have to play 2-1-3. Was there a reason for this? i.e..
Did you not really plan for a forward sequel. (A) Actually they should be played in order 1, 2 then 3 to fully
understand the plot. We hadn't set out to make the Valhalla games
as a series, but the sequel was the most logical step for us,
based on the success of the first one. In the first game you played the cute little prince who was going
to kill the evil Lord of Infinity who stole the crown form the
little princes father (the true King of Valhalla). So your quest
was one of revenge and justice. In the fourth level of this first
game the little prince meets the Lord of Infinity and we always
thought that his character was so colourful and interesting in
his final death scene. So when faced with developing a sequel, we knew we just had to
use the Lord of Infinity as the main character.. but.. erm .. he
was killed in the first game! So our only choice was to go back
in time and explain how this evil person came to kill the
original King and take the throne, and so that was your quest in
the second game. It actually turned out well, as you went from playing a cute do-
gooder (in the first game) to playing an evil twisted and grumpy
character (in the second game). (Q) After Valhalla 1 and 2 had been released ..You must have
realized that the Games had developed a "Cult" following. However
for the Third game in the series (Fortress of Eve) you changed
from the Dark gloomy, Mysterious top down format, To a More (dare
I say it :) Bright cartoonish side-on format. Why change what had
been a roaring Success? (A) Cult following indeed, we actually went on to make other
Amiga games (after the second Valhalla game) namely Hillsea Lido
and Timekeepers but all that time we were inundated with requests
for the next Valhalla instalment and so it soon became clear that
there was a cult following that had to be fed. We did change the layout of Valhalla & The Fortress of Eve mainly
as a technical improvement over the first two games, this time we
changed the angle slightly as it allowed us to show more detail
of the world and objects, as well as offer new puzzles that would
have been impossible when looking over head. This game was more light hearted than the first two as your quest
was to find and marry a princess and so we opted for a more
colourful and clean approach to the graphics, I agree though, it
did turn out more cartoony than the first two, but just like the
original magazine reviews, we had fans saying, 'I love the new
presentation', or 'I hate the new presentation', there was no in
between :) (Q) After releasing Valhalla 1&2 you introduced the MiniSeries,
However soon afterwards you announced that you would be producing
CD-ROM games only called the MegaSeries. At this point in time a
lot of Amiga users had not upgraded their machines. Was this
decision taken to (a) Allow you to produce better games (b) To
combat Piracy (c) or an Indication that you were frustrated with
the Amiga users who failed to upgrade their machines? (A) The MiniSeries was created to make all of our Amiga floppy
games part of a set, an identity if you like for Vulcan products,
it was also a way to offer Amiga users cheaper games. At this
time, from 1994 through to 1997 the decline of the Amiga
(commercially) was making itself know. Fewer shops where stocking
Amiga games and Amiga magazines were closing all around whilst
Amiga users flooded to PC. It was virtually impossible to sell
'full sized' boxed games in the shops and make a living. Vulcan's solution was to reduce the box size (to about one third
in size) and manufacture, duplicate and print our own products
which we would specifically sell through mail order (at half the
price) and supply bulk units through wholesale and retail around
the world. We balanced this for a while, for example for every UK
buying public we lost, we then gained one in Germany or France
etc. So we survived whilst all around failed and went on to
produce 10 titles in the MiniSeries. But we knew at that time that there was no way we could compete
with the superior PC CD products coming out. It was for this
reason (and this reason only) that we decided to switch to Amiga
CD development. We had in the back of our minds that if Amiga
games could offer similar experiences as PC CD's then we might
have a future. At this time, we really believed Amiga would find
a new owner and once again be supported at the hardware level. Piracy was never an issue for us, it exists and that is that, if
you use pirated products then you were probably never the type of
person to go and buy the product in the first place, and so lower
sales is not attributed to Piracy, but simply that there are
fewer honest people around who see the bigger picture. Our switch to Amiga CD allowed us to offer multi-language
products, with superior sound, graphics and animation's, it was
brave as hardly any Amiga user had a CD drive. Yes it was
frustrating that not everyone upgraded to Amiga CD but I don't
blame them as the CD units available at that time were over £120
compared to a PC CD for around £40! However, the hard-core Amiga
users did upgrade (for which I greatly admired), there was a core
