Software:Shadow Knights

From HandWiki
Short description: 1991 video game

Shadow Knights
Cover art
Developer(s)id Software
Publisher(s)Softdisk
Designer(s)
  • John Carmack
  • John Romero
Programmer(s)
  • John Carmack
  • John Romero
Platform(s)DOS
Release1991
Genre(s)Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Shadow Knights – The Shogun of Death, also known as Budo – The Art of Ninja Combat, is a ninja themed platform game. It was originally published by the software company Softdisk in 1991.[lower-alpha 1] Shadow Knights was developed for MS-DOS running on a PC. The game was developed in-house by four Softdisk employees: John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack and Tom Hall. Soon after these four developers would leave Softdisk to startup the video game company id Software.[1]: 67–74 [2]: 101–104 

Plot

The prospering land of Naipusan falls under siege by warriors from the North led by the evil shogun Sashika. For many years Sashika grew in power and began learning dark magic. Some said that Sashika was possessed by the demon Kuskuro. In the wake of the never-ending reign of terror, a ninja born in the east whose arrival foretold by sages comes to remove Sashika from his seat of power and rule Naipusan fairly.[3]

Gameplay

Shadow Knights is a platform game. The player goes through nine levels, slaying enemies with both sword and magic stars and collecting powerups. The player has limited vitality and magic power to survive. The player can accumulate power by collecting magic orbs. The ninja has healing and weapon powers. Some level areas require the player to defeat a boss monster to progress.

Development

Before video game company id Software was founded by John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack and Tom Hall on February 1st, 1991, its four founders worked as employees at the software company Softdisk. There they worked on a PC game subscription service called Gamer's Edge. In October 1990, the team completed work on the game Software:Slordax: The Unknown Enemy, a vertically scrolling shooter for Gamer's Edge. During that month, programmer John Carmack further extended the smooth scrolling technique with the ability to scroll in horizontal direction. Impressed by this technology, the team made plans to startup their own company and produce their own platform game. However, to ensure a stable income, they kept their day jobs at Softdisk for the time being. During the day they worked for Softdisk on Gamer's Edge, while during the evenings and weekends they worked on their own platform game: Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons.[1]: 29–66 [2]: 75–99 [4]

On November 1st, 1990 they started to work on the next game for Gamer's Edge: Shadow Knights. To reduce context switching, they intentionally picked a platform game as their next game, as both Commander Keen and Shadow Knights would utilize the same game engine and tooling.[2]: 101  While Shadow Knights was in development, Softdisk CEO Al Vekovius noticed the smooth scrolling technology. As he had never seen that kind of technology on PC hardware before, he suggested John Carmack to file a software patent. However, Carmack immediately refused and threatened to resign. The biography Masters of Doom explains Carmack's reaction by referring to his strong support for open-source software.[1]: 67  Tom Hall designed a few of the levels in Shadow Knights.[5] The level maps were designed using a custom-made program called Tile Editor (TEd), which was first created for Dangerous Dave.[6]

Release

Shadow Knights was initially distributed as part of the Gamer's Edge subscription service. In 1992, the game was marketed by Softdisk as part of The Lost Game Collection of ID Software.[7] The game was re-released in 1993 for the retail market under the title Budo – The Art of Ninja Combat by the short-lived publishing company Froggman.[8] In 1996, id Software distributed Shadow Knights as part of their id Anthology collection.[9]

Reception

Gaming website IGN describes the console-style action in Shadow Knights as impressive for an MS-DOS title of that time period. However, IGN concludes that the game does not look as pretty as Commander Keen and is also smaller in size.[10] Kotaku summarizes Shadow Knights as "id does Shinobi".[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ The publication year of 1991 is derived from the in-game copyright notice.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kushner, David (2004). Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-7215-3. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Romero, John (2023). Doom Guy: Life in first person. Abrams Books. ISBN 978-1-4197-5811-9. 
  3. ↑ Softdisk Publishing (1993-03-09). Gamer's Edge Catalog. PC (MS-DOS). Softdisk Publishing. "Find out how to get your hands on other exciting games from GAMER'S EDGE! (in file_id.diz)" 
  4. ↑ John Carmack. "Recollections - 3D Realms". 3D Realms. http://legacy.3drealms.com/keenhistory/keenhistory3.html. Retrieved December 12, 2017. 
  5. ↑ Tom Hall (2008). "Tom's Games". WordPress. https://tomtomtom.wordpress.com/toms-games/. Retrieved December 12, 2017. 
  6. ↑ Lightbown, David (2017-02-23). "Classic Tools Retrospective: John Romero talks about creating TEd, the tile editor that shipped over 30 games". Gamasutra. UBM. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/classic-tools-retrospective-john-romero-talks-about-creating-ted-the-tile-editor-that-shipped-over-30-games. 
  7. ↑ "Gamer's Edge Electronic Catalog - Volume 1". Softdisk. 1992. http://cd.textfiles.com/maxgames/GAMES/CATACOMB/PRINTFIL.TXT. Retrieved December 12, 2017. 
  8. ↑ "Shadow Knights (DOS) screenshot: Froggman release - title". Froggman. MobyGames. 2012-01-26. https://www.mobygames.com/game/1952/shadow-knights/screenshots/dos/540220/. 
  9. ↑ teapot. "The Page of Doom - id Anthology". Doomworld. https://www.doomworld.com/pageofdoom/anthology.html. Retrieved September 16, 2026. 
  10. ↑ Fahs, Travis (June 14, 2012). "The Early Years of id Software". http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/09/23/the-early-years-of-id-software. 
  11. ↑ Plunkett, Luke (October 4, 2011). "RAGE Has Been a Long, Long Time Coming". https://kotaku.com/rage-has-been-a-long-long-time-coming-5846303. 
  • Official website
  • MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".[2] This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.[17]

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.[18]

See also

  • IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/. 
  2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/. 
  3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1. 
  4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
  6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521. 
  8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media. 
  9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned. 
  10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner. 
  11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames. 
  12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games. 
  13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/. 
  14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/. 
  15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/. 
  16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/. 
  17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames. 
  18. ↑ "An update on MobyGames leadership". 2025-02-13. https://www.mobygames.com/forum/3/thread/269628/an-update-on-mobygames-leadership/#post-269628. 
  • No URL found. Please specify a URL here or add one to Wikidata.



Template:Softdisk



Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Software:Shadow_Knights&oldid=4626987"