Jump Raven

Last updated
Jump Raven
Jump Raven.jpg
Cover art by Mark Maxwell
Developer(s) Cyberflix
Publisher(s) Paramount Interactive
Programmer(s) Bill Appleton
Artist(s) Jamie Wicks
Debbie Hughes
Writer(s) Andrew Nelson
Platform(s) Windows, Mac OS
Release1994
Genre(s) Shooter
Mode(s) Single-player

Jump Raven was the second game released by Cyberflix, in 1994. The game's technology is similar to that of Lunicus, released by Cyberflix one year prior, but this time employs a more detailed storyline and environment. In an opening sequence of the game, we see future New York City, which has fallen into horrible disrepair in the aftermath of global warming and rising sea levels and a bankrupt federal government. The premise of the story is that gangsters, neo-nazis, and various other thugs have acquired large stores of weapons from the government, and have ransacked New York's store of cryogenically-frozen DNA of endangered species. The player's job as a bounty hunter is to retrieve them.

Contents

Gameplay

Before taking off in a fancy hovercraft, the player chooses a co-pilot who can navigate or fire weapons. selecting Nikki, Chablis, "Cheesestick" Limbaugh (supposedly descended from Rush, though he is black), Thrash, Lark or Dogstar. Each co-pilot is unique and may not be available for every level.

The game's three difficult and lengthy levels are played in the player's hovercraft flying around the streets of New York. The opponents drive tanks or fly planes and insult the player frequently. The user can choose between one of several bands for theme music in each level. each band has a unique song per level. the bands include: x-static, deathkiller, pink flaand (a reference to Pink Floyd), and smoove da groove.[ original research? ] The name "deathkiller" was coined at a trade show - two Japanese girls watched the demo and described it as "deathkiller". evidently there is no accurate translation from Japanese to English for that type of video game...

Game control is rather complicated as the player can move up, down, left, right, and forward and backward. The player must also control weapons. Fortunately, the copilot can take care of one or more of these functions.

Development

Following the successful launch of its CD-ROM game Lunicus in April 1993, [1] [2] developer CyberFlix began to create Jump Raven with the DreamFactory development environment from the first title. [2] At the time, CD-ROM games tended to run slowly, but DreamFactory was designed to allow an unusually high level of speed for the era. However, CyberFlix considered its projects to be "interactive movies" rather than games, according to Jack Neely of Metro Pulse , [1] and DreamFactory placed an emphasis on storytelling. [2] As with Lunicus, production of Jump Raven began in the basement of a log cabin owned by CyberFlix founder William Appleton. [1] [2] The game's development team was composed of four members: Appleton, creator of DreamFactory, who handled the game's programming; audio lead Scott Scheinbaum; artist Jamie Wicks; and screenwriter Andrew Nelson. The four had originally founded CyberFlix to create Lunicus, and the company was incorporated a month after its release, with the help of manager Erik Quist. Science Fiction and Fantasy Illustrator: Debbie Hughes was hired as a freelancer to create the "puppet characters" for the game. Hughes Illustrated over 14 characters that players interacted with in the game. [1]

CyberFlix demonstrated Jump Raven at the Macworld Expo later in 1993, to public acclaim, and impressed Paramount Interactive employees who were in attendance. As a result, CyberFlix received a "multi-million-dollar deal for it" from Paramount, Neely later wrote. [1] The agreement, which the two companies closed by November 1993, contracted CyberFlix for three games. [2]

Reception

Jump Raven's initial Macintosh release was a commercial success. [2] [8] Discussing the multimedia development scene in 1994, a writer for The New York Times called the game one of "the best-selling and most critically praised [multimedia] titles on the market", alongside Myst . [8] Market research firm PC Data named it the fourth-best-selling Macintosh game of July 1994, [9] and the platform's seventh-highest seller in September. [10] By August, Jump Raven had reached sales of 50,000 units. Around the 28th of that month, another 50,000 units were shipped for Microsoft Windows. Erik Quist of CyberFlix expected the game to sell 100,000 units overall "by Christmas", Barbara Kantrowitz of Newsweek reported at the time. [2] Sales of Jump Raven had reached close to the 100,000 mark by January 3. [11]

Christopher Breen of Computer Gaming World enjoyed Jump Raven's combat and "often very amusing" writing, and noted that "the game is darned fast for a CD-ROM". However, he criticized the "incredibly annoying" copilot voices and "inane dialogue", and considered its interface clumsy. He concluded, "Adequately addressing these issues might have made Jump Raven a great strategy/action adventure rather than just a good arcade game." [12] The game was reviewed in June 1995 in Dragon #218 by Paul Murphy in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Murphy's review was negative, concluding "I don't care how good a game looks or sounds, how cool the animation and special-effects are, how easy it is to load or save: if it isn't any fun to play, it's a failure." [13]

Related Research Articles

<i>Hexen: Beyond Heretic</i> 1995 video game

Hexen: Beyond Heretic is a fantasy first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software and published by id Software distributed through GT Interactive on October 30, 1995. It is the indirect sequel to 1994's Heretic, and the second game in Raven Software's "Serpent Riders" trilogy, which culminated with Hexen II. The title comes from the German noun Hexen, which means "witches", and/or the verb hexen, which means "to cast a spell". Game producer John Romero stated that a third, unreleased game in this series was to be called Hecatomb.

