Dog Eat Dog (lost builds of cancelled PC adventure/simulation game; 1992-1995): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:25, 14 May 2016

Screenshot from the early version.

Status: Lost

Shooting an FMV scene for the 1995 version of the game.

Dog Eat Dog is a cancelled PC adventure game, originally developed in 1992 by Darlene Waddington (who also worked on Dragon's Lair on arcade and Duck Tales on NES) for Buena Vista Software, a division of Disney Software that concentrated on games for an older, more mature audience.

The game would have the player (either male or female) as an office employee attempting to work their way up in the "Big Black Box Industries" company by interacting towards many other characters, getting various results by changing their communicating attitude (going from "Berate", "Sympathize" or "Kissup").

The storyline would have been quite dark and cynical, encouraging the player to be manipulative and opportunistic, and satirizing the merciless nature of the corporate world (hence the title). It would also have included sexual themes. The graphics were comic-book inspired (by this period).

The project was left in development hell, until it was reprised in 1995, this time produced by Trilobyte. Waddington was still designing the game, along with two other writers, Tamara Williams and Susan Chaw, forming the Ministry Of Thought studio.

The look of the game was completely revamped; it was redesigned as to be FMV (which was a trend in PC games of the mid-90's), with more than twenty actors. They were to be shot on green-screen and afterwards incrusted on 3D backgrounds. Despite shooting almost 200 hours of film and spending almost a million dollars on it, the game ended up being cancelled for good.

No known playable copy of either version of the game has been made available. And both versions are considered "Lost".

Screenshot from early version.
Screenshot from early version.
Darlene Waddington, Tamara Williams and Susan Chaw, the authors.

External links

http://www.ministryofthought.com/ded.html Page for the game, still unupdated. Has character sprites in good quality.

http://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=1462 Entry in a French abandonware website

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[File:Dog_eat_dog.jpg|thumb|300px|Screenshot from the early version.]]
+{{InfoboxLost
+|title=<center>Dog Eat Dog</center>
+|image=Dog eat dog.jpg
+|imagecaption=Screenshot from the early version.
+|status=<span style="color:red;">'''Lost'''</span>
+}}
 [[File:Dog_eat_dog_fmv.jpg|thumb|300px|Shooting an FMV scene for the 1995 version of the game.]]
 '''Dog Eat Dog''' is a cancelled PC adventure game, originally developed in 1992 by Darlene Waddington (who also worked on ''Dragon's Lair'' on arcade and ''Duck Tales'' on NES) for Buena Vista Software, a division of Disney Software that concentrated on games for an older, more mature audience.
@@ Line 11: / Line 16: @@
 The look of the game was completely revamped; it was redesigned as to be FMV (which was a trend in PC games of the mid-90's), with more than twenty actors. They were to be shot on green-screen and afterwards incrusted on 3D backgrounds. Despite shooting almost 200 hours of film and spending almost a million dollars on it, the game ended up being cancelled for good.
-No known playable copy of either version of the game has been made available.
+No known playable copy of either version of the game has been made available. And both versions are considered "Lost".
 <gallery mode=packed heights=125px>
 File:dog eat dog 1.jpg|Screenshot from early version.