Neon Studios
| Neon Software GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1993 |
| resolution | 2005 |
| Reason for dissolution | Dissolution by the parent company JoWooD |
| Seat |
 Germany
|
| Branch | Software development |
The Neon Studios (actually Neon Software GmbH ) were a German development studio for video games .
Company history
Beginnings
The Neon Studios were founded in 1993 by Antony Christoulakis, Boris Triebel, Jan Jöckel, Michael Büttner and the former Kaiko founding member Peter Thierolf. A little later, Matthias Wiederwach was added to the group of shareholders.
After a series of commissioned work for advertising games, the development of a jump 'n' run title for the Amiga called Timet - the flying squirrel began. Neon commissioned the journalist Hans Ippisch to present the title to various publishers at the ECTS trade fair in London . After the ECTS there were several offers, but only the British publisher Ocean Software promised the studio the desired development of a version for a game console , as Neon wanted to establish itself as a console developer. At that time, Ocean was trying to establish Mr. Nutz as a mascot and was already developing a corresponding SNES game. So they agreed. The Timet player fuel was exchanged for Mr. Nutz and Neon's first game went on sale in 1994 as Mr. Nutz - Hoppin 'Mad . The mega-drive version was created at the same time, but was never published. Graphic routines from Neon's Mr. Nutz were also used in Turrican 3 , which was released in 1993 .
Ocean and Neon then agreed an exclusive collaboration on four titles, each of which was to appear for several platforms. The first project was the development of Vanished Powers , a role-playing game for PC and PlayStation , for which the graphics were pre-rendered on SGI machines with Alias PowerAnimator. The game was later discontinued. On the PlayStation, the development of an action title was started, which should consist of several action sequences. First, a futuristic race sequence was created in underground tunnels, from which tunnel B1 would later emerge. The "B" in the title was based on the abstract designation Spiel-B from the contract with Ocean. At the same time, a helicopter sequence was created in an impressive camera perspective from above, from which Viper was later to emerge as an independent product.
Tunnel B1 was released in 1996 for DOS, Windows, PlayStation and Sega Saturn in Europe, the USA and Japan and received consistently positive feedback for the then outstanding optics ( Edge awarded 8/10 points, for example). Shortly after the publication of tunnel B1 , however, Ocean ran into financial difficulties and was subsequently bought up by Infogrames . Ocean owed a number of payments and Neon was forced to lay off most of its former 20+ employees. Michael Büttner and Matthias Wiederwach left the company together with some former employees in a dispute with the other four shareholders and subsequently developed the title Viper , which was already under development under the label X-Ample, on behalf of Ocean .
Neon first developed a number of budget titles and finally decided to develop for the Nintendo Game Boy . In the years that followed, they produced a variety of license-based products for the Game Boy Color , including Janosch , Die Maus , Tabaluga , Pumuckl , Armorines , Ottifanten , etc. This new strategy proved to be financially successful, and as the team grew, engines also became engines and software tools developed for full-price games.
Takeover by Jowood
In 2000 , the shareholders sold the company to JoWooD from Austria, who had recently gone public in Vienna and, in addition to Neon, had also bought the development studios Wings Simulations and Massive Development . In 2003 Boris Triebel, one of the two managing directors and studio manager at the time, left the company and together with Matthias Schindler founded a new developer and outsourcing partner in Darmstadt , ZEAL GmbH.
As a subsidiary of JoWooD, Neon Ottifanten , Happy Hippos , Santa Claus Jr. developed for the Game Boy Color, Santa Claus Jr. Advance for the Game Boy Advance and, above all, the action adventure Legend of Kay for the PlayStation 2 - in addition to the RTL Winter sports games one of the few original German developments for a sixth generation console. Legend of Kay was released in Europe, USA and Japan in 2005.
In 2005 Jowood ran into sustained economic difficulties and gave up all of its development studios. Neon Software was closed in the fall and all employees were laid off. Former employees now work at Spielkind, 49Games and other German game developers. In addition, the former shareholders founded a new studio in Frankfurt called keen games .
Jowood had Legend of Kay ported from Firehazard Studio to Nintendo DS in 2010 , and in 2015 the new brand owner Nordic Games released a graphically revised version for Windows, Mac OS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 , Wii U , Switch and Xbox 360 .
Published titles
- 1994: Mr. Nutz: Hoppin 'Mad ( Amiga )
- 1996: Tunnel B1 ( DOS , PlayStation , Saturn , Windows )
- 1997: Mars Taxi (Windows)
- 1999: Janosch: The Big Panama Game ( GBC )
- 1999: Tabaluga (GBC)
- 1999: Pumuckl's Adventure with the Pirates (GBC)
- 1999: Armorines: Project SWARM (GBC)
- 2000: Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX (GBC)
- 2000: Pumuckl's adventure in the ghost castle (GBC)
- 2000: Maya the Bee: Garden Adventures (GBC)
- 2001: The Mouse: Crazy Olympics (GBC)
- 2001: Santa Claus Junior (GBC)
- 2002: Santa Claus Jr. Advance ( GBA )
- 2005: Legend of Kay ( PS2 , PS3 )
Web links
- Neon Software at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Vanished Powers [PSX PC - Canceled]. In: Unseen64. June 27, 2011, Retrieved December 30, 2018 (American English).
- ↑ Jens Ihlenfeld: JoWooD takes over the game developer Neon. In: Golem.de. Accessed December 30, 2018 (German).