of dedicated users, committed to the Amiga who would do anything
to help it's future. (Q) Vulcan quickly became the Main developer of Amiga Software,
and you appeared to have some interesting Titles awaiting
release. However You made the shock Announcement that you were
scaling down Amiga Developments and moving to the PC platform. A
brave move considering you were entering a market where you would
be virtually unknown and facing the Big multi Millionaire
developers. Have you ever regretted this? (A) Regretted? I regretted the fact that Amiga never found a
company to bring it back to life (when it so desperately needed a
new heart), it was given life support a few times, but in the end
it was all too apparent that it's time had come. Far too many
users had left the platform, far too many developers had turned
to greener pastures, far too many retailers closed and far too
many magazines folded. In the end it was futile. All I can say now is that Vulcan tried to do its bit. We ended up
producing 5 MegaSeries Amiga CD titles and the last one in 1998
called Genetic Species (by Marble Eyes) was an insight as to
where Amiga games was heading and how great an Amiga game could
be! GS supported 14 languages but when you counted how many Amiga
buying users remained (throughout the entire world) it was sad
indeed, so much so that we never recovered from GS and the debts
it left behind. Vulcan moving to PC was one of two options, the first option was
to close Vulcan and get that job at the food store :) Not a
pretty thought! So we stopped all Amiga development, sold our
remaining Amiga hardware and bought a PC and a C++ compiler. Yes
it was scary! January 1999 Vulcan (now 5 years old) entered PC
development with no PC development experience and no money! It's
your worst nightmare scenario! But no, I haven't regretted the move, it's a challenge. (Q) You faced a lot of savage and generally undeserved criticism
when you left Amiga, that must have hurt. Any lingering
resentment to the critics? (A) I don't hold any resentment towards anyone. Yes we got allot
of criticism, but it was normally based upon the individuals
passion to see the Amiga succeed, I too shared that passion, and
so knew where they were coming from. Having said that, we did
also receive allot of praise 'and thanks' for our efforts, which
was really nice, as it meant people where aware of our struggle
and our efforts to make it all work. The only thing that really got my back up was when someone would
criticize us for leaving, and to then find out that they never
once bought any of our products. :0 (Q) Recently you uploaded the Full "Genetic Species" game to the
Aminet. Was this really a farewell Present to the Amiga users or
were you just fed up of the Pirates copying the Game? (A) Purely a farewell present to any remaining Amiga users out
there, not just Genetic Species but all of our old Amiga games
are slowly being released on the Vulcan website (for free
download). (Q) Will Genetic Species , or a similar type game be released
for P.C.? (A) Vulcan have no plans to make a PC version of Genetic Species
but if one was ever initiated it would be from the original
development team (Marble Eyes), however, I am aware that a Game
Boy Advance version is in the first stages of conception. (Q) It's obvious from past Interviews/statements that you were
once very dedicated to the Amiga Computer ...Do you (1) Still own an Amiga (even if it gathers dust in the Loft :) (A) No, all our Amiga's were either sold or thrown away. I do
however still have the Amiga external CD drive I bought for £120
but would you believe that only yesterday it stopped working!
Spooky! (2) Still take an Interest in developments in the Amiga (if there
is any) (A) I did take an interest for the first year on leaving but soon
grew tired of the same old press releases about what the future
may bring, and I never saw any evidence of the future bringing
anything but suspended faith and diminishing hope. (3) Do you have any comments regarding the Development of the New
Amiga OS or AmigaOne machine. (A) No.
(Q) Having recently downloaded your "Vulcan Portal" I must say, I
do like the idea behind it, A sort of interactive/Digital speech
equipped FTP program for your Web site. What gave you this Idea ? (A) The Idea behind the Vulcan Portal, Wow, this is a complicated
one to explain! It kind of evolved. Originally the Vulcan Portal
was going to be a simple downloading program that would eventually
download our new PC products (in episodes) to the users computer.
A digital distribution application. But we simply didn't know when
to stop developing this application. (and still don't). It's important to note that when we started developing the Vulcan
Portal in February 2001 we had just spent 2 years developing some
pretty fancy 3d game development tools (called Mother3d) along
with runtime engines, you know the kind of 3d that can animate
skin'able 3d characters in real-time. First tests of the Vulcan Portal allowed the user to download a
test file, and a requester box came up saying, "you have the
file" or "something's gone wrong", not inspiring and very dull!
