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The Games That Never Were: Episode 6
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Previous Episodes:
The Games That Never Were: Episode 1
The Games That Never Were: Episode 2
The Games That Never Were: Episode 3
The Games That Never Were: Episode 4
The Games That Never Were: Episode 5
Unknown Dreamcast Game Unearthed - Traveller
"Traveller, the space based RPG, was licensed to Fenris Wolf, and we had intended it to be a first person, 'PC-Like' role playing game for the Dreamcast. Unfortunately, it was cancelled by Sega as they wanted to concentrate on more action/sport type games for its launch."
- Mark Jones
Sadly, Fenris Wolf was dissolved in 1999 and Sega cancelled Traveller while it was still in the early stages of development, but Mark kept much of the early artwork and has kindly allowed us to share them here.
That the game never amounted to more than these stills is a massive shame as the Dreamcast has a host of amazing space shooters and RPGs. Traveller could have been the one to rule the roost, but now we'll never know.
Thanks to Mark Jones for the images and to Adrian Brown for alerting me to the existence of Traveller via the Dreamcast-Talk forums.
Fontcast
Inspired by the recent tenuously-related-to-Dreamcast article (I kid, Tom. :P ) and inspired by a book on different typefaces, I thought about our own lovely Dreamcast:
The logo featured is a simple, elegant one. It doesn't wear on the eyes, unlike certain fonts which will go unmentioned (coughinserthatedfontnameherecough) although extended use might tire one a bit. Still, it would be a nice font to have on hand, just in case.
I assumed that the search would be difficult, as some fonts look almost exactly like each other, and many companies have custom lettering made up for a specific purpose. It would take hours - or at the very least, several minutes.
Turns out, nope. There were the false leads of Tahoma, Myriad and Verdana - but even a cursory examination showed this to be false. Fortunately, the site My Fonts came to the rescue, positing the font Basilea (not to be confused with Basilia, a completely different font). Upon downloading the font and trying it myself, I found it to be a 98% match.
By way of a little background, all I could discover was a My Fonts' user noting that it was "designed by Markus Low in 1965." Further search reveals that it won the "1965 VGC National Type Face Design Competition."
And there you have it. Another lovely piece of trivia about our beloved console.
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| No nonsense, elegant |
I assumed that the search would be difficult, as some fonts look almost exactly like each other, and many companies have custom lettering made up for a specific purpose. It would take hours - or at the very least, several minutes.
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| Detective time! |
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| Lovely, eh Tom? |
And there you have it. Another lovely piece of trivia about our beloved console.
The PlayTape Conspiracy
If you can't be bothered to watch it, allow me to explain. PlayTape is a fabulously obsolete music format that was apparently quite popular for a brief period in the late 1960s. That is, until the magnificence of the 8-Track swept it aside with the swagger of a pre-digital iPod in platform shoes and a flowery shirt. I know that doesn't actually make a lot of sense, but I'm sure you get the (extremely weak) analogy. Anyway, as I was watching the video above I noticed that the PlayTape logo shares a particular aesthetic with the Dreamcast logo: swirls.
CSK Holdings: A Brief History & Connection to the Dreamcast
To give a little background to this article, Tom asked me if I had any knowledge about a variant of the Dreamcast that isn't well documented online. I looked into it and realised that what I'd discovered might make an interesting company profile. So, read on to find out more about the Japanese conglomerate that played a major role in the shaping of not only Sega, but also our beloved Dreamcast - CSK Holdings Corporation.
CSK Holdings Corporation (株式会社CSKホールディングス Kabushiki-gaisha Shī Esu Kei Hōrudingusu) is a multi-billion dollar Japanese conglomerate with heavy involvement in I.T. industries.
Formed in 1968, they've played a big part in the history of Sega since 1984 when they bought the company and renamed it to 'Sega Enterprises Ltd.' Isao Okawa, a personal friend of David Rosen, became the company's chairman and two years later shares of the company were put on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to be traded.
CSK remained the parent company of Sega until 2004 when they sold their remaining shares to Sammy Corporation which led to the two companies merging to form the one we know today, Sega Sammy Holdings Inc.
Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel
I thought I was more or less done with Dreamcast game collecting. With over 400-500 games in my possession (depending on how you count regional duplicates, demo discs, etc.), I felt that I had pretty much royally overdone it and owned far more than was ever going to be necessary. It would be almost impossible to find the time to play them all in the remaining weekends and evenings I have left before the sun sets on my miserable pile of secrets, but that sobering thought never slowed me down. I even went the extra mile, acquiring many of the games originally destined for Dreamcast but ended up on competitor's consoles when Sega lost their marbles and went third party. I invested in arcade hardware like NAOMI and Atomiswave in order to get all the Dreamcast games that were never ported into the home. I had traveled not just one extra mile but all of the extra miles and reached every dead end. I was done.
And then this happened:
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| Damn you Mike Phelan! |
It turns out I was not done, I was in fact far from done. There were all these tiny little dark and twisted narrow detours and blind alleys that my Dreamcast searchlight had originally failed to reveal. Games I never knew existed. Little known games by developers I loved. Games whose impenetrable Japanese seemed less frightening with the helping hand of Mike's accessibility guide. My collection now seems woefully incomplete and my interest was reborn. I think I might just get a few more games, maybe a couple of dozen, no more than two score tops. I don't need all of them, I can totally stop anytime I want. Seriously.
Dreamcast Magazine Issue 6
DreamPod - Episode 24: DreamPi
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