Electro Man | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | X LanD Computer Games |
Publisher(s) |
|
Designer(s) |
|
Composer(s) | Daniel Kleczyński |
Platform(s) | MS-DOS |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Platform |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Electro Man, originally distributed in Poland under the title Electro Body, is an MS-DOS platform game developed by the Polish company X LanD Computer Games. It was originally released in Poland by xLand in 1992, [1] and later published by Epic MegaGames in the United States in 1993; apart from the changed title, the Electro Man release contains some changes, such as upgraded graphics. Though initially offered under a shareware license, the game was released as freeware by the developer on June 25, 2006, [2] under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. [3] [2] The player controls a cyborg named "Jacek", who must get through all the areas of a space base while destroying enemies.
Electro Body was successful in Poland. It is considered to be the first truly "professional" Polish computer game released on the PC platform [4] and has been described as a "cult" game. [5]
In 2014, a limited collector's edition of the game was released for its 22nd anniversary by IQ Publishing; this edition came with a soundtrack and a numbered certificate. [6] [7]
The plot of Electro Man takes place in the future. Jacek's family is killed by aliens in an attack on a human-populated space base. Eager for revenge, he returns to the conquered base as a cyborg equipped with advanced weaponry in order to reclaim the facility from the invaders. [8]
On each of the levels, the player must find three electronic chips and use them to activate a large teleporter pad which serves as the exit. The base is full of dangers, such as security robots or automatic gun turrets. The protagonist dies instantly when shot, returning to the last touched checkpoint. There are also numerous small teleporters, which transport the protagonist between various areas in the level. [9]
Jacek is armed with a gun which can be upgraded by collecting special batteries. A special meter on the right-hand side of the screen shows the current firepower of the gun. There is a limited number of shots of each power level available — once these run out, the firepower of the gun falls down by one level. At higher firepower levels the gun's rate of fire drops down, forcing the player to wait for the gun to cool down before firing again; the temperature of the gun is indicated by another meter on the left-hand side. Touching a checkpoint causes the gun's power level to drop down back to zero. [8] [10]
The original Electro Body release contains a copy protection measure, forcing the player to find the right letter in the manual in order to continue from one level to the next. [9] This security measure was removed in the Electro Man version. [11]
According to the memories of Maciej Miąsik, the game was created on the initiative of Marek Kubowicz, the founder of xLand, who made a proposal to Miąsik and Janusz Pelc to develop the first game for his company. The development took nine months. [12] Together, Pelc and Miąsik designed and programmed the game, and created the graphics. The protagonist was given a face-covering helmet, as drawing a convincing face proved too difficult. [11] The game's title was inspired by the electronic body music genre, which was also used by the composer, Daniel Kleczyński, as inspiration for the soundtrack. [13]
Electro Body was released in professional packaging, comparable to games released by Western publishers. The box contained an instruction manual, reference card with controls and a cassette tape containing the game soundtrack, thus allowing even players without sound cards to enjoy the music. [4] [8] [10] Creating the boxes at the time was not a simple task for the developers; the boxes were shrink-wrapped by hand, with the help of a kitchen heat sealer and a sandwich toaster. The back of the box was decorated with screenshots made with a photo camera. Advertising material created for the game included posters and radio advertisements. [11] [4]
Electro Body was noted for its low system requirements. The game supported every video card on the Polish market, including the Hercules Graphics Card, CGA, EGA and VGA cards; it also supported numerous audio devices, including the PC speaker, Covox Speech Thing or the Sound Blaster. [4] A special release of the game came with a Covox device included in the box. [14]
Hoping to get the game picked up by a Western distributor, the developers sent a copy of the game on floppy disk by mail to the American company Epic MegaGames. Epic expressed interest, and xLand representatives met in Rotterdam with Mark Rein; the negotiations were successful, and the game was released in the United States under the title Electro Man. This release was a modified version of the original; the changes included removal of copy protection measures, and removing support for all video modes other than VGA. [11]
