Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2015 15:02:11 GMT
My article for Dorke & Ymp is finally completed to 100%.
I translated it from german into english and the english version will be an exclusive gift to this forum. Enjoy!
Finally there is some new stuff for the most popular Nintendo console of all time: With Dorke & Ymp, a new game has been released and it was long-awaited by the Nintendo fanbase. Here is my article for this game!
Facts
Developer/Publisher: Norse/Piko Interactive
Platform: Super Nintendo
Release: August 6, 2015
Genre: Platformer Adventure
Players: 1
Development
Norse is the development team behind Dorke & Ymp, which resided in the early 1990´s in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1994, they began to work on Dorke & Ymp. Norse had no rights to publish the game, so they were looking for a publisher. Unfortunately it was impossible for the team to find a suitable publisher and the project was cancelled. Eleazar Galindo, founder of Piko Interactive, contacted lead programmer Peter Waher around 2013/2014 to make an agreement to get the source code. Unfortunately, Waher´s backup was damaged so he sent an older backup from one of his colleagues to Piko. The game was to 50% completed in that form. After carefully analyzing the source code, they realized that a lot of tools and parts were missing and they knew that it would be a lot of work to complete this project. The source code had 3 different compiled binaries that were playable on any SNES emulator. Eleazar Galindo had the idea to combine these three files into one and to implement the other elements in addition. After many hours of hard work, they could proudly say that the game was completed to 80-85%. The Piko team was able to find additional assets of the game that were not included on the roms inside the source code files. A new world was been added (a volcano world), over 100 bugs were fixed (including crashing bugs), a password system was added and four bosses designed by Piko were brought into the game. Plus, cut scenes and an ending sequence found their ways into the package. Sounds and music were composed by Daniel Adler and the boss sprites were created by Nio. Josiah Baldwin was responsible for additional game hacking. On april 29 2014, designer and creator ´Satrio´ Jim Studt has passed away at the age of 42. Jim´s work were character design and the graphics. He also wrote the story for the game. Eleazar Galindo, who was the director of this project, was very sad that Studt couldn´t see the completion of his game and Piko´s hard work was dedicated to him. In his last message to Galindo, he said that he was going to change the name of the game from Dorque and Ymp into Dorke and Ymp. Galindo respected his last wish. Finally, on august 6 2015 and dead on time, Dorke & Ymp arrived together with some other titles at the online store of Piko Interactive. All parts are brand new and a full color manual and box were also included. The game is available in PAL and NTSC regions now. So, Dorke and Ymp did see the light of day in the world of video games and were ready to set out on their adventure.
The original from Piko Interactive
Story & Gameplay
In the mountains of old Sweden, there lived a powerful sorcerer. Under his tutelage was a goblin named Dorke.
Dorke eventually grew weary of the menial tasks assigned to him. He longed to aquire the hidden knowledge of his master. After growing jealous of the adorable rabbits, Dorke apporached his superior to learn the trade.
The sorcerer, tiring of his goblin apprentice, sends him off to do some dangerous tasks. Ymp, a creature summoned by the sorcerer, will protect and guide his goblin friend.
At first, we find the password option on the starting screen. To get a new password, a world must be completed. Furthermore, the controls can be changed and the music can be turned on/off.
In-game, the player can switch between his inventory with L+R (door keys, chest keys and bombs can be collected). Coins can also be collected to buy additional things in the shop. The player starts with 50 lives and can be hurt a lot of times before dying. Dorke walks with the D-pad, with button X Ymp will spit on the enemys, B is for jumping and with the Y button Dorke can run (and jump farther). Ymp can grab his buddy with button A to overcome even bigger obstacles - But they are constantly losing height. Ymp can grab Dorke in mid-air so they can float around. Plus, they can slowly rise up if you find the right rhythm. The start button is reserved to make a pause. If the player gets stuck in a level, an instant death can be obtained with Start + Select - It costs a life of course. You can find many more informations about the controls if you take a look into the very well designed instruction manual. You can also change the controls at the starting screen.