<i>Myst</i> 1993 video game

Myst is an adventure video game designed by Rand and Robyn Miller. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and first released in 1993 for the Macintosh. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the environment by clicking on pre-rendered imagery. Solving puzzles allows the player to travel to other worlds ("Ages"), which reveal the backstory of the game's characters and help the player make the choice of whom to aid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe Shockwave</span> Multimedia platform

Adobe Shockwave is a discontinued multimedia platform for building interactive multimedia applications and video games. Developers originate content using Adobe Director and publish it on the Internet. Such content could be viewed in a web browser on any computer with the Shockwave Player plug-in installed. MacroMind originated the technology; Macromedia acquired MacroMind and developed it further, releasing Shockwave Player in 1995. Adobe then acquired Shockwave with Macromedia in 2005. Shockwave supports raster graphics, basic vector graphics, 3D graphics, audio, and an embedded scripting language called Lingo.

<i>Titanic: Adventure Out of Time</i> Point and click adventure game

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is a 1996 point-and-click adventure game developed by CyberFlix and published in the United States and United Kingdom by GTE Entertainment and Europress respectively, for Windows and Macintosh. It takes place in a virtual representation of the RMS Titanic, following a British spy who has been sent back in time to the night Titanic sank and must complete a previously failed mission to prevent World War I, the Russian Revolution, and World War II from occurring. The gameplay involves exploring the ship and solving puzzles. There are multiple outcomes and endings to the game depending on the player's interactions with characters and use of items.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grolier</span> Publisher of educational and reference books

Grolier was one of the largest American publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge (1910), The New Book of Knowledge (1966), The New Book of Popular Science (1972), Encyclopedia Americana (1945), Academic American Encyclopedia (1980), and numerous incarnations of a CD-ROM encyclopedia (1986–2003).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Pictures</span> Defunct video game developer

Digital Pictures was an American video game developer founded in 1991 by Lode Coen, Mark Klein, Ken Melville, Anne Flaut-Reed, Kevin Welsh and Tom Zito.

<i>ShadowCaster</i> 1993 video game

ShadowCaster is a first-person role-playing video game developed by Raven Software. It was published in 1993 by Origin Systems after Electronic Arts acquired them. A CD-ROM version was released in 1994, featuring two additional levels with new monsters, and replacing text boxes with FMVs and spoken narration through CD-DA audio tracks.

<i>Hover!</i> Video game published by Microsoft

Hover! is a video game that combines elements of the games bumper cars and capture the flag. It was included on CD-ROM versions of the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system. It was a showcase for the advanced multimedia capabilities available on personal computers at the time. It is still available from Microsoft. The game will not run on earlier versions of Windows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CyberFlix</span>

CyberFlix Incorporated was a computer game company founded in 1993 by Bill Appleton. CyberFlix was based in Knoxville, Tennessee. They made many interactive story-telling games in the 1990s, but stopped any and all productions in 1998 before finally going out of business in 2006.

Gus Goes to Cybertown is a children's educational CD-ROM game released in 1993 by Modern Media Ventures. The main character is Gus, a talking and singing dog, who must find the three CyberBuds hiding in each of the town's five locations. Games are also hidden in each location, from spelling and number games to shape recognition and pattern matching games. Cybertown's park includes a timeline that shows Gus through time, from a Neanderthal to a futuristic spaceman. As the time changes, players can click on other items in the park to see them change as well. CyberBuds are revealed by interacting with various parts of each area. These characters will also provide tidbits of educational information. Upon completion of all in-game tasks, the player is treated to a final song on a "secret screen."

<i>Lunicus</i> 1993 video game

Lunicus is a 1993 computer game developed by Cyberflix and published by Paramount Interactive. It shares many traits in both graphical style and gameplay with some of Cyberflix's other games, like Jump Raven. It was rated as 1993 CD-ROM game of the year in the magazine MacWorld.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Multimedia</span>

BBC Multimedia was a division of the BBC which dealt with the publishing of computer-game versions of well-known BBC television programmes.

