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With his creative team scattered through various time zones, Greenstone orchestrated the creation of the game from his home base in Texas. He calls his company Pangea Software.
“It gets boring without a lot of people to work with,” he admits. For example, Cro-Mag Rally has a network option for battle games such as Keep Away Tag, Stampede Tag, Survival and Quest For Fire, but he tested them by himself since they’re LAN-only.
“I wish the creative team could’ve had the opportunity to get together and discuss the look, feel and direction of the game in person,” Maruksa adds. “E-mail and chats are great technology, but nothing beats the creative energy formed from a bunch of people in a room together.”
They Play Well With Others
Despite the difficulties involved in working from a distance, the team enjoyed the free creative reign they had in doing their work without someone constantly looking over their shoulders.
“Brian’s great to work with because he’s very supportive but at the same time honest about what he wants,” says Mike Beckett, who created all the music, “so I don’t spend time chasing my tail or trying to make something ‘sound like a certain shade of mauve.’” He laughs at the thought.
“Brian has been my best client,” concurs Maruska. “He allowed us a lot of freedom and only stepped in to put his foot down when things started to lose focus, which occasionally happens when you have a bunch of creative people working together.”
| Tracking Tracks There are nine self-explanatory tracks in Cro-Mag Rally: Stone Age: Desert Jungle Glaciers Bronze Age: Crete The Great Wall Giza Iron Age: Medieval Viking Village Atlantis When you play in multi-player mode, you can choose from the following tracks: Stonehenge Aztec City Coliseum Maze Celtic Tar Pits Mount Conge Ramps |
Pangea Software has been in existence since 1987, but it wasn’t until 1993 and the release of the arcade game Firefall that the company started to gain notoriety among Mac gamers. In 1998, Greenstone scored a coup when Apple wanted to bundle his game Nanosaur with the original iMacs. Bugdom, released in 1999, also accompanied that year’s iMacs, but with Cro-Mag Rally, Greenstone has decided to strike out on his own and not pursue another bundle deal.
“The exposure Apple provides is great, so I can’t complain,” he says. “I just wanted to ‘legitimize’ Pangea Software a little bit more by not relying so much on Apple for exposure.”
It’s All in Good Fun
While creating Nanosaur and Bugdom, Greenstone used what he called “The Prime Directive,” which he has said means that “the game must be G-rated, not offensive to anyone, does not have any guns, no blood, no foul language.” Even though Cro-Mag Rally won’t be loaded on the latest Macs, the game still follows that unwritten directive. It’s meant for anyone who enjoys a fun game without any of the dense storytelling that accompanies many games in the 3D age.
“I don’t believe in story,” Greenstone says. “Story is just fluff and only
adds to adventure games, but all other action-oriented games are simply
meant to be fun, and if they need a story to explain them then there’s
something wrong. It’s like reading Playboy for the articles: I don’t think
so.”
Don’t come away thinking this game is for people with the mentality of cavemen, though. As Beckett says: “Each level can be played a bazillion times without getting boring. Even after playing it over and over again during the last three months, I’m still finding new shortcuts and new ways to beat the other carts.”
| Multi-player Mayhem In one-player mode, you can practice on each track or go into tournament mode, in which you have to win each of the first three races in the Stone Age before progressing to the Bronze and Iron Ages. In two-player mode, you can race head-to-head on a split screen or try your hand at one of the following multi-player modes: |
| Keep Away Tag: One player is “it“ and must tag another player within a certain amount of time or be eliminated from play. Stampede Tag: One player is “it “ and the other players try to tag him/her. If the player who’s “it“ can remain that way for two minutes, he/she wins. Survival: The goal is to blast and ram all your opponents off the raceway before your health runs out. Quest For Fire: This is played with two teams. Each one hides the six torches of the other team throughout the land. The goal is to find all six torches and get back to home base without being rammed or blasted off the course. |