A lot of gold can be collected in the four different worlds (Woods, Mines, Volcano and Palace) and if you find some nice food like cup cakes, enjoy them because they refill your health.
The graphics are great. I like the shop and the light on the wall there. If you look around, you will notice many nice little details. Foregrounds and backgrounds look fantastic and especially the smoke in the volcano world looks pretty nice. It´s like a form of cel shading that was used for it. In the Palace world, the background is animated which is slowing down the framerate, but it doesn´t affect the game. However, many graphical bugs occured. For example: If Dorke is falling into a pit, he loses a life but still tries to get up while holding himself to an invisible/not existing object. But an important, positive point is that the game never crashed. This game is very difficult at times and very frustrating as well, but staying focused is worthwhile just for the cutscenes, because they are amazing. The story written by Satrio is totally funny and Dorke is a pretty cool anti-hero. The player will begin to like him very soon. Sadly, it feels like the worlds never end. Level after level is to come until you finally get a password. Maybe it would have been a good idea to use the password system a little bit more, but that´s a personal point of view. If you ask yourself ´Why 50 lives?´, you will get your answer very soon, because the level difficulties vary from easy to very hard and all the lives come in handy then. After losing a life, you have to restart the level from the beginning (there are no checkpoints) but if you have a good cartographic memory, it should be no problem at all. A very good feature is Dorke´s ability to hold himself on cliffs to get up again. This helpful ability comes in handy a lot of times and brings new variety into the game. The controls are very reliable in general. It´s a pity that Ymp cannot spit those giant flames which are shown on the cover artwork. The music from Daniel Adler bases on 80´s beats, which are supported by a keyboard with nordic melodies. The result sounds damn good! There is so much more to say, but you can take a look at the manual for this.
Gordman´s Opinion
At first, I would like to mention the packaging. The game cart looks very similar to the original SNES cart shells and fits perfectly into the console. The paper of the manual is a bit thin maybe, but feels very good. The box looks like a typical SNES cardstock box (but glossy) and is as well designed as the instruction manual. Very good quality!
On the last page of the manual, you can read some interesting infos from the year 1994 where Jim Studt and Peter Waher gave some interviews for magazines. Anybody who knows me, knows that I write my articles very carefully and I respect the work of the teams all the time, which put so much effort into the development of their video games. Today´s world of internet had the negative effect that people began to be dull during the last years and the expectations are high to barely dischargeable. Comments like: ´Wow, that is some ugly cover art!´ to ´What a dumb game, the character can´t even jump far enough to get over the pit!´ are not rare. I say: Use your loaf - If those people would meet the developers in reality, they would propably descend to the ground. The cuttings on that last page of the manual show it all again. It´s important for me to maintain the respect - Especially because of the fact that I see every game individually without comparing them with other games. This is essential if you want to build up your own opinion.
I like Dorke & Ymp a lot. I got into the game from the first moment, thankfully to the combination of graphics and music. Yes, some puzzles were so difficult that I got a bit frustrated, but the high price I paid for this game was worthwhile. The levels offer a lot of variety and the funny animations and cutscenes let me smile very often. Not me alone, but my friends too. The bosses are not that difficult, but that´s okay. After all those hard levels, it feels great to have fair and varying boss fights. So I have the same opinion like Eli Galindo, who told me that it was planned that way. Aside from that, we began to talk about a possible sequel - Yes it´s possible! Why not? I am sure that Peter Waher would be on board again. And about the ending: It´s totally crazy! And despite the criticism I mentioned at some points, I don´t want to do an injustice to the game. The whole package is nothing to sneeze at and if all northern games would have been as good as this game is, then I can just say that some scandinavian influences would have been left a positive effect to the Super Nintendo. I will play Dorke & Ymp again for sure!
Availability
Dorke & Ymp is available at Piko Interactive´s online shop, as long as it is in stock.
Links
Piko´s Shop: www.pikointeractive.com/store
More about the origins of Dorke & Ymp: www.unseen64.net/2008/04/14/dorque-imp-snes-unreleased
German version: www.gordmansgametreasure.com/report-dorke--ymp
I translated it from german into english and the english version will be an exclusive gift to this forum. Enjoy!