xLand planned to develop a sequel, under the title Electro Body 2. Planned features of this "military 2D platform game" included 3D rendered sprites, as well as a new game engine allowing for nine separate planes of scrolling and special effects. The game never saw the light of day. [11] [15]
Electro Body met with critical acclaim in Poland. The reviewer in Top Secret praised its graphics and music. [14] PC World Komputer praised the "packaging that no western company would be ashamed of" and described the graphics as "excellent". [10] Jacek Maciejewski of PC Magazine Po Polsku considered Electro Body to be a game "of a quite high quality", but criticized the copy protection, which he found annoying. [9] The reviewer of Świat Gier Komputerowych stated that the game "speaks well" of the Polish art of programming. [8]
The game received more mixed reviews in Germany. PC Games praised its graphics and compared it favorably to games by Apogee Software. [18] In contrast, the review in PC Player panned the game, criticizing its controls and lack of scrolling, and complaining about some actions requiring "millimeter-perfect" positioning of the player character. [16] The review in PC Joker stated that the graphics and animation was "poor" and "downright laughable", and described the controls as awkward. [17]
The game was reviewed in 1994 in the Dragon magazine by Sandy Petersen, as part of the Epic Puzzle Pack (a compilation which also included Robbo and Heartlight ). Petersen gave the compilation 3 out of 5 stars. [19]
Years after its release, Electro Body was retrospectively considered an important step in the history of Polish computer games. An article on the website GameZilla.pl described it as "the first serious twitch of Polish game developers". [6] Bartłomiej Kluska, a journalist specializing in the history of Polish games, considered it the first serious Polish production for the PC platform and commended its graphics and "attention to detail". [20]
In 2014 the Polish indie game website 1ndie World held a competition named "The Jam", with the objective of creating a game inspired by Electro Body. The winning game would receive a professional advertising campaign sponsored by the website Gry-Online, among other prizes. [21] The competition winner was the game Ego Protocol. [22]
Kajko and Kokosz or Kayko and Kokosh is a Polish comic book series by Janusz Christa that debuted in Poland in 1972 and was published primarily until 1992. Mixing history and fantasy tropes it is centered on light-hearted and often comedic adventures of two Slavic warriors named Kajko and Kokosz, loosely resembling both Asterix and Obelix, as well as two personalities from Christa's earlier series on Kajtek i Koko. The series consists of 20 comic albums, as well as a number of shorter stories published in various magazines. In 2006, a short 3D animated movie was made.
Heartlight is a puzzle video game originally developed by Janusz Pelc for the Atari 8-bit computers in 1990. In 1994, an MS-DOS port was published by Epic MegaGames along with two other games by Janusz Pelc in the Epic Puzzle Pack. The shareware version has 20 levels and the full version has 70 levels. In 2006, Maciej Miąsik, co-author of the MS-DOS version, released it under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.5 license as freeware. The source code became available too. In 2020, a web browser remake was released with updated graphics.
Robbo is a puzzle video game designed by Janusz Pelc and published by LK Avalon in 1989 for Atari 8-bit computers. A success on the Polish domestic market, it was later ported to other computer platforms and released in the United States as The Adventures of Robbo.
Teenagent is a 1994 point-and-click adventure game developed by Polish developer Metropolis Software House. It was released for Amiga and MS-DOS. The player controls teenage boy Mark Hopper, who wants to be a secret agent. It was the first game to be released on CD-ROM in Poland.
Reguły Gry is a Polish television sitcom directed by Bartłomiej Ignaciuk that premiered on TVN 7 on 16 February 2012. Filming of the show began on 4 December 2011. It is based on the American sitcom Rules of Engagement.
Hans Kloss is a puzzle-platform game designed by Dariusz Żołna and published in Poland by LK Avalon. It was published in 1992 for Atari 8-bit computers. A Commodore 64 conversion, programmed by Janusz Dąbrowski, was released in 1993. The player controls Hans Kloss, the fictional protagonist of the Polish TV series Stawka większa niż życie, during World War II. He must find plans for a secret weapon in Adolf Hitler's headquarters, the Wolf's Lair.
