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Mountain King Studios (formerly known as Cygnus Studios) is a computer game company located in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded by game programmer/game designer Scott Host. [1] In addition to the development of Raptor: Call of the Shadows , Cygnus also collaborated with Apogee Software on a number of their games. Some members of the company split to form Rogue Entertainment, while the company itself was renamed "Mountain King Studios".
The company started with their former name "Cygnus Studios". After completing their first ever game Galactix, Scott Miller of Apogee Software sent a letter to the leading developer, Scott Host. In response Host contacted him and made an agreement to work with Apogee. After some work on the short-lived RPG The Second Sword, Cygnus Studios and Apogee worked on a vertical-scrolling shooter called "Mercenary 2029" as its working title and then renamed Raptor: Call of the Shadows. [2] Cygnus also helped Apogee with some of their other games under the name "Cygnus Multimedia Productions" including Duke Nukem II , Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold , Hocus Pocus and Realms of Chaos . [3] [4] [5] [6]
id Software was intrigued by the company's progress and convinced them to relocate to Texas by their office and work with them. [7] Paul Radek, who worked on the audio for Raptor, provided id the DMX sound library for their game Doom . By December 1994, members of the company Jim Molinets, Rich Fleider and Tim Neveu went against Scott Host and left Cygnus to form their own company Rogue Entertainment. [8] After this, Cygnus relocated back to their old place in Chicago and renamed themselves "Mountain King Studios". [9]
By 2008, the president of Blitwise Productions, Michael P. Welch met up with Scott Host. Raptor: Call of the Shadows was Welch's favorite game on the PC and he proposed to Host to port it on the iPhone platform. Using the original source code, lead programmer Ben Moreno programmed the game on a Macintosh computer. The port took 1.5 years to make. [10]
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Galactix Original release date: 1991 | Release years by system: 1991 – PC (MS-DOS) 1999 – PC (Windows) |
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Original release date: April 1, 1994 [11] | Release years by system: 1994 – PC (MS-DOS, Linux) 1997 – PC (Windows) 2010 – iOS 2011 – PC (Mac OS) |
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Original release date: December 31, 1997 [12] | Release years by system: 1997 – PC (Windows) |
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Xarlor - Infinite Expanse Original release date: 2000 | Release years by system: 2000 – PC (Windows) |
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Swarm Assault Original release date: 2001 | Release years by system: 2001 – PC (Windows) |
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Hypertron 2 Original release date: 2002 | Release years by system: 2002 – PC (Windows) |
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Juno Nemesis Original release date: 2003 | Release years by system: 2003 – PC (Windows) |
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Treasure Fall Original release date: 2004 | Release years by system: 2004 – PC (Windows) |
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Swarm Rampage Original release date: April 2007 | Release years by system: 2007 – PC (Windows) |
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Before Raptor: Call of the Shadows was in development, Cygnus Studios had worked on a game titled The Second Sword for Apogee Software, which was to be a Role playing game and use the Shadowcaster engine, but the project was cancelled. [2] Strife was briefly under development and was to be published by id Software; after a few months and during a dispute between some developers and Scott Host, it was cancelled. [9] It was later finished by Rogue Entertainment and published by Velocity in 1996. [13] After renaming themselves "Mountain King Studios", the company tried to develop a 3D RPG titled Mantra, but this was also cancelled in favor of the Demonstar game. [9]
Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game Castle Wolfenstein, and is the third installment in the Wolfenstein series. In Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of Allied spy William "B.J." Blazkowicz during World War II as he escapes from the Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game's levels to find an elevator to the next level or kill a final boss, fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with a knife and a variety of guns.
Ritual Entertainment was an American video game developer established in 1996 by Robert Atkins, Mark Dochtermann, Jim Dosé, Richard 'Levelord' Gray, Michael Hadwin, Harry Miller, and Tom Mustaine. Based in Dallas, Texas, Ritual Entertainment was formerly known as Hipnotic Interactive, during which period they began development of their signature video game SiN.
Strife is a first-person shooter role-playing video game developed by Rogue Entertainment. It was released in May 1996 in North America by Velocity Inc. and in Europe by Studio 3DO. The shareware version was released on February 23, 1996, while the full version was released on May 3. It was the last commercially released standalone PC game to utilize the id Tech 1 engine from id Software. The plot takes place in a world taken over by a religious organization known as "The Order"; the protagonist, an unnamed mercenary, becomes a member of the resistance movement which aims to topple the Order's oppressive rule.