After staring at our computers for a few days we thought it would
be kind of cool to remove those silly requester boxes and replace
them all with a real time 3d character, one that could, move,
smile, blink and speak, putting a human face on the functionality
of the Vulcan Portal. After a few months we had successfully integrated our Mother3d
technology into this application and the results where quite
remarkable. The Vulcan Portal was now fronted by real-time 3d
characters, who synthetically spoke (in six languages), allowing
them to report on all downloading operations, advise of problems
and offer information about itself. Needless to say we soon
realized that the Vulcan Portal could be more than just a
downloading tool. In it's current state (version 210), the Vulcan Portal allows its
users to define how they virtually look in 3d, with customizable
skins and speech preferences, and they can upload themselves to
the Vulcan Orbiter, where they can meet all other Portal users
and engage in communication by sending each other 3dVoiceMail,
(like email but the text of the mail is spoken by a '3d you' with
perfect lip synch on the receiving computer), they can also
collect daily 3dVoiceNews about Vulcan's developments and daily
PC and console gaming news (supplied by Ferrago.co.uk) which is
spoken to them by a 3d news reader. Oh and of course download our
application and games. All in all it's turned out to be a community building application
around Vulcan and our products, we call it a 'gateway to
everything Vulcan'. It's a tool, that allows you to download and
play our products but also comes with a whole community of other
Vulcan game players, offering an entertaining and remarkable way
of communication. It's also an evolving application, meaning it
upgrades to new version 'automatically' (about twice a month)
allowing it to expand with new services and features. The feature
we are currently working on is real-time 3dVoiceChat. (Q) You are currently porting the original Valhalla games to
work on the PC via the Portal ...Do you have any plans to port
other original Vulcan games to the PC (like Timekeepers ...
Please pretty please ...My wife is holding a rolling pin to my
head :) (A) Due to popular request we have indeed started to convert our
old Valhalla speech adventure games to PC, we've called them the
Valhalla Classics and they comprise of 12 episodes, each episode
is downloaded (you guessed it) through the Vulcan Portal
application (approx. 6Mb per episode) but remarkably they are
also played within the very same application. The PC versions witness some major graphic enhancements (now we
have allot more than 32 colours to play with) and we have re-
written some of the puzzles and trebled the amount of digital
speech, however we have tried to keep the spirit of the original
Amiga Valhalla games intact within the PC versions of this cult
speech adventure. Timekeepers? Laugh out loud, yes we do have plans to also convert
Timekeepers to PC, once again to be downloaded and played within
the Vulcan Portal, but only because of people like your wife who
confront us with rolling pins all the time. :) (Q) Each episode of the Valhalla Classics Games can be
downloaded for the small sum of £2.50 ..Making each game cost
£10. Surely at this you will not recover the costs of reworking
the games, Or is it your hope to capture the attentions of the Ex
Amiga users upgrading to PC ? (A) The first episode of the Valhalla Classics (The Crypt) is
free (as is the Vulcan Portal). Episodes 2 to 12 are priced at
£2.50 each (approx. $3.60). The main reason for doing the
conversions is to preserve the Valhalla brand 'identity' by
placing them on a mainstream platform, and at the same time build
up a Portal community in preparation for our flagship PC title
Valhalla 3D The Curse Of Infinity, which we have been developing
for 3 years. The actual conversion of the Valhalla Classics is more of a hobby
which we do in our spare time, the end result is the preservation
of this cult game, and cheap 'accessible' fun, for anyone who
gets hooked. With regards to recovering costs, don't forget
digital distribution means no manufacturing costs (box, CD's,
manuals) and no middle men fees (distributors, publishers,
retailers) the end result is the ability to offer games at a
really cheap price to the user and still (as a developer) make
the same (if not more) unit revenue per title if published through
normal retail channels. In my mind digital distribution is the
future. (Q) I see that with the Vulcan Portal, your Mother3d technology
and the other tools, Vulcan can now be seen as more than just a
games developer, is this an area you see as important for Vulcan
to enter? (A) We started as a games developer in 1994 and still are
'primarily' a games developer, but we have also diversified into
other technologies, this we believe is very important and will be
the key to our successful transition from Amiga to PC. We have some excellent intellectual properties (based on our back
catalogue) but now after 3 years of PC development we also have
some pretty exciting technology assets. Things like our digital
distribution technology, speech technology, 3dVoiceNews
technology, Ebayer (used within auction on Ebay) and most
importantly our Mother3d technology that allows us to create
advanced high end specification real-time 3d games, complete with
modelling and animation tools. We are really just coming to the
beginning of what our future holds. (Q) Is it intended to sell forthcoming Vulcan Titles ONLY via
the Vulcan Portal or will we, again see Vulcan titles available
on store shelves? (A) Our emphasis at present is on digital distribution via the
Vulcan Portal. We believe that you will begin to see many more
developers and publishers turning to this delivery method in the
coming months/years. Based on users internet access becoming
faster and cheaper and also on the massive price reductions
achievable for end product that generate similar revenue streams.