Tajemnica Statuetki is a Polish-language adventure game developed and published by Metropolis Software House for DOS-based computers in 1993. While it was never released in English, it is known in the English-speaking world as The Mystery of the Statuette. The game was conceived by a team led by Adrian Chmielarz, who used photographs taken in France as static screens within the game. The first title in the adventure game genre that was produced in Poland, its plot revolves around a fictional Interpol agent named John Pollack trying to solve a mystery associated with the thefts of ancient artifacts around the world.
Book of Demons is an isometric hack and slash action role-playing created by Polish studio Thing Trunk. The game was officially released through Steam on 13 December 2018. The game was originally developed for Microsoft Windows, but the developers informed about plans to release it also on Xbox One. Book of Demons is the first installment of the Return 2 Games series that aims to bring classic hardcore genres to broader audiences. The game features an unusual art style - all elements of the game are visualised as papercuttings and pop-up book elements, and such style defines visual framework for the whole series. The game also brings some novelties to the genre - the card system which replaces equipment and skills systems typical for the genre, the Flexiscope feature which allows players to control duration of a game session and movement restricted to a path which add a tactical element to the gameplay.
Boyz Don't Cry is an adventure video game developed by L'Art, released on March 30, 2005.
Adrian Chmielarz is a Polish video game designer, programmer, creative director, producer and writer specializing in adventure games and first-person shooters. Chmielarz has co-founded and led Metropolis Software, People Can Fly and The Astronauts. He is one of the most prominent Polish video gaming figures, and has been described as one of the "most divisive" figures in the industry.
Marienbad was a 1962 Polish puzzle mainframe game created by Elwro engineer Witold Podgórski in Wrocław, Poland for its Odra 1003. It was an adaption of the logic game nim. Inspired by the discussion in the magazine Przekrój of a variant of nim in the 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad, named "Marienbad" by the magazine, Podgórski programmed the game for the in-development 1003 mainframe, released in 1963. The game had players opposing the computer in alternating rounds of removing matches from a set, with the last player to take a match the loser. As the computer always played the optimal moves, it was essentially unbeatable.
Gry-Online is a group of Polish websites devoted to computer games and electronic entertainment. Founded by Mariusz Klamra, Wojciech Antonowicz and Rafał Swaczyna, the group has grown to include GRYOnline.pl, TVGry.pl, Gameplay.pl, and Gamepressure. In 2017, the German branch of the French publisher Webedia Group bought Gry-OnLine from Empik, thereby entering the Polish market.
CD-Action is a Polish magazine devoted to video games. It was founded in 1996 and published in Wrocław. The magazine was published in a cycle that was not exactly monthly, as subsequent issues of the magazine were published every 28 days. As a result, thirteen issues were released annually. In January 2022, the magazine switched to a quarterly publication cycle. The typical volume of an issue is 124 pages. From December 2006 to July 2011, it was published only in a version with one double-layer DVD. From August 2011 to July 2018, two DVD9 discs were added in a cardboard packaging. In August 2018, the publishing house decided to stop adding a physical medium, replacing it with a scratch card with a code.
A.D. 2044 is a Polish adventure game by LK Avalon, released September 9, 1996 on Windows.
Skaut Kwatermaster is a 1995 Polish adventure game by LK Avalon for Amiga and DOS.
Polanie is a historical real-time strategy video game developed by MDF and published by USER for DOS and Microsoft Windows in 1996. An enhanced CD version was released the following year.
Wacki: Kosmiczna Rozgrywka is an adventure game by Seven Stars Multimedia released on July 1, 1998 for Windows.
Kajko i Kokosz is a Polish video point-and-click adventure game based on the Kayko and Kokosh comic-book series about the adventures of two Polish warriors, the comedy duo of Kajko and Kokosz. The game was released for Amiga in 1994, for PC MS-DOS in 1995, and for PC Windows in 1998. It was the first of several video-game adaptations of the Kayko and Kokosh comics. The game was described as a commercial success, despite receiving mixed reviews.
All in! Games SA is a video game publisher based in Kraków, Poland. All in! Games publishes games on all main gaming platforms working on international projects.
Master of Dimensions is a 1996 adventure video game by Israeli developer Makh-Shevet and published by Eidos Interactive.