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How Acrophobia Was
Born |
While attending the University of Southern California in '93 and '94, I spent a fair amount of time playing games online. I grew addicted to online trivia games, and found a good one on an Internet Relay Chat server. I played it for several months until someone created a program that memorized all of the questions and answers and answered every question faster than anyone else could, thereby ruining the game for everyone.
I had spent a good amount of time making games (mostly role playing games) and thought I could make a game where no program could cheat, as creativity cannot be faked.
I had used acronyms as a method of studying (American and Canadian players may recall using HOMES to remember the five Great Lakes during grade school), and also noticed that people used many acronyms online such as OTOH (on the other hand), BTW (by the way) and WTF (I'll leave it up to you to figure that one out. *grin*).
My IRC version of the Acrophobia game went online in April 1994, and quickly got a solid following. Shortly thereafter, hundreds of people were playing the game every day, with fan Web sites and more springing up and flourishing.
In July 1995 I attended the first Electronic Entertainment Expo, where I met the people of Berkeley Systems. They were debuting their then-unknown CD-ROM game YOU DON'T KNOW JACK. Approximately one year later I brought Acrophobia to Berkeley Systems, who've since taken a good game concept and have made an INCREDIBLE Internet experience that reaches the high threshold set by the JACK the netshow game!
The first attempt at making the "Acrophobia netshow" featured a male host, similar to the one in JACK the netshow. We used the same hip and smart scripting we used in JACK, but it didn't fit. The humor detracted from the game instead of adding to it. So, we scrapped that idea and reworked and refined the game through the incredible efforts of programmers, designers and artists. The game now features a female host ( the "Acrobot,"), clean visuals and an intuitive interface. The new Acrophobia far exceeds my expectations and we have even more in store, such as tournament play!
I hope you enjoy playing Acrophobia!
Bezerk Revived is not associated or affiliated with Sierra.