Finally there is some new stuff for the most popular Nintendo console of all time: With Dorke & Ymp, a new game has been released and it was long-awaited by the Nintendo fanbase. Here is my article for this game!
Facts
Developer/Publisher: Norse/Piko Interactive
Platform: Super Nintendo
Release: August 6, 2015
Genre: Platformer Adventure
Players: 1
Development
Norse is the development team behind Dorke & Ymp, which resided in the early 1990´s in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1994, they began to work on Dorke & Ymp. Norse had no rights to publish the game, so they were looking for a publisher. Unfortunately it was impossible for the team to find a suitable publisher and the project was cancelled. Eleazar Galindo, founder of Piko Interactive, contacted lead programmer Peter Waher around 2013/2014 to make an agreement to get the source code. Unfortunately, Waher´s backup was damaged so he sent an older backup from one of his colleagues to Piko. The game was to 50% completed in that form. After carefully analyzing the source code, they realized that a lot of tools and parts were missing and they knew that it would be a lot of work to complete this project. The source code had 3 different compiled binaries that were playable on any SNES emulator. Eleazar Galindo had the idea to combine these three files into one and to implement the other elements in addition. After many hours of hard work, they could proudly say that the game was completed to 80-85%. The Piko team was able to find additional assets of the game that were not included on the roms inside the source code files. A new world was been added (a volcano world), over 100 bugs were fixed (including crashing bugs), a password system was added and four bosses designed by Piko were brought into the game. Plus, cut scenes and an ending sequence found their ways into the package. Sounds and music were composed by Daniel Adler and the boss sprites were created by Nio. Josiah Baldwin was responsible for additional game hacking. On april 29 2014, designer and creator ´Satrio´ Jim Studt has passed away at the age of 42. Jim´s work were character design and the graphics. He also wrote the story for the game. Eleazar Galindo, who was the director of this project, was very sad that Studt couldn´t see the completion of his game and Piko´s hard work was dedicated to him. In his last message to Galindo, he said that he was going to change the name of the game from Dorque and Ymp into Dorke and Ymp. Galindo respected his last wish. Finally, on august 6 2015 and dead on time, Dorke & Ymp arrived together with some other titles at the online store of Piko Interactive. All parts are brand new and a full color manual and box were also included. The game is available in PAL and NTSC regions now. So, Dorke and Ymp did see the light of day in the world of video games and were ready to set out on their adventure.
The original from Piko Interactive
Story & Gameplay
In the mountains of old Sweden, there lived a powerful sorcerer. Under his tutelage was a goblin named Dorke.
Dorke eventually grew weary of the menial tasks assigned to him. He longed to aquire the hidden knowledge of his master. After growing jealous of the adorable rabbits, Dorke apporached his superior to learn the trade.
The sorcerer, tiring of his goblin apprentice, sends him off to do some dangerous tasks. Ymp, a creature summoned by the sorcerer, will protect and guide his goblin friend.
At first, we find the password option on the starting screen. To get a new password, a world must be completed. Furthermore, the controls can be changed and the music can be turned on/off.
In-game, the player can switch between his inventory with L+R (door keys, chest keys and bombs can be collected). Coins can also be collected to buy additional things in the shop. The player starts with 50 lives and can be hurt a lot of times before dying. Dorke walks with the D-pad, with button X Ymp will spit on the enemys, B is for jumping and with the Y button Dorke can run (and jump farther). Ymp can grab his buddy with button A to overcome even bigger obstacles - But they are constantly losing height. Ymp can grab Dorke in mid-air so they can float around. Plus, they can slowly rise up if you find the right rhythm. The start button is reserved to make a pause. If the player gets stuck in a level, an instant death can be obtained with Start + Select - It costs a life of course. You can find many more informations about the controls if you take a look into the very well designed instruction manual. You can also change the controls at the starting screen.
A lot of gold can be collected in the four different worlds (Woods, Mines, Volcano and Palace) and if you find some nice food like cup cakes, enjoy them because they refill your health.
