Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Cryo Interactive
Cryo Interactive Entertainment was a French video game development and publishing company founded in 1990, but existing unofficially since 1989 as a developer group under the name Cryo. The company gained recognition for its adventure games, such as the commercially successful titles Dune, Dragon Lore and Atlantis: The Lost Tales, along with the racing series MegaRace.
Cryo was formed by members of ERE Informatique who left Infogrames (proprietor of ERE since 1986) – among these were Philippe Ulrich, Rémi Herbulot and Jean-Martial Lefranc.
The first game developed under the Cryo Interactive moniker was the hit Dune, which granted the newly formed software company both publicity and funding for further games under Virgin until 1996, when Cryo started self-publishing inside the European market, and in North America through then partially owned Canadian publisher DreamCatcher Interactive.
Cryo made its name mostly through adaptations of already existing stories (such as Riverworld, based on Philip José Farmer's novel and Ubik by Philip K. Dick) or those based on historical scenarios (like KGB, a game set days before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and several games based in Ancient Egypt, Qing Dynasty's China and Louis XIV's France, developed with Cryo's Omni3D engine). Although most of the post-Virgin games managed to capture and stay true to the original settings, poor interfaces and the lack of worldwide distribution turned little profit from each game.[citation needed]
By 1997, Cryo had experienced success in the US and France, and wanted to expand into Japan. It had focused its efforts on the US because it was a big market, and experienced difficulties in Japan due to changing distributors between games. They considered creating different sets of characters for the three markets, and setting up a US-based subsidiary.
A Cryo Interactive subsidiary called Cryo Networks, aimed at developing and publishing online applications exclusively, was established in December 1997. Aside from online multiplayer games (Deo Gratias, FireTeam, Treasure Hunt 2001, Mankind and Scotland Yard being some of the titles released under this label), Cryo Networks also maintained a proprietary online multimedia development framework named SCOL (Standard Cryo On Line).
Cryo Studios North America was a video game design studio based in Portland, Oregon, USA, and was a subsidiary of Cryo Interactive. Cryo Studios was founded as Dark Horse Interactive (DHI) in the late 1990s, a joint venture of Cryo Interactive and Dark Horse Comics, and based in Dark Horse's headquarters in Milwaukie, Oregon. In 1999, Cryo Interactive bought out Dark Horse's share of DHI and renamed it Cryo Studios, relocating its offices to the Central Eastside Industrial District of Portland. Cryo Studios existed entirely as Cryo Interactive's American subsidiary, producing games based on licensed properties.[citation needed]
Their first license (as DHI) was based on MTV's animated science fiction series Aeon Flux. However, the license agreement was terminated before development was completed and the game was re-adapted into its own fictional universe as Pax Corpus. Shortly afterwards, DHI was granted the license to develop an interactive game based on Dark Horse's own comic book series, Hellboy, written and drawn by Mike Mignola. The Windows version of Hellboy: Dogs of the Night was completed in 2000 after nearly four years of production; the intended PlayStation version of this game was put on ice. Their next project was to be based on Universal Classic Monsters, which included Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man. However, before any project made it out of pre-production, Cryo Interactive – quickly succumbing to the worldwide recession of 2001 – closed its North American branch. Cryo Interactive filed for bankruptcy a year later. In 2003, Canada-based Dreamcatcher Interactive – a former subsidiary of Cryo Interactive – finished development on and released the PlayStation version now retitled to Hellboy: Asylum Seeker in time for the theatrical release of the Hellboy movie, though the two are unrelated.
Hub AI
Cryo Interactive AI simulator
(@Cryo Interactive_simulator)
Cryo Interactive
Cryo Interactive Entertainment was a French video game development and publishing company founded in 1990, but existing unofficially since 1989 as a developer group under the name Cryo. The company gained recognition for its adventure games, such as the commercially successful titles Dune, Dragon Lore and Atlantis: The Lost Tales, along with the racing series MegaRace.
Cryo was formed by members of ERE Informatique who left Infogrames (proprietor of ERE since 1986) – among these were Philippe Ulrich, Rémi Herbulot and Jean-Martial Lefranc.
The first game developed under the Cryo Interactive moniker was the hit Dune, which granted the newly formed software company both publicity and funding for further games under Virgin until 1996, when Cryo started self-publishing inside the European market, and in North America through then partially owned Canadian publisher DreamCatcher Interactive.
Cryo made its name mostly through adaptations of already existing stories (such as Riverworld, based on Philip José Farmer's novel and Ubik by Philip K. Dick) or those based on historical scenarios (like KGB, a game set days before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and several games based in Ancient Egypt, Qing Dynasty's China and Louis XIV's France, developed with Cryo's Omni3D engine). Although most of the post-Virgin games managed to capture and stay true to the original settings, poor interfaces and the lack of worldwide distribution turned little profit from each game.[citation needed]
By 1997, Cryo had experienced success in the US and France, and wanted to expand into Japan. It had focused its efforts on the US because it was a big market, and experienced difficulties in Japan due to changing distributors between games. They considered creating different sets of characters for the three markets, and setting up a US-based subsidiary.
A Cryo Interactive subsidiary called Cryo Networks, aimed at developing and publishing online applications exclusively, was established in December 1997. Aside from online multiplayer games (Deo Gratias, FireTeam, Treasure Hunt 2001, Mankind and Scotland Yard being some of the titles released under this label), Cryo Networks also maintained a proprietary online multimedia development framework named SCOL (Standard Cryo On Line).
Cryo Studios North America was a video game design studio based in Portland, Oregon, USA, and was a subsidiary of Cryo Interactive. Cryo Studios was founded as Dark Horse Interactive (DHI) in the late 1990s, a joint venture of Cryo Interactive and Dark Horse Comics, and based in Dark Horse's headquarters in Milwaukie, Oregon. In 1999, Cryo Interactive bought out Dark Horse's share of DHI and renamed it Cryo Studios, relocating its offices to the Central Eastside Industrial District of Portland. Cryo Studios existed entirely as Cryo Interactive's American subsidiary, producing games based on licensed properties.[citation needed]
Their first license (as DHI) was based on MTV's animated science fiction series Aeon Flux. However, the license agreement was terminated before development was completed and the game was re-adapted into its own fictional universe as Pax Corpus. Shortly afterwards, DHI was granted the license to develop an interactive game based on Dark Horse's own comic book series, Hellboy, written and drawn by Mike Mignola. The Windows version of Hellboy: Dogs of the Night was completed in 2000 after nearly four years of production; the intended PlayStation version of this game was put on ice. Their next project was to be based on Universal Classic Monsters, which included Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man. However, before any project made it out of pre-production, Cryo Interactive – quickly succumbing to the worldwide recession of 2001 – closed its North American branch. Cryo Interactive filed for bankruptcy a year later. In 2003, Canada-based Dreamcatcher Interactive – a former subsidiary of Cryo Interactive – finished development on and released the PlayStation version now retitled to Hellboy: Asylum Seeker in time for the theatrical release of the Hellboy movie, though the two are unrelated.