The Great Giana Sisters
| The Great Giana Sisters | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Time Warp Productions | ||
| Publisher |
 Rainbow Arts Go! Media |
||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1987 | ||
| platform | Android , Atari ST , Commodore Amiga , Commodore 64 , iOS , Microsoft Windows , Nintendo DS , Ouya , Schneider CPC , Wii | ||
| genre | Jump 'n' run | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | joystick | ||
| medium | diskette | ||
| language | English | ||
| Age rating |
|
||
.jpg)
The Great Giana Sisters (also referred to as The Great Gianna Sisters in the intro and earlier versions ) is a computer game that was developed in 1987 by Time Warp Productions for the C64 and published by the German software company Rainbow Arts . This computer game is a jump 'n' run with strong similarities to Super Mario Bros. In 1988 Giana Sisters was implemented for Amiga 500 and Atari ST . A few weeks after it appeared, the Amiga version disappeared from the shelves again because Nintendo was too similar toSuper Mario Bros. threatened legal action.
content
The player slips into the role of little "Gianna" (misspelled "Giana" on the cover, which makes the title known as "Giana Sisters"), who visits a total of 32 dungeons during a nightmare and has to fight various monsters . The player has to avoid obstacles and collect jewels until he can face the final boss. If the player is successful, Giana is woken up by her sister "Maria". In later versions, the player can also switch to the role of her sister in two-player mode.
history
General
Giana Sisters came from the German software manufacturer Time Warp, which was still quite unknown at the time (consisting of Armin Gessert (programming), Hendrik Nordhaus (programming), Manfred Trenz (graphics) and Chris Hülsbeck (sound and music)). The game made the small company known across Europe in one fell swoop ; even overseas there was growing interest in the game. In Great Britain , the magazine ZZAP! 64 described The Great Giana Sisters as "The greatest platform game of all time" ("The greatest platform game of all time"). The fact that Time Warp had put the game into the race as a rival to the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. for good reason was already evident in the title on the British box (not the German one), which announced: "The Brothers are History!" The brothers are history! ”). In 1988 Rainbow Arts released the version for the Amiga .
Alleged litigation with Nintendo
The Japanese video game maker Nintendo was surprising that very similar to the trademark law protected Super Mario Bros. noticed. The first level in Giana Sisters was taken over from Super Mario Bros. with almost no changes and the game mechanics were almost identical to that of Super Mario Bros. A common view is that Nintendo saw its trademark and copyrights infringed and then took Rainbow Arts to court and obtained that the game could no longer be sold. In a short time both the commercially available, recently published Amiga copies and their counterparts for the home computers Commodore 64 and Atari ST were withdrawn from circulation.
Chris Hülsbeck admitted in an interview that there was no legal dispute between Rainbow Arts and Nintendo in court. Nintendo threatened legal action by letter because the similarity to Super Mario Bros. was too great. According to the statement of the lawyer Andreas Lober, there is no evidence for a court decision. Armin Gessert was also not aware of such a procedure.
The alleged legal battle with Nintendo brought the game to global renown, and by the time it was no longer available on the market, it had already achieved cult status . It soon became very widespread through black copying . In addition, the original versions became coveted collector's items as the game became one of the rarest - at least on the Amiga market. In 2014, the prices for original versions of the classic platform at the internet auction house eBay varied between 800 and 1500 euros, depending on the condition of the game and the packaging and the respective system / medium on which it was published. Since the C64 version was available in stores longer than the Amiga game, it has a lower collector's value.
Further development
Since 2009, with the approval of Manfred Trenz at an open-source - remake of the C64 version called OpenGGS worked. This is available on SourceForge . This version was also ported to mobile devices such as the Pandora handheld. In 2011 the game became available for mobile devices and macOS under the title Armin Gessert's Giana Sisters .
In addition, some private developers are working on Windows versions.
One of these Windows versions is Giana's Return , which is also available for Dreamcast and GP32 .
Separately , there was even a 3-level beta version of a Quake - TC : GianaQuake .
successor
In spite of everything, a successor was developed in 1988 under the name Giana 2 - Arther and Martha in Future World , the release of which was prevented by Nintendo, although the game had already moved a lot away from Super Mario. Ultimately, the game appeared at least in Germany with other player sprites under the name Hard 'n' Heavy .
Giana Sisters DS
Giana Sisters DS , the official successor, was released in April 2009 for the Nintendo DS handheld console. Armin Gessert, the forefather of the Giana Sisters , and his team played a key role in this further development. The classic platformer offers over 80 newly designed levels with many game features from the original home computer version. In addition, it makes use of the special features of the Nintendo DS. For example, it is important to control the Giana Sisters by blowing into the Nintendo DS microphone.
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
On July 30, 2012, the Spellbound successor Black Forest Games launched Project Giana on the Kickstarter platform , which was touted as the "grandson" of The Great Giana Sisters . Initially it was planned to release the game for the PC; PSN and XBLA versions should follow at a later date. The soundtrack of the game composed as the first Giana Sisters Chris Hülsbeck . A playable demo with the first two levels was released on August 24, 2012. On October 23, 2012, the game, now under the name Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams , was released on the download platforms Gamersgate , GOG.com and Steam . A PC retail version was released at Easter 2013. This collector's edition includes two additional levels as well as a Giana Sisters fan poster and the soundtrack for the game with 19 tracks by composer Chris Hülsbeck, Fabian Del Priore and the band Machinae Supremacy .
In 2015 the successor Giana Sisters: Dream Runners was released .
Web links
- Giana Sisters series at MobyGames (English)
- The Great Giana Sisters on AmigaMemo.com - AmigaMuseum
- Video of the game on the C64
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sebastian Pranz: Theatricality of digital media . Pages 202 - 209 & 221.
- ↑ Eli Neiburger: Gamers-- in the library ?! . Pages 53 & 174.
- ↑ Karen Collins: Game sound . Page 33.
- ↑ Chris Hülsbeck about Turrican, Great Giana Sisters and Homebrew on the Commodore Amiga. In: Interview at digitalista.de. February 11, 2015, accessed November 21, 2015 .
- ↑ about ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on openggs.romanhoegg.ch "As of August 2009 I have been given permission to use the C64 sprites of the original game by Manfred Trenz" (2009)
- ↑ openggs on openpandora.org (2015)
- ^ Giana 2 - Arther and Martha in Future World ( English ) gtw64.co.uk. April 30, 2011. Archived from the original on September 7, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 27, 2012.
- ↑ 80s, retro, cult: After 20 years, The Great Giana Sisters are back - platforming for Nintendo DS. Spellbound Entertainment AG, 2009, archived from the original on February 15, 2015 ; accessed on March 16, 2016 .
- ↑ Peter Steinlechner: Black Forest Games Project Giana as a new edition of the 80s classic. In: Golem.de . July 31, 2012, accessed October 21, 2013 .
- ↑ Kai Wasserbäch: Demo with playable levels from "Project Giana". In: Heise online . August 24, 2012. Retrieved August 25, 2012 .
- ↑ We have launched! (No longer available online.) In: Giana Sisters Official Website: Twisted Dreams. October 23, 2012, archived from the original on October 26, 2012 ; Retrieved October 23, 2012 .
- ↑ Happy Easter! (No longer available online.) In: Giana Sisters Official Website: Twisted Dreams. March 28, 2013, archived from the original on May 31, 2013 ; Retrieved February 28, 2013 .
