Thus, in theory, the developers could take the half-finished build and approach the publisher for a new license. over about 20 minutes we came up with a plan as to how we were going to do it."Ĭlarke and his colleague examined the terms of Sega's soon-to-be-nullified contract with Blitz, determining that in light of Blitz's liquidation all rights would revert to Sega. We didn't have the contract, we didn't have the place to work, we didn't have PCs to develop on. "The smart thing to do would have been to take the, cry in a bar for a few days, find another job, and let Typing of the Dead rest in peace, never to see the light of day again. "He looked at me and distinctly said, 'not a chance.' Normally that would have been the end of it, but we carried on talking," says Clarke. ![]() I really believed in them, that they could - they just needed some time to make the game."Ĭlarke went back upstairs and cornered a colleague in charge of business affairs, prodding him as to whether it was possible for his team to keep developing the game in the face of Blitz's closure. And I knew what was going to hit them and it was an awful moment. "I went downstairs and I could see the team heatedly discussing how the frontend would work. Clarke, a manager at the studio, was one of the first to hear the news. Word came down on the morning of September 12th. "Unfortunately," says Clarke, "Blitz did get to the point where it was going into liquidation." For this reason, Sega and Blitz struck up talks about the possibility of taking the engine and House of the Dead: Overkill's assets to work into a new Typing of the Dead - a modification just as the original had been. 175 employees strong, the Leamington Spa, UK-based studio was best known for developing licensed games for several major franchises.Īdditionally, among its staff were several who had developed the engine for House of the Dead: Overkill, the 2009 prequel game released onto Wii and other platforms. Not with a bang, but with a whimperLife (or un-life) for Typing of the Dead: Overkill began at Blitz Games Studios, a company founded in 1990 by twin brothers Andrew and Philip Oliver. Even under normal circumstances, this would be a staggering task - add in the death of a studio, a nullified contract, no hardware and no money, and things start to seem very apocalyptic indeed. A project conceived in June of this year, Clarke and his small team of originally eight developers had just four months to make, test and ship the game. ![]() It's a story that befits Typing of the Dead's dark horse nature. "And no one who has been buying this game knows just how hard it was to get it released." "It's a credit to the original and how much of a following it still has, that in this day and age when a game can fall from view so quickly, this is exploding," says Ollie Clarke, founder of Modern Dream and project lead on Typing of the Dead: Overkill. In an era where games are often announced years in advance and there is seemingly no shortage of nostalgia for old titles, no one seemed to have any idea where this had come from. Instead, news of the release spread organically and like wildfire across social media and message boards. Three days ago, Steam users were surprised to discover a curious entry in among Valve's annual Halloween sale: Typing of the Dead: Overkill, a remake of Sega's cult classic combination zombie shooter and typing tutorial.ĭeveloped by small UK studio Modern Dream, this followup to the 1999 arcade and Dreamcast original shuffled onto Steam under Sega's publishing label with zero fanfare or advertising.
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