User talk:Aerogami

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February 2017

Please do not engage in disruptive editing, as you did at the Sun Valley, Los Angeles article, to which you added incorrect and unsourced claims. Quis separabit? 14:02, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

it wasn't disruptive, get lost.

American Laser Games

This really has nothing to do with Wikipedia editing, but I just have to ask... I saw your edits at American Laser Games; did you really work for the company? If so, do you know anything about Shining Sword? Mainly I'm wondering how far along the game was when it was cancelled, whether or not there is any chance an alpha or beta version still exists somewhere out there, and if there was any concern over a potential lawsuit from Sega (due to their Shining series).--Martin IIIa (talk) 16:47, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

  Hey Martin

Yes I worked for ALG - in fact I was the first artist ever hired at the company, in 1993. I worked on Shining Sword for about a year. We had switched from 3DO titles to developing for the not yet released Sony playstation. We had some of the first devkits in the US at the time. There was a really long drawn out story that was full of every dungeons and dragon style cliche you can imagine. We had concept art for most of the main characters and first pass 3d models of all of them. We were using stretchy meshes with internal bones, which was kind of ahead of its time a little bit. Some of the staff worked in 3D studio for DOS, some worked on Lightwave, and some actually worked on Silicon Graphics workstations. I had built several environments including an Aztec style Temple level. Unfortunately, the owner's wife had gotten heavily involved in the company and convinced him and other investors to switch over to making games for girls, so games like shining sword were on the chopping block. To be honest, I think the game was never really a game, it was a bunch of ideas kind of stuck together and it suffered through a lot of rehashings. It was extremely derivative of other games, and wholly unoriginal, but I don't think there were any copyright worries. Getting a working game engine and tools for the playstation was a daunting task in itself, not to mention trying to make a successful title. In my opinion, Shining sword was more style than substance, and really never developed much style either. Somebody may have saved the original code, but one would need an SDK for the original playstation - it would be a complete waste of time to try to get it running. When the company was restructured into "Her Interactive", I and some others were laid off. I moved on to California to Novalogic, making Comanche 4 and a few other military games before switching over the Neversoft as Lead Artist and eventually Environment Art Director, where I helped create the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, Gun, and Guitar Hero III before leaving the biz.

Thanks so much the info! I've been curious about Shining Sword since I found the preview for it in Electronic Gaming Monthly. My initial assumption was that "Shining Sword" must have been a working title for Shining Wisdom or Shining the Holy Ark, and was pretty shocked when I saw that it was an American Laser Games project. First artist, in 1993 - so I take it this was when ALG was starting to branch out from the live action light gun games?--Martin IIIa (talk) 11:30, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

That's right, at the time we were working on Arcade games that used a sturdier version of the 3DO system - since it could play video from cd. The last Laser disc game we made was Fast Draw Showdown, then it was all 3do until the girl games. The first project I was engaged in was a 3Do based, 360 degree panning arcade anti-aircraft gun game we were calling Ack-Ack, it was eventually shelved - even though it was a really cool concept. The Arcade business was in trouble at this time and Arcades were closing down all over the country. Our games Mazer and Orbatak were made for the arcades using the 3do and standard game cabinets, and were tested in multiple arcades in Albuquerque - ultimately Orbatak was shelved and Mazer was sold as a 3Do game.We ported all of the laser disc games over to any platform we could think of and then when 3do faltered, we jumped on to the Playstation. We also got into an agreement with QQP to help them finish the artwork on some of their PC strategy games - horrible little tiny sprite graphics. The girl game concept doomed the company to closure.