The graphics are great. I like the shop and the light on the wall there. If you look around, you will notice many nice little details. Foregrounds and backgrounds look fantastic and especially the smoke in the volcano world looks pretty nice. It´s like a form of cel shading that was used for it. In the Palace world, the background is animated which is slowing down the framerate, but it doesn´t affect the game. However, many graphical bugs occured. For example: If Dorke is falling into a pit, he loses a life but still tries to get up while holding himself to an invisible/not existing object. But an important, positive point is that the game never crashed. This game is very difficult at times and very frustrating as well, but staying focused is worthwhile just for the cutscenes, because they are amazing. The story written by Satrio is totally funny and Dorke is a pretty cool anti-hero. The player will begin to like him very soon. Sadly, it feels like the worlds never end. Level after level is to come until you finally get a password. Maybe it would have been a good idea to use the password system a little bit more, but that´s a personal point of view. If you ask yourself ´Why 50 lives?´, you will get your answer very soon, because the level difficulties vary from easy to very hard and all the lives come in handy then. After losing a life, you have to restart the level from the beginning (there are no checkpoints) but if you have a good cartographic memory, it should be no problem at all. A very good feature is Dorke´s ability to hold himself on cliffs to get up again. This helpful ability comes in handy a lot of times and brings new variety into the game. The controls are very reliable in general. It´s a pity that Ymp cannot spit those giant flames which are shown on the cover artwork. The music from Daniel Adler bases on 80´s beats, which are supported by a keyboard with nordic melodies. The result sounds damn good! There is so much more to say, but you can take a look at the manual for this.
Gordman´s Opinion
At first, I would like to mention the packaging. The game cart looks very similar to the original SNES cart shells and fits perfectly into the console. The paper of the manual is a bit thin maybe, but feels very good. The box looks like a typical SNES cardstock box (but glossy) and is as well designed as the instruction manual. Very good quality!
On the last page of the manual, you can read some interesting infos from the year 1994 where Jim Studt and Peter Waher gave some interviews for magazines. Anybody who knows me, knows that I write my articles very carefully and I respect the work of the teams all the time, which put so much effort into the development of their video games. Today´s world of internet had the negative effect that people began to be dull during the last years and the expectations are high to barely dischargeable. Comments like: ´Wow, that is some ugly cover art!´ to ´What a dumb game, the character can´t even jump far enough to get over the pit!´ are not rare. I say: Use your loaf - If those people would meet the developers in reality, they would propably descend to the ground. The cuttings on that last page of the manual show it all again. It´s important for me to maintain the respect - Especially because of the fact that I see every game individually without comparing them with other games. This is essential if you want to build up your own opinion.
I like Dorke & Ymp a lot. I got into the game from the first moment, thankfully to the combination of graphics and music. Yes, some puzzles were so difficult that I got a bit frustrated, but the high price I paid for this game was worthwhile. The levels offer a lot of variety and the funny animations and cutscenes let me smile very often. Not me alone, but my friends too. The bosses are not that difficult, but that´s okay. After all those hard levels, it feels great to have fair and varying boss fights. So I have the same opinion like Eli Galindo, who told me that it was planned that way. Aside from that, we began to talk about a possible sequel - Yes it´s possible! Why not? I am sure that Peter Waher would be on board again. And about the ending: It´s totally crazy! And despite the criticism I mentioned at some points, I don´t want to do an injustice to the game. The whole package is nothing to sneeze at and if all northern games would have been as good as this game is, then I can just say that some scandinavian influences would have been left a positive effect to the Super Nintendo. I will play Dorke & Ymp again for sure!
Availability
Dorke & Ymp is available at Piko Interactive´s online shop, as long as it is in stock.
Links
Piko´s Shop: www.pikointeractive.com/store
More about the origins of Dorke & Ymp: www.unseen64.net/2008/04/14/dorque-imp-snes-unreleased
German version: www.gordmansgametreasure.com/report-dorke--ymp
~ In loving memory of ´Satrio´ Jim Studt ~
Special thanks to Eli Galindo for his valuable help to release this article.
Special thanks to Eli Galindo for his valuable help to release this article.
