Hero6
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Hero6 is credited for being the first adventure game project ever to be developed freely by fans. Originally founded in 1999 under the pretense of being an unofficial sequel to Sierra Online's Quest for Glory series, Hero6 received much attention and skepticism from online communities. Despite being criticized by Sierra's website moderators, Hero6 was largely ignored by Sierra (Most probably due to Sierra's acquirement by Vivendi Universal). Sierra's silence was interpreted as doubt towards Hero6's successful completion of an adventure game without financial support.
Due to recurring legal fears, Hero6 changed focus and started development on an original, stand-alone adventure game. Now, only inspired by the Quest for Glory series, Hero6 features unique art, music, story, and, most ambitiously, a custom adventure game engine.
Hero6's open development community was eventually moved to a private website where criticism towards the creation of hero6 could be kept within a team environment. Initially, hero6 enjoyed as many as 200 volunteers working sporadically under the leadership of a single person. However; due to the scope of the project, Hero6 was eventually broken down into subsections. Each subsection represented a division of development, namely: plot, art, music, programming, and PR. A manager was placed over each section to efficiently instruct volunteers working in those areas.
Although being still under development, most of Hero6 was completed within the first few years of the project's existence. A huge complication within the project was due to the lack of ownership of the hero6 plot. Because the majority of hero6's volunteers worked on the plot, many conflicts often arose concerning the direction of the storyline. Constant story changes, and ambitious demands caused an upset within volunteers focusing on other development areas of Hero6. As a result, Hero6 experienced a high turn-over rate.
Many of Hero6's volunteers left to start adventure game projects of their own. Most notably is Tierra Entertainment (now "AGD Interactive"), who successfully remade Sierra's King's Quest 1 and 2, and are slated to release Quest for Glory 2 remake sometime 2006. Other projects include: Struggle for Life and Honor, Quest For Glory 3D, and Destiny: The Lost Soul. From those projects, many other projects have been inspired.
Undeniably, Hero6 can be attributed as the grandfather of fan-made adventure games.
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[edit] Technical Summary and Facts
- Hero6 was founded by Te'ja Laymind and Joseph McCombs
- Eventually, hero6 was lead by Rink Springer- founder of the MAD engine- until his controversial leaving in 2000.
- A Year into Hero6's development, Adventure Game Studio (AGS) became available to the public. AGS popularity and ease of use has made it the #1 engine for developing adventure games by amateurs and fans. Hero6 considered AGS for a time, but continues development under their custom engine: MAD
- Hero6 followed the look and feel popular during the "adventure game era" (1991-1996). That is: a low resolution of 320x240, mouse interface, 3rd person perspective.
[edit] References
- http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/everquest/183/news.htm
- http://www.adventure-eu.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=122&Itemid=29
- http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,107
- http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-notable-amateur-adventure-games
- Hero6's 3rd move listed on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/19991128213506/http://www.hero6.com/
- Hero6's 2nd location on loirak, listed on archive.org in Aug 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19990829014544/loirak.com/hero6/ (news listing shows June 2nd, 1999 as website start)
[edit] Related links
- AGS homepage: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
- MAD homepage: http://mad-project.sourceforge.net/
- Hero6: http://www.hero6.com/
[edit] Screen Shots
