Songbird Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 SONGBIRD ACQUIRES CLASSIC GAMING PROPERTIES For immediate release: ROCHESTER, MN -- Songbird Productions is pleased to announce the acquisition of multiple classic gaming properties, including: The entire HandMade Software library, except for Kasumi Ninja, including games such as Awesome Golf and Battlezone 2000 Battlemorph by ATD Gordo 106 by Tenth Planet Software Lynx Super Skweek by Loriciel Othello by Harry Dodgson "Songbird has enjoyed two decades of supporting diehard Atari fans with new games for old systems," said Carl Forhan, founder of Songbird. "I look forward to a new wave of products that can incorporate these incredible games for the benefit of all gamers worldwide." Songbird Productions is a premier game developer and publisher for the Atari Lynx and Jaguar. To keep up to date with the latest news at Songbird Productions, be sure to visit the company web site at http://songbird-productions.com . This message may be reprinted in its entirety. 27 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirlynxalot Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 Wow this is cool news! Should be interesting to see what comes of it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 Congrats, Carl! Big fan of all that you do. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Saturn Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 Awesome! Hope this includes source code for Battlemorph. Would love to see new levels.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 That is great news indeed. Battlezone 2000 - is that something you would consider sublicensing (basically just as an IP, don't need a source code nor art assets - just the name&game universe) to me for Lynx ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 Really cool news! Congrats! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 (edited) Congratulations were given in the Lynx thread, but deserve to go here as well. Looking forward to hearing exactly what the plans are. With Battlezone 2000 would you be able to shed any light on the claims that still do the rounds, that HMS were at one stage doing a conversion of the Lynx title to the Jaguar?. Some voices swear they were..others that they were not. I've never seen Rob Nicholson confirm or deny it. Jim Gregory kind of avoided the question. Same applies to Dracula The Undead on Jaguar. Be nice to be able to put the claims to bed one way or another, once and for all. Edited August 9, 2019 by Lost Dragon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 10 hours ago, Saturn said: Awesome! Hope this includes source code for Battlemorph. Would love to see new levels.. I'd love a PC version. That was a neat design and a very worthy update to an infamous Jaguar game. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAVE 1 GAMES Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 Yes I am a bit curious too as to the BattleMorph acquisition. Does this mean a possible sequel to BattleMorph in the future or are we merely looking at a re-release for Jaguar CD for folks who don't already own the game. Could you shed a bit more light on what it means for the consumer Carl? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 Looks like primarily Lynx stuff... Curious what Jaguar consumer items may come from this Regardless this is very cool news! Congratulations Carl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaggy the Atarian Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 That's great news! I'm curious about CyberMorph though...thought it would come with BM too. Here's hoping that the complete code to Dracula was found in this acquisition. Or if anything exists of it on the Jaguar CD. Would LOVE to see that one on the Jaggy. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 Definitely great news. Just curious, though...why was Kasumi Ninja left out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Falcon Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 Yeah, sounds really nice! Battlemorph II would bei awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songbird Posted August 10, 2019 Author Share Posted August 10, 2019 Some clarifications and answers: Some game rights contractually returned to the developers over time, even though Atari was the original publisher of the games. Other games (such as Battlemorph) were acquired from Atari. Kasumi Ninja was not available. Rebellion owns the Battlezone IP nowadays. Since I have a history with Rebellion (Skyhammer, anyone?), they have kindly agreed to provide a limited license to me for Battlezone on older Atari systems. In the same way, the Super Skweek IP is still owned by Loricel, but I have been able to acquire a limited license for the Lynx version. I did not receive any new source code as part of these deals. Now that we are 25-30 years removed from the original publication of these games, it's becoming more and more unlikely that source code would be retained by anyone. Only slightly unhinged people like me hang on to source code for 20+ years so I can revisit old projects like Protector from time to time. I don't have imminent plans for most of these games, but thought it was worthwhile to build my IP library when the opportunities came. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UHATEIT Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 If we could see a Battlezone game for the Jag that would be awesome. Since we never got Battlewheels like the back of one of my Jag consoles showed on it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_shred Posted August 15, 2019 Share Posted August 15, 2019 Great news Carl. I hope some new Lynx and Jag projects come of this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minux Posted August 15, 2019 Share Posted August 15, 2019 Congratulations, Carl! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paolo Posted August 17, 2019 Share Posted August 17, 2019 Great news, Carl! Let's see what comes out of this... It will surely be nice stuff ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jagosaurus Posted August 17, 2019 Share Posted August 17, 2019 (edited) This is awesome Carl! Congrats. Time for the Jag fumes to cause fever dreams... Really high level question on that note ?... would it be theoretically possible for Battlemorph to run off a cart with cut scenes removed? IS2 style. Edited August 17, 2019 by Jagosaurus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songbird Posted August 17, 2019 Author Share Posted August 17, 2019 It would definitely be fun to see Battlemorph running on a cartridge instead of CD. In theory I would say yes, it's possible, but it really depends on how much the game accesses the CD unit during gameplay. If it's constantly streaming CD audio, for example, that presents some technical challenges versus if each level is a self-contained RAM load. And of course emulating the Memory Track calls would be another issue... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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