Company type | Private (defunct) |
---|---|
Industry | Software |
Founded | March 4, 1981 [1] |
Founder | Tod Zipnick |
Defunct | February 14, 1998 [2] |
Fate | Dissolved |
Headquarters | Wheeling, Illinois |
Key people |
|
Products | MacVenture Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity |
Number of employees |
|
Website | N/A |
ICOM Simulations, Inc. [3] (later known as Rabid Entertainment) was a software company based in Wheeling, Illinois. It is best known for creating the MacVenture series of adventure games including Shadowgate .
Following the foundation in 1981 a number of game titles for the Panasonic JR-200 were produced. Later products for the Apple Macintosh included the debugger TMON and an application launching utility called OnCue.
ICOM Simulations was formed as TMQ Software [7] on March 4, 1981, by Tod Zipnick. With the MacVenture series, ICOM pioneered the point-and-click adventure interface and later multiplatform CD-ROM development with Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective . Zipnick died of Hodgkin's disease in 1991 [8] [9] just as the company was beginning to take off.
In the early-to-mid 1990s, ICOM Simulations was a major third-party developer for the TurboGrafx-16 (TG-16) platform in the US. They produced many games for the console, including the TG-16 exclusive Shadowgate sequel, Beyond Shadowgate .
The company was acquired in 1993 by Viacom New Media which closed its operations in 1997. [10] Renamed to Rabid Entertainment, VNM/ICOM was dismantled in 1998.
The rights to ICOM's game portfolio were held by the company Infinite Ventures, but they are now owned by David Marsh who obtained most of the rights in January 2012. [11] On March 5, 2012, Dave Marsh and Karl Roelofs, both former developers at ICOM Simulations, formed a new game development company called Zojoi, LLC, and have begun releasing upgraded versions of previous ICOM Simulations titles, starting with Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective for iOS Tablets. [12] [13]
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington, Virginia.
"A Scandal in Bohemia" is the first short story, and the third overall work, featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It is the first of the 56 Holmes short stories written by Doyle and the first of 38 Sherlock Holmes works illustrated by Sidney Paget. The story is notable for introducing the character of Irene Adler, who is one of the most notable female characters in the Sherlock Holmes series, despite appearing in only one story. Doyle ranked "A Scandal in Bohemia" fifth in his list of his twelve favourite Holmes stories.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of short stories by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on 14 October 1892. It contains the earliest short stories featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, which had been published in twelve monthly issues of The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The stories are collected in the same sequence, which is not supported by any fictional chronology. The only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson, and all are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.
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Shadowgate is a black-and-white point-and-click adventure game published in 1987 for the Macintosh as part of the MacVenture series. The game is named for its setting, Castle Shadowgate, residence of the evil Warlock Lord. The player, as the "last of a great line of hero-kings", is charged with the task of saving the world by defeating the Warlock Lord, who is attempting to summon the demon Behemoth out of Hell. Later that year, a color version of the game was released for the Amiga and Atari ST, and in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Dracula Unleashed is a 1993 video game created by ICOM Simulations and published by Viacom New Media for the DOS, Macintosh and Sega CD platforms.
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is a full-motion video game released in 1991. It is based on a tabletop game-gamebook hybrid of the same name first published in 1981, and features the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sherlock Holmes has long been a popular character for pastiche, Holmes-related work by authors and creators other than Arthur Conan Doyle. Their works can be grouped into four broad categories:
MacVenture is a series of four adventure games with a menu-based point-and-click interface. They were originally developed for the Macintosh by ICOM Simulations:
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II is a full motion video computer game released for the Mega-CD, TurboGrafx-CD, Mac OS, VIS and DOS. The game is based around the adventures of the titular character, detective Sherlock Holmes, and his assistant, Dr. John Watson.
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Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is a game originally published by Sleuth Publications in 1981. Multiple expansions and reprints of the game have since been released.
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Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. III is the title of a full-motion video computer game released for DOS and Mac OS. The game is a sequel to Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II and was released in 1993.
Sherlock Holmes is a 2009 period mystery action film starring Robert Downey Jr. as the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, and Dan Lin. The screenplay written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg was developed from a story by Wigram and Johnson. In addition to Downey Jr. as Holmes, Jude Law portrays Dr. John Watson. The film, set in 1890, follows eccentric detective Holmes and his companion Watson attempting to foil a mysticist's plot to gain control of Britain by seemingly supernatural means. Rachel McAdams stars as Holmes' former adversary Irene Adler and Mark Strong portrays villain Lord Henry Blackwood.
Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper is an adventure game for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360, developed by Ukrainian studio Frogwares and distributed by Focus Home Interactive. It is the fifth game in the Sherlock Holmes series of adventure games developed by Frogwares. The game takes place in the London district of Whitechapel in 1888, the historical site of the Jack the Ripper murders.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a 2011 period mystery action film and a sequel to the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes. The film is directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Dan Lin, Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram and Susan Downey.
Zojoi is a video game software development company based in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded by former ICOM Simulations developers David Marsh and Karl Roelofs in 2012. Zojoi currently has the rights to many of the intellectual properties that once belonged to ICOM Simulations, including Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and Shadowgate.
David R. Marsh is an American video game designer known for his work supporting the intellectual properties that used to belong to ICOM Simulations, and creating the MacVenture game Shadowgate. As of 2012, he recently founded a new game development company called Zojoi, LLC with plans to release new, remastered and revised versions of games created by him and Karl Roelofs when they were at ICOM Simulations.
Karl Roelofs is an American video game developer known for creating the MacVenture game Shadowgate. He is a co-founder of the video game development company Zojoi, LLC with Dave Marsh.