<i>JumpStart Kindergarten</i> 1994 video game

JumpStart Kindergarten is an educational video game developed by Fanfare Software and released by Knowledge Adventure on the MS-DOS platform in 1994 (v1.0). It was the first product released in the JumpStart series and, as its name suggests, it is intended to teach kindergarten students. According to the Knowledge Adventure founder Bill Gross, it is the first educational software program that covers the entire kindergarten curriculum. It was ported to the Windows and Macintosh systems in 1995 (v1.2). It was updated with a new version on 24 November 1997 (v2.0). It was updated with additional content in a 2-CD Deluxe version in 2000 (v2.6), that included JumpStart Around the World. Eventually it was replaced in 2002 by JumpStart Advanced Kindergarten.

Andrew Nelson is a writer and professor living in New Orleans. He worked as a senior producer of Britannica.com, a creative director for Cyberflix, a visiting professor at Loyola University New Orleans, and a Public Relations and Social Media Account professional at Peter A. Mayer Advertising in New Orleans. Two computer games he developed for CyberFlix – Titanic: Adventure Out of Time (1996) and Dust: A Tale of the Wired West (1995) – were bestselling PC game and Macintosh Games of the Year. In 2007 he was awarded a Lowell Thomas Award for his work with the Society. He is a writer-at-large for Salon, National Geographic Traveler, ReadyMade, The New York Times, Via magazine, Weekend Sherpa and San Francisco Magazine.

William "Bill" Appleton is an American entrepreneur and technologist best known as the programmer of the first rich media authoring tool World Builder, the multimedia programming language SuperCard, a best-selling CD-ROM Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, the DreamFactory REST API platform, and Snapshot Org Management for Salesforce.

Hell Cab is a 1993 adventure video game developed by Digital Fusion and published by Time Warner in 1993 for Macintosh, Windows 3.x.

<i>Chop Suey</i> (video game) 1995 point-and-click video game

Chop Suey is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Magnet Interactive Studios for the Macintosh in 1995. It was developed by Theresa Duncan and Monica Gesue to be a story disc for girls. Art is by Ian Svenonius, music and sound is by Brendan Canty, and narration is by author David Sedaris.

<i>Virtual Murder</i> (video game series) Mystery-adventure video game series

Virtual Murder, renamed as Murder Mystery is a four-part murder mystery adventure video game series developed by Creative Multimedia Corporation. The games were released in 1993 and 1994 for Macintosh and Windows PCs.

Leonardo da Vinci is a 1997 interactive CD-ROM game by Corbis, consisting of a "computerized viewing tool which permits the user to examine English translations of the Codex [Leicester] superimposed onto facsimiles of its pages". The tool, known as Codescope, is licensed by Corbis.

Pyramid: Challenge of the Pharaoh's Dream is a 1996 education adventure game for Windows and Macintosh developed by Knowledge Adventure and published by Edusoft SA, published in Sweden by Knowledge Adventure and Levande Böcker.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Neely, Jack (October 21, 1999). "Game Over". Metro Pulse . Vol. 9, no. 42. pp. 9–12, 22, 23, 40.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kantrowitz, Barbara (August 28, 1994). "Garage-Band Programmers". Newsweek . Archived from the original on September 13, 2017.
  3. ↑ Clarke, Art (May 1994). "JumpRaven". Hyper . No. 6. pp. 58–59. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  4. ↑ Staff (September 1994). "Jump Raven". PC Gamer US . Archived from the original on December 22, 1999. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  5. ↑ Loyola, Roman Victor (June 1994). "Quick Clicks; Jump Raven / Futuristic CD-ROM adventure". MacUser . 10 (6): 77.
  6. ↑ Poole, Stephen (April–May 1994). "Jump Raven". CD-ROM Today (5): 101.
  7. ↑ LeVitus, Bob (May 1994). "Jump Raven". Electronic Entertainment . 1 (5): 86.
  8. 1 2 Gabriel, Trip (1994). "Gurus of Multimedia Gulch". The New York Times . Archived from the original on April 27, 2018.
  9. ↑ Staff (December 1994). "Leaderboard". Electronic Entertainment . 1 (12): 26.
  10. ↑ Staff (February 1995). "NewsNet; Shelf-Burners for February '95". Computer Player. 1 (9): 18.
  11. ↑ "Knoxville Journal; Company's Fall Is Dash of Cold Water but Not a Dashing of Hope". The New York Times . January 3, 1995. Archived from the original on April 19, 2018.
  12. ↑ Breen, Christopher (April 1994). "Puppet Punks And Cyber-Skinheads". Computer Gaming World . No. 117. pp. 50, 52.
  13. ↑ Rolston, Ken; Murphy, Paul; Cook, David (June 1995). "Eye of the Monitor". Dragon (218): 59–64.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.