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Prerelease:MIDI Maze
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This page details pre-release information and/or media for MIDI Maze.
MIDI Maze was shown at various computer shows for roughly a year before release, gaining several fans before its public launch.[1]
Development Timeline
1986
- February 5 - The date on the executable for the non-interactive Maze prototype demo.
- July 31 - The date on the "RRMP V1.00" text hidden in the final game's executable.
- September 20-21 - The Northern California Atari Expo is held in San Jose, with Xanth reportedly showing "an ST-based version of MazeWars" that could "tie up to 15 STs together via the MIDI ports".[2] The game apparently bore the Kill a Happy Face placeholder title.[3]
- October 11-12[4] - The game is reportedly shown at the Portland Atari Expo, using 13 machines.[5]
- November 10-14 - The COMDEX event in Las Vegas at this time reportedly shows the game under said placeholder title.[6] Xanth reportedly joined six STs via MIDI at 5PM on Thursday the 13th. Tom Hudson, whose praise for the game is quoted on the back of the box for the final release, reportedly wins once.[7]
1987
- January - Xanth's James Yee mentions the game in his writeup about the Shiny Bubbles demo, referring to it by both the aforementioned Kill a Happy Face title and the more generic Maze. He also says the team is considering support for actual modems and even stereoscopic 3D.[5]
- January 8[8]-13[9] - The game is reportedly shown at this year's Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.[1][6]
- February - Hybrid Arts has the rights to the game by this point, and the final title is known by now, too.[10]
- March 14-15[11] - The game is reportedly shown at Eastern Pennsylvania Atari Expo under its final title.[10] The player count here is 14.[12] The top player wins the prize of "a Casio CZ-230S and two pieces of MIDI software from Hybrid Arts."[13]
- April 26-27 - The game is reportedly shown at Great Lakes Atari Expo in Buffalo, New York. There were reportedly "lines of people [...] waiting to play" the game.[14]
- May - The game is reportedly shown at Hybrid Arts' booth at Dallas Atarifest. Eight STs were linked up for this appearance of the game.[15]
- August - The game reportedly appears at the Toronto Dealers' Show.[16]
- October - The game gets a preview in this month's issue of ST Magazine.[17]
- By the end of this year, MIDI Maze is released for the Atari ST.
Working Titles
Before 1987, the game didn't have a definitive title, and went by two working titles: Maze, like the non-interactive demo, and Kill a Happy Face.[5] The latter was apparently displayed in early versions of the game, with the phrase "Put on a Happy Face" at the edge of the screen, but with "Put on" being crossed out and "Kill" written right above it.[6] This same presentation of the phrase was still used as a slogan for the game, even making it to the final release's cover art.
Screenshots
| STart Vol. 3 No. 2 - Special Issue #4 | Final |
|---|---|
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This gameplay shot from Special Issue #4 of STart looks pretty final, but a closer examination shows some differences. The Smiloid lacks an outline, which doesn't happen until they're much further away from the view in the final, and a drop shadow. No crosshair here either.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 STart Vol. 3 No. 2 - Special Issue #4 - ST Games & Entertainment - "My first encounter with MIDI Maze (in an early beta version) was at the Winter 1987 Consumer Electronics Show. Over a dozen STs were hooked together at the Atari display, and a floating MIDI Maze game ran continously throughout the days of the show. In the months to come, Hybrid Arts showed more polished versions at Atari fests around the country, and a "core" of professional "MIDI Mazers" emerged from the woodwork."
- ↑ Compute Atari ST Issue 03, pg. 8
- ↑ Report on Northern California Atari Expo
- ↑ Portland Atari Club 1986 10, pg. 4
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 ST-Log Issue 10, pg. 13 - "What's next from Xanth FIX? Well, it's getting harder to top our previous efforts, but our little multi-play er, multi-computer maze game seems to be next on the list.
We ran it at the Portland Atari Show on thirteen machines (we ran out of MIDI cables). It was a blast! "Maze" (or "Kill a happy face") is still officially untitled. The object is simple: you're stuck in a 3-D maze with up to fifteen other "smiley faces," and the first person to bust ten faces wins the game.
One of the features we've considered for the Maze game is making it function with the Tektronix stereo glasses, for real on-screen 3-D. We might even break convention and actually make it a commercial program, by having it use a modem instead of-or in addition to-the MIDI port." -James D. Yee - ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Re: What was everyone’s first multiplayer experience/memory?
"There was another online game I played at about the same time, called (I Think) “Kill on a Happy Face”. It had the phrase, “put on a happy face“ on the edge of the screen, but the word put was crossed out and kill written in on top of it. It was being demo’ed at either Comdex or CES in Vegas on the Atari ST. A handful of players controlled a 3D smiley face in a first person shooter.
I was already at Westwood Studios (Westwood Associates at the time) by then and we were doing stuff in the Atari ST but I never heard of the game after that trade show. It was by far the most popular booth. This was only a few years before Castle Wolfenstein and eventually Doom." -joseph4th - ↑ COMDEX SHOW REPORT by Neil Harris
- ↑ CES Summary
- ↑ ANTIC CES Wrap-up, Part 2 (last posting)
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Allentown Bethlehem Easton's Atari Computer Enthusiasts Special Expo Newsletter, pg. 1 - "Hybrid Arts has obtained the rights to this Xanth-created masterpiece which they will bring to the show. Details are still being worked out, but we expect to have ten (10) ST computer systems all playing the same MIDIMAZE game. More systems could be connected, but we are running out of space. Bring a friend for a "friendly" game."
- ↑ Atari EXPO - "The Eastern Pennsylvania ATARI EXPO will be held in Allentown, Pa., on Saturday, March 14th (10am to 6pm) and Sunday March 15th (11am to 5pm)."
- ↑ GOTCHA’ GAME IS HIT WITH COMPUTER BUFFS – The Morning Call - "The game is called Midimaze, and yesterday its developers explained why they think it is the state of the art.
The VonFrisches, you see, weren’t just playing your typical video game – man (or child) against machine. They were playing against 13 other live players all linked together via a special computer hookup." - ↑ Current Notes Volume 7 Number 3, April 1987, pg. 10 - "Jim Yee, from Xanth Software, was running a Midimaze tournament on his outstanding multi-player game. There were 12 STs connected for the game and on Sunday, the top player, Robbie Brooks from Weaton, Maryland, won the prize; a Casio CZ-230S and two pieces of MIDI software from Hybrid Arts."
- ↑ Review of Great Lakes Atari Expo at Buffalo - "Nearby was a long table full of ST's where lines of people were waiting to play Xanth's Midi Maze game, where several ST's are connected via the Midi bus to interactively search out the other players."
- ↑ Dallas Atarifest (warning: LONG) - "The biggest display at the AtariFest, besides Atari themselves, was the Hybrid Arts booths. They had 8 STs coupled via the MIDI and each was playing the MIDI Maze game, which allows up to 16 different STs to play against each other in a 'maze war' where the object is to 'Kill A Happy Face!'"
- ↑ Toronto Dealers' Show - "I found the much vaunted multi-user kill a happy-face game dull. I won. If I lost I might have gotten into it. Probably it depends on who's playing with you."
- ↑ ST Magazine #13, pg. 109
