It was a gloomy day at SickKids Hospital in Toronto. Ten children, each facing their own challenges, sat with worry and sadness clouding the minds of their family members. One child, healing from knee surgery, counted down the days until they could go home. Boredom and negative thoughts filled the room—until a nurse came in with a surprise: a TV and a Super Nintendo console with Super Mario World.
For the hour the console was in their possession, the children forgot about their circumstances and couldn’t stop smiling. They laughed and enjoyed every minute of gameplay. This moment of joy in such a challenging environment left an indelible mark on Robert Maduri’s memory and inspired him to become a video game developer. His goal: to create experiences that are fun at their core and can brighten anyone’s day.
Nintendo may have influenced Robert Maduri’s reason for developing games, but it wasn’t his favourite publisher, nor was it for the rest of the Throwback Entertainment team. Their favourite titles of their childhood were actually published by Acclaim Entertainment. After collaborating in university, they made it their goal to acquire all the assets for Acclaim dating back to 2004.
“It took a couple years to close on it, so when we got those assets that’s when things kicked into the next level,” Maduri said.
Maduri and company have acquired over 158 titles from Acclaim Entertainment since. They believe some titles Acclaim came out with didn’t receive the attention they deserved.
“This is actually going to sound funny but we were all big fans of Acclaim Entertainment on certain titles, not all of them. Titles like Extreme G, Vex, and Gladiator got overshadowed,” he said. “Even though the Acclaim titles weren’t as popular as the Battletoads, the Clayfighter, the Earth Worm Jim’s titles of that era but you know they found their place right along those titles. I always found myself playing those games. So it always a logo and a brand that was burned into my mind.”
When Robert Maduri was 10, his fondest memory was with a bone-crunching fighter that still holds up to this day, Mortal Kombat.
“I loaded up my first battle of Mortal Kombat and I watched Goro walk across the screen with the Acclaim logo and that memory will always stick with me,” he said.
It’s evident that Acclaim titles have had a significant impact on Robert Maduri’s life, from leveraging Midway titles like Mortal Kombat to his favourite superhero, Spider-Man. The most notable games featuring the web-slinger that he loved were Separation Anxiety and Maximum Carnage, both among his all-time favourites. This passion for remastering and bringing these titles to a new generation of gamers, as well as to those familiar with them, has united the team. It’s a callback to that bleak day in the hospital and has given Maduri and the team a renewed purpose.
“The driving force for every single person that’s working within Throwback is, if we can make a difference, for an hour in someone’s life, that makes it all worth it. That’s something I value more than anything else,” he said.
They believe no other entertainment medium can bring the same feeling video games do.
“It’s something I think the video game industry does better than any other medium in the entertainment industry. It really leverages the passion, that emotion that happiness that you feel when you’re playing a game, that you don’t really get when you are engaged with doing passive Entertainment media forms.”
Bringing these experiences back into the hands of the gamer is made possible by the inclusion of Microsoft Azure and Visual Studio in their game development process. It has helped the developer throw data into the cloud and utilize both Windows and Linux in unison when remastering the Acclaim titles. This has helped a variety of people in the office, with those accustomed to one or the other while growing up, they aren’t forced to use one ecosystem. Azure allows them to choose their personal preference.
With something like Azure in place, it’s a lot easier for the developers to pool resources and trial in-game portions. Fans of these games who are worried that they won’t play homage to the original titles don’t need to worry. Everything is intact, and the team is constantly focused on incorporating new and innovative ways to play.
“Anyone who is out there that is as passionate about these games as I am; at least they know that within myself and my team we are equally as passionate. We want to get as many of these titles back out there as possible for everyone to enjoy.”
It’s never been easier for small development studios to bring games into the marketplace on consoles and Steam now. Things have opened immensely since the early generations of gaming. People yearn for more mobile games to play on the go, and Throwback Entertainment is aware of that and has strived to bring some classics to the platform in a way gamers haven’t experienced those titles yet.
“Some of them are complete retooling, and some of them are new reboots,” he said. “With a lot of these franchises, it’s pure nostalgia, but then there might be one that they’d love to experience in a new interesting way so we’re going to work on covering both those basis.”
2015 is going to be the studio’s biggest year yet. The studio is planning to have a constant release schedule throughout the year. All of these titles have been developed for a few years now, and one will be revealed on Monday.
The developer’s only hints were that the title was released on a Sega platform and that it encompasses everything that made the publisher special to them.
“This game was what best embodied what Acclaim was about right near the end of the companies existence.”