Duke Nukem Forever is a 2011 first-person shooter game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It is the fourth main installment in the Duke Nukem series and the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D (1996). Players control Duke Nukem as he comes out of retirement to battle an alien invasion. Like its predecessor, Duke Nukem Forever features pop culture references, toilet humor, and adult content.
Apogee Entertainment, formerly Apogee Software, LLC, is an American video game publisher based in Rowlett, Texas. The company was founded by Terry Nagy in 2008 after he licensed the rights to the name and logo from Scott Miller and his company, 3D Realms, which had used both previously. After reorganizing as Apogee Entertainment in 2021, it hired Miller for its publishing operations.
3D Realms Entertainment ApS is a video game publisher based in Aalborg, Denmark. Scott Miller founded the company in his parents' home in Garland, Texas, in 1987 as Apogee Software Productions to release his game Kingdom of Kroz. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company popularized a distribution model where each game consists of three episodes, with the first given away free as shareware and the other two available for purchase. Duke Nukem was a major franchise created by Apogee to use this model, and Apogee published Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D the same way.
Tom Hall is an American game designer best known for his work with id Software on titles such as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen. He has also been the co-founder of Ion Storm, together with his friend and colleague John Romero. During his years in the company, Hall designed and produced Anachronox and was also actively involved in the development of Deus Ex.
Duke Nukem is a 1991 platform game developed and published by Apogee Software for MS-DOS. The 2D, multidirectional scrolling game follows the adventures of fictional character Duke Nukem across three episodes of ten levels each. The game's first episode was distributed as shareware. The name was briefly changed to Duke Nukum to avoid trademark issues.
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project is a platform game developed by Sunstorm Interactive, produced by 3D Realms, and published by Arush Entertainment. It was released on Microsoft Windows on May 14, 2002, in North America and on June 14, 2002, in Europe. A port of the game would be released for the Xbox 360 on June 23, 2010, by 3D Realms directly, followed by an iOS port on January 9, 2014.
Raptor: Call of the Shadows is a vertically scrolling shooter developed by Cygnus Studios and published by Apogee Software. Its working title was "Mercenary 2029". It was released on April 1, 1994 for MS-DOS compatible systems. The first episode of the game, "Bravo Sector", was distributed as shareware. The other two episodes were sold commercially.
Balls of Steel is a pinball computer game developed by Wildfire Studios and released on December 12, 1997. It is the only game to be published under the Pinball Wizards label, a division of Apogee Software.
Scott Miller is an American video game designer, programmer, and entrepreneur best known for founding Apogee Software, Ltd. in 1987. Starting with the Kroz series for MS-DOS from that year, Miller pioneered the concept of giving away the first game in a trilogy—distributed freely as shareware—with the opportunity to purchase the remaining two episodes. This method became the standard distribution method for Apogee. Competitors such as Epic MegaGames later adopted the same business model.
Stargunner is a horizontally scrolling shooter video game published by Apogee Software in 1996 for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Stargunner was released as freeware on June 22, 2005.
DemonStar is a video game developed by Mountain King Studios and published in 1998. Considered an unofficial sequel to the studio's earlier Raptor: Call of the Shadows, it is a top-down vertically scrolling shooter set in outer space.
Duke Nukem is a media franchise named for its main character, Duke Nukem. Created by the company Apogee Software Ltd. as a series of video games for personal computers, the series expanded to games released for various consoles by third-party developers. The first two games in the main series were 2D platformers, while the later games have been a mix of first-person and third-person shooters.
Duke Nukem is a fictional character and protagonist of the Duke Nukem video game series. The character first appeared in the 1991 video game Duke Nukem, developed by Apogee Software. He has since appeared in multiple sequels and spin-offs, as well appearing in various games not in the series. Most recently, he starred in Duke Nukem Forever, released by Gearbox Software, which now owns the intellectual property rights to the series and the character.
Lee Jackson is an American composer. He was the music and sound director for the video game developer 3D Realms from 1994 through 2002.
The video game Duke Nukem Forever spent more than 14 years in development, from 1997 to 2011. It is a first-person shooter for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, developed by 3D Realms, Triptych Games, Gearbox Software and Piranha Games. It is the sequel to the 1996 game Duke Nukem 3D, as part of the long-running Duke Nukem video game series. Intended to be groundbreaking, it became an infamous example of vaporware due to its severely protracted development schedule. Director George Broussard, one of the creators of the original Duke Nukem game, announced the development in 1997, and promotional information for the game was released from 1997 until its release in 2011.