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| WOLFCHILD |
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| Published | ||||||
| Feb 1992 - May 1993 | ||||||
| Publisher | ||||||
| Core, JVG, Virgin | ||||||
| Developer | ||||||
| Core Design | ||||||
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| My Role | ||||||||
| Atari ST | Utilities, Scroll Programming, Graphics and Design | |||||||
| Commodore Amiga | Graphics and Design | |||||||
| SEGA MegaCD | Graphics and Design | |||||||
| SEGA Megadrive | Graphics and Design | |||||||
| Super Nintendo | Graphics and Design | |||||||
| SEGA Game Gear | Graphics and Design | |||||||
| SEGA Naster System | Graphics and Design |
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Wolfchild
began as a concept in November 1990. At the time it was for me an
intentional break with style - having worked on plenty of cartoon style
games, I wished to test my graphical abilities with something
altogether grittier. Inspired perhaps oddly by the inscription
'Wolfchild' that appeared on a belt worn by fellow Core employee Bob
'Goth' Churchill the game originally saw a 'man-wolf' stalking across a
post-apocalyptic future world inhabited by giant mutated insects. (Of
course... ) |
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Level 1: Fighting birdmen amongst the rigging of a flying space galleon. |
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By the time we embarked on
this new
revision of the game, Capcom's Strider had made its mark, so we changed
tack somewhat and with that devised a new scenario that saw our
lycanthropic hero, Saul Morrow storming a futuristic take on the Island
of Doctor Moreau (ahem). |
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The principal gameplay came
from
being able to boost the main character's health up beyond a certain
level at which point he would transform into a man-wolf that would then
be able to fire a variety of projectile weapons. This proved to be a
most useful mechanic as it really pushed the player to work to conserve
their health at all times during the game with the transformation into
the more powerful werewolf being a suitably satisfying in-game
goal. |
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It was compulsory at this point in any magazine feature to quote the old line that I used to be a werewolf but is all right noooooowww... |
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Then came a SNES variant with
even
more colours to contend with. Finally there was a SEGA Game Gear
conversion that saw the whole lot being cut-down, resized and hacked
into all manner of odd shapes under the ingenious direction of
programmer Sean Dunlevy (who made the Game Gear do things that, quite
frankly, the Game Gear was never designed to do). |
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Level 4: And a classic action beat-em-up staple - the runaway elevator. This time populated with sharkmen on jet packs. |
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| Additional Credits | ||||||||
| John Kirkland | Atari ST, Amiga, SEGA Megadrive/Mega CD Programming | |||||||
| Alex Davis | Super Nintendo Programming | |||||||
| Sean 'Gilbert' Dunlevy | SEGA Game Gear, SEGA Master System Programming | |||||||
| Bob 'Goth' Churchill | Additional Level Design | |||||||
| Billy 'Bli' Allison | Invaluable help with animation |
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| TEXT © SIMONPHIPPS 2009 |
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