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Hello there,
As you might know, there are some attempts going at figuring out the games which were made with the Dynamix Game Development System (DGDS), and I’m currently working on one of them. At the moment, we’re making progress every now and then, but it could take years to figure everything out.
We’ve been trying to contact about everyone we know has been working on Johnny Castaway, but to no avail so far. Some have replied, most have not, and no-one has been able to give us much help.
So my question to you would be: would you be willing to help us with any information / software / source code / tools?
We really need some help figuring this out (and wouldn’t it be nice to revive these oldies a bit?)
Well, thanks a lot in advance,
Jaap
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Jaap:
Johnny Castaway was one of my favorite products at Sierra, and one of our biggest hits. It was a money factory! It’s amazing to me that no one has gone after the business, and were I a younger guy, it would be at the top of my list of projects. I’ve sent my son, who is a developer, probably 20 emails saying, “Go after Johnny Castaway.” It’s a simple concept, and I’ve got cool ideas for how to launch a product that is similar, but free of copyright and trademark issues, and targets today’s world.
Why someone would want to try to bring that product back to life though completely puzzles me. It’s a lose-lose proposition. If you do something cool, that gets noticed, whoever owns the copyright will shut you down, and if you do something rotten, no one will care, but, why would they? My advice would be the same as it was to the Kings Quest project, “It’s a fun idea, but a huge waste of effort. Do something new and original, or get permission.”
As to a direct answer to your question…
I have nothing that could help you, and never did. Dynamix ran pretty independently, and Jeff Tunnell’s group ran independently of Dynamix. I tended to spend more time with projects that were broken than projects that ran well. At Jeff’s group I was more like a fan. Everything they did blew me away, and tended to ship on-time and on-budget. It was easy to say yes to anything they proposed, and I didn’t need to get too involved.
Best wishes,
Ken W
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