Karl Roelofs | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | September 11, 1964 |
| Occupation(s) | Creative Director and Producer at Zojoi, LLC |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Employers | |
| Notable work | |
| Style | |
| Website | zojoi |
| Notes | |
Karl Roelofs (born September 11, 1964) 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. [4]
Karl Roelofs began his career in video game development in 1985 when his best friend Dave Marsh enlisted him to help with designing a video game for ICOM Simulations. Karl had wanted to be a writer and saw an opportunity in Dave's offer. He accepted the chance to design and write a fantasy adventure game and began working with Dave to create their first game together which would later be called Shadowgate . Karl was hired at ICOM Simulations in 1987 after the company had already released its first two MacVenture games, Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True , Uninvited , and while working on and finishing Shadowgate. [5]
Karl and Dave were not fully aware of how successful the games they developed were at the time as they were mostly focused on porting the MacVenture games to as many computer systems as possible. [5] Together with Dave, Karl worked on a sequel to Shadowgate called Beyond Shadowgate which was to be the next Shadowgate MacVenture title. [4] The game was four times larger than the original Shadowgate and had been fully designed and scripted, [6] but ICOM Simulations got a contract with NEC to develop for the TurboGrafx-16. ICOM decided to shift their focus from adventure games to side scrolling and top-down action games. This prompted a redesign of Beyond Shadowgate for the TurboGrafx-CD as a hybrid side-scrolling and adventure game. [5]
In 1993, ICOM Simulations was purchased by Viacom, Inc. and renamed to "Viacom New Media". [7] Karl began to work on games based on MTV and Nickelodeon properties, such as Nickelodeon GUTS and Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day . [3] After Viacom shut down Viacom New Media in 1998, Karl Roelofs went on to work for brief stints at Konami of America and Kesmai Studios/Electronic Arts. [8] A highlight of this period was his involvement in an online version of the Settlers of Catan for MSN Zone. [3] [9]
Then he joined a new company with his friend Dave Marsh and another former employee of ICOM Simulations: Eugene Evans. [4] Eugene was the founder and president of a new video game production company called Infinite Ventures, and had obtained the rights to ICOM Simulation's original intellectual properties, including Shadowgate. [10] Together, Karl worked with them to create what was intended to be the "next generation" world of Shadowgate. [11]
On March 7, 2012, Karl Roelofs co-founded Zojoi, LLC with Dave Marsh. [12] They had reacquired the rights to the ICOM Simulations properties which included the rights to Shadowgate, Uninvited, and Déjà Vu I and II and materials such as the master recordings for the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective games. [13]
The first project from Zojoi was a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign to remaster the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective mysteries and release them for iOS and Android tablets as well as Windows and OS X platforms. The campaign had a funding goal of $55,000 and ran for 44 days. However, it only received $17,430 in pledges and did not succeed. [14] [15]
Despite the unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign, Karl and Dave were able to obtain funding through other means for the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective mysteries. [16] [17] The first three mysteries were released on September 18, 2012, over iTunes for the iPad 2 and newer models, [18] and on October 7, 2012, over Desura for Windows and OS X. [19] Karl and Dave took their experience with the campaign for Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and applied what they had learned for their next Kickstarter campaign for Shadowgate. Instrumental to this was that Shadowgate would be re-imagined and that it be in pre-production so that they could clearly communicate their vision through visuals, audio, and art. [6]
On October 26, 2012, the Kickstarter campaign for Shadowgate went live with Karl Roelofs appearing beside Dave Marsh in the campaign pitch video. [20] It had a funding goal of $120,000 and was set to last for 31 days. [21] The campaign was successful and raised $137,232 in pledges by November 25, 2012. With that funding, the new re-imagined Shadowgate moved into production. If the reception to the new revision of Shadowgate is great enough, Karl and Dave have expressed an interest in developing their original vision for the sequel, Beyond Shadowgate, as well as bringing back re-imagined versions of Uninvited and Déjà Vu I and II . [4]
In addition to his video game credits, Karl Roelofs is also the inventor of a published patent for a gaming machine and method. The patent describes a game play mechanism for gaming machines wherein certain icons obtained from the spinning reels could be saved in a separate grid, and then called back in blank areas of the reel in order to complete a winning combination. Karl created this patent while he was working at Video Gaming Technologies. It was applied for on February 1, 2008, and was granted by the US patent office on January 17, 2012. [32]
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard.
Darin Adler is a senior engineering manager for Apple and a frequent speaker at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference and Stump the Experts panelist.
Shadowgate is a black-and-white point-and-click adventure game published 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 up 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.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The four volumes of the Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) compiled by Ronald B. De Waal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products. They include the original writings, "together with the translations of these tales into sixty-three languages, plus Braille and shorthand, the writings about the Writings or higher criticism, writings about Sherlockians and their societies, memorials and memorabilia, games, puzzles and quizzes, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, compact discs, laser discs, ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature."
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:
ICOM Simulations, Inc. was a software company based in Wheeling, Illinois. It is best known for creating the MacVenture series of adventure games including Shadowgate.
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II is the title of 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
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.
Beyond Shadowgate is a TurboGrafx CD sequel to the 1987 Mac and MacVenture game Shadowgate. Unlike its predecessor, Beyond Shadowgate is a classical point-and-click adventure viewed from a platform perspective.
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective may refer to:
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.
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.
Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is an action-adventure mystery video game in the Sherlock Holmes series developed by Frogwares. It is also the first game in the series to be self-published by Frogwares itself. Described as an "origin story", the game follows a young Sherlock Holmes as he investigates a mystery in his family's home on the Mediterranean island of Cordona after his mother's death. It is the first open world title in the series.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)"Released: Sep 18, 2012 / Version: 1.0"
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)Game Design by David Marsh & Karl Roelofs, Produced by David Marsh
DVD Development Team Executive Producer: Eugene Evans, Original ICOM Simulations Development Team Producer: David Marsh, Design: David Marsh & Karl Roelofs