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Hiding Buffalo’s Gumshoe Looking for a Publisher |
by UtahSaint
1/31/2003 |
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The next big name in the games industry is one of the most unusual. Hiding Buffalo is the company created by the winners of the 2002 Dare to be Digital competition. Now the company is looking for a publisher for their award winning title, Gumshoe.
Gumshoe is a highly unusual game. Eschewing the fantasy and Sci-Fi conventions of the industry, Gumshoe is set in 1930's America and is the gaming equivalent of classic film noir.
Gumshoe is an adventure game in which the player takes the role of a down-at-heel private detective taking jobs from a variety of clients. The team have already approached a number of the country's leading crime authors with a view to creating a wide range of different 'cases' for the player to solve.
The concept for the game along with a working prototype were created as Hiding Buffalo's entry in the 2002 Dare to be Digital competition, which challenges groups of students to create a new and original piece of digital content. Entries are judged by a panel of industry experts on their originality and commercial potential. Gumshoe was chosen by a majority of the judges thanks to it's unusual concept, naturalistic dialogue system and innovative gameplay and episodic approach.
 
The challenge for the team was to move from the initial concept through to working prototype in under ten weeks. "The Dare to be Digital experience matures a team very rapidly," says Torfi Gunnarsson, the Products Director of Hiding Buffalo. "Working to extremely tight deadlines makes everyone realise the pressures which are faced daily by companies throughout the games industry."
However the team found that the constraints offered by the schedule actually made the end result more satisfying. "Because we knew from the outset that we had a very short time to create the game, it ensured that we focused on the important topics," say Iwan Roberts, Hiding Buffalo's Marketing Director. "Rather than wasting time on wish lists, we had to work very hard to make the core of the game as solid and playable as possible. We ended up with something which is a lot more cohesive - and fun - then we would have had if we tried to incorporate every idea we had during development."
Jim Woods, Managing Director of GameOps and former development director of DMA Design, mentored Hiding Buffalo during the competition and while the company was formed. He has a great deal of admiration for the team and their approach to development. "I've worked with a huge number of teams over the past fifteen years and I have rarely come across a team with as much discipline and self-control as Hiding Buffalo," he says. "Even the most experienced teams can fall prey to feature-creep and sprawling development times. Hiding Buffalo recognised they had a very tight schedule and worked efficiently within their timeframe to create a very solid game."
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XBOX365 Says
Bad name for a company IMHO, and what the heck is Gumshoe? :-)
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HardWire
Heckler
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I hope they fine a publisher. I´ll give it a good rent, I´ve never played a gumshoe game before sounds interesting.
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Posts: 0
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IP: 4.62.156.158
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JBell
Heckler
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Maybe Microsoft should pick it up.
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Posts: 0
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IP: 165.123.193.175
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BOB3000
X365 Member
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The screenshots suck but with a little xbox magic this game could well be a hit.
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Posts: 10
Member: 1641
IP: i.am.a.member
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User X
Heckler
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Gumshoe is a slang word for a private dick (back in the day that is). I hope they get more time now to add what they wanted to. I agree MS should give them a look.
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Posts: 0
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IP: 172.153.236.134
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antiengineer
Heckler
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This game sounds like a good idea. The screens don´t seem that bad. It doesn´t seem like it would be hard to make this into a hit. I know I would at least rent it.
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IP: 12.64.24.198
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dgtlfnk
Heckler
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User X, you´re assuming that UtahSaint knows what a "private dick" is. LOL.
Just in case... a P.I., or private investigator, detective, etc...
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Posts: 0
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IP: 65.33.150.170
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gatekeeper
X365 Member
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MAY BE WE SHOULD STAY A WAY FROM THIS ONE!!!
ITS BEEN DONE!
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IP: i.am.a.member
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Bluntist
Heckler
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Dumb nuts u r a dumb ass. First off on the GC they use the sega server but on xbox they use the XBL server so basically you already paid $50 to use that server so then sega is ****ing with us so **** them i was going to buy it but not anymore cause this has to stop here and now before other games like True Fantasy say that they are going to charge to . If this is the case they have the worst online service in console (pay for the use of XBL server then pay again to use that same server, it´s like going to Burger king to get a combo but still have to pay for the drink and fries.) If this goes one will end up paying the $50 a Year for the SERVER and a extra money a month for each XBL game to play on the same SERVER cause if sega can get paid extra $ for an already paid service why shouldn´t others do the same thing. So for all u guys ready to pay for the service go ahead but don´t start moning when MS decides that every game has to have a charge then yu would be one of the persone that messed up XBL for everyone. And PLEASE DO NOT BUY PHANTASY STAR ONLINE TO SHOW MS AND SEGA THAT WE R NOT SUCKERS AND BANKS,
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Diluted-E
Heckler
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Bluntist look at it from a marketing stand point. Sega offers 50$ a year as membership to the server, to maintain a service for over a period of a year going at that rate would be absurd they would be loseing money because of the sheer amount of technical work associated with maintaing that server, from overhead to depreciation and worker wages it would be crazy to simply say 50$ a year is enough.
What i hope the marketing plan will be is that games like Phantasy Star Online (and other MMORPG´s) will maintain a per month price while playing other games online such as Halo and this racing game right here would be covered under that price....
another strategy is ofcourse to just charge a monthly online rate to everyone but ofcourse that splits everyone apart because the people that play MMORPG´s will be docking more play time then the other people and will be paying the same price which is ofcourse unfair... so their marketing plan based on this issure right now is pretty much as fair as it can go just as long as they dont start charging monthly rates for racing games and FPS
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