However we will still explore standard publishing routes of our
products when the right publishing partner comes into focus and
it is something that doesn't detract form our main strategy. (Q) The Portals website states that the Portal is an evolving
system, any timeframe on when the WinAmp conflict will be
resolved or when we can use true colour? I do like Winamp :-) (A) Evolving application, yes the Vulcan Portal upgrades (about
twice a month) to new versions that cater for new features and
improvements. The winAmp conflict is already fixed, it actually comes down to a
setting within winAmp based on how it should use DirectSound and
your sound card. This then allows it to share your sound card
with the Vulcan Portal, providing you have also configured your
Portal to share the sound card via a medium co-operation level. The Portal and Valhalla Classics do currently support (true
colour) which is16bit and also 24 and 32bit display modes. I
think what you are referring to is the actual 3d element of the
Portal which currently requires a Zbuffer on your graphics card. Most graphics cards only support 16bit Zbuffers and as the bit
depth of your display mode needs to match the bit depth of your
Zbuffer, it means that on most graphics cards, 3d can only be
enabled in a 16bit display mode. However we will soon have a
Portal version that requires no Zbuffer and therefore will run
the 3d element of the Portal at all bit depths. (Q) I normally use a 1280 x1024 screen res, so the Portal is
rather small on my desktop, will we be able to "scale" up the
Portal or use a custom screen for it? (A) At present we don't have plans for that, however the Portal
does get bigger as we expand it for newer features, (you should
have seen the size of it when it was first released! :) ) It's
focus is to be a desktop application and as people still have
desktop sizes of 800x600, 1024x768 we have struck a happy balance
for the size of the Portal. Funny thing is, some old Amiga users
commented on how small the Valhalla Classics seemed to be on
their PC and they are always amazed to hear that the graphics are
the exact same size as they where on their Amiga versions of the
game. It's just the Amiga used to run in 320x256 and therefore
seemed huge compared to the display capabilities of PC graphic
cards and monitors. (Q) You are currently developing Valhalla 3D ( The Curse of
Infinity), Many game companies on the PC seem to be moving away
from the Mouse controlled "Point & click" type of Adventure
games, Relying on complicated keyboard controls ( I seem to spend
more time trying to figure out which keys to press rather than
solve the Puzzles on hand) What are you plans for the controls in
Valhalla 3D? (A) Valhalla 3D (still in development) is not a point & click
type of adventure, it is an advanced first person perspective 3d
adventure, simply imagine a popular 3d fps shooter but trading in
your guns for your hands and using your brain instead of weapons,
our blurb is as follows: Prepare to be thrown into a world of lateral and logical
thinking, shrouded in suspense, intrigue and atmospheric
diversion. This first person 3d speech adventure will captivate
your imagination offering true world physics and total immersion
into confined locations. No more running around bland locations
looking for the exit, this 3d technology focuses on the inward
infinite, creating a world that is hard to leave and even harder
to forget. ...But yes I agree with you about controls of recent games and we
have spent a great deal of thought on this for Valhalla 3D. We
have come up with something that we are really proud of and you
will find yourself manipulating many objects and environments,
achieving complicated interaction and manoeuvring and all
accomplished with your mouse and two mouse buttons. One goal we are aiming for is to allow anyone to instantly get
into the game and play the game with out requiring any previous
reading or knowledge on how to control the character or
manipulate his environment, it's still early days but I think
we've cracked it after many months of testing and thinking about
the input method. Once again Paul, Our thanks for your time and support in
completing this Interview and all the Information you provided
for other articles in the CRYPT Magazine.
Live Long & Prosper!
Vulcan Software Ltd. est 1994, is a privately owned software
development company, specializing in advanced digital
distribution technology, 3d development tools and 3d games for
the PC platform. Vulcan is based in the UK with external
development moons in Canada and Portugal. Website Link
www.vulcan.co.uk
The Valhalla Classics are PC conversions of Vulcan's speech
adventure games, released for Amiga in the mid 90's. The
principle character (in his scrolling graphical world) comments
on the actions you perform with his extensive vocabulary of
digital speech. Logical and lateral thinking are required in
order to solve the devious puzzles throughout twelve episodes.
Each episode is downloaded (and played) within the Vulcan Portal.
Website Link www.valhalla-online.co.uk/classics/english/
The Vulcan Portal is a free and advanced digital distribution
application for the PC that gives its users the ability to
download games and applications. Functionality is layered with
(real-time) 3D characters that communicate via dynamic synthetic
speech. Portal users can also define their presence within the
community, send and receive 3dVoiceMail and collect daily
development 3dVoiceNews. Website Link www.vulcan- portal.co.uk
