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The Icon Bar: News and features: VOTI call it a day
 

VOTI call it a day

Posted by Tim Fountain on 14:11, 18/5/2002 | ,
 
Nathan Atkinson has posted an official statement about closure of coding group Visions of the Impossible. VOTI have been responsible for a number of great RISC OS games over the years, my personal favourites are tetris-variant Super Foul Egg, and space game SunBurst. More recently they've been working on racing game EMD, although have been struggling to find a graphic artist to help them finish off the game. Nathan has been quite public about has lack of confidence in as he puts it the "head factions" in the RISC OS world.

Here's a quote from the press release:
This is an official statement to inform you that VOTI is now officially closed and will not be developing software. The reasons for this are two-fold:
  1. Owain (main programmer) now has a job with a software firm and like Paul Thomson he does not want to write software around the clock.
  2. Owain and the rest of us feel that the market will not recover from it's current situation and our enthusiasm has gone due to the "head factions" in the RISC OS world.
What about our software? Our software will remain under the conditions of each respective program original documentation.

EMD and all other projects (bar one, see below) are cancelled and we will not be releasing the code to the public domain for the forseeable future.

As mentioned above there is still one project being worked on, the reason for this is that it is set for a commercial release so we are being paid. Like Krisalis software many years ago they left the market after releasing the brilliant Alone In The Dark, VOTI will leave with a bang. I cannot and will not mention any details about the project but it is big and if/when
finished will show what a real game is like.

I'd like to publically thank Nathan and the rest of the team (past and present) for all the work they've put in over the years. For quite a while they were the only organisation releasing games for RISC OS, so we'll be sorry to see them go.
 
  VOTI call it a day
  (00:00 1/1/1970)
 
Jeffrey Lee Message #87402, posted at 19:06, 18/5/2002
Unregistered user *wonders what the game is going to be*

*thinks he may have some kind of an idea, but probably wrong*
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Mark Quint Message #87403, posted at 21:46, 18/5/2002, in reply to message #87402
Unregistered user hrm it'll be interesting to see the new game :)
shame to see VOTI go though :(
good luck to the future to all the VOTI members :)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Nathan Walker Message #87404, posted at 14:41, 19/5/2002, in reply to message #87403
Unregistered user Thanks to Tim and the AA/IB team past and present for fair unbiased news items. Shame that can't be said for Drobe. Ah well.
That reminds me that we got a rudimentary version of Super Foul Egg playing over the Internet, have to see if that would be quick to get out.
Went to the show yesterday to say my goodbyes, wasn't a particularly nice show to go to as it has now shrunk in size but what was there was good to see. Had a word with Jan Klose and congratulated him on TEK and also checked out VirtualAcorn that was very impressive.
Anyway, the "secret project" will be well received I hope. It is not a strategy game just a pure-bred game with lots of fun and it will show you what a RISC OS machine can do. Nearly finished but certain things to iron out.
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Guest Message #87405, posted at 13:40, 22/5/2002, in reply to message #87404
Unregistered user Thanks Mark. It's a shame one or two of our projects didn't proceed to completion but we appreciated the help and support of people along the way and I found it pretty exciting for a while. Thanks to Acorn Arcade for the forums and I think an advert they put up, Paul Vigay for an article he published on riscos.org, musical and graphical and logistical contributors and also the well-wishers on csaa and Acorn Arcade.
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  Message #87406, posted at 12:39, 23/5/2002, in reply to message #87405
Unregistered user What are you guys going to do now?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Nathan Walker Message #87407, posted at 13:18, 23/5/2002, in reply to message #87406
Unregistered user Go partying!!!!!!!!! Seeing what these strange things called women look like.

Seriously, Owain is working for a software company so he cannot do any coding for RO any more. May eventually meet up with Mr. "Mysterious" Cole (I've never met him). He'll be joining the ranks of Mr. "Where is he?" Wymark who were the original founders.
I'll be helping to finish off the last project.
Lee has just handed in his PhD and then he'll just be hanging around on the RO forums and newsgroups helping the odd soul out.
Andrew will be helping out the odd person as well and maybe coding the odd bits'n'pieces.

The remaining members are thinking about making a branding just to keep our identity and to stop us drifting apart. We decided not to keep VOTI as Owain has left so keeping VOTI would not be fair and not be the same. It is sad but the VOTI era has ended and we have made a lot of contacts especially behind-the-scenes and have offered help (and received) to most of the RO gaming coders over the past 5/6 years.

We are not planning on writing any big pieces of software as we don't have any time. However there is never say never.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest Message #87408, posted at 20:19, 24/5/2002, in reply to message #87407
Unregistered user Just because VOTI are no more doesn't mean you have
to stop using your RiscPC or stop going to shows
Nathan.
Half the reason for going to shows is to meet some
of the people in person that you only speak to
through email most of the time. For me anyway.




  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest Message #87409, posted at 20:20, 24/5/2002, in reply to message #87408
Unregistered user Damn! Above post by The Doctor






  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest Message #87410, posted at 10:07, 25/5/2002, in reply to message #87409
Unregistered user You've never met Owain in 7 or 8 years!!
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest Message #87411, posted at 10:12, 25/5/2002, in reply to message #87410
Unregistered user Yes I hope to keep doing something along those lines but big sofware pieces as Nathan says just aren't feasible really but who knows?
And remember the big bang as mentioned above :)

Andrew
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Lee Johnston Message #87412, posted at 09:04, 27/5/2002, in reply to message #87411
Unregistered user The fact that Nathan hasn't met Owain isn't really that unusual. I only met Nathan because I made the effort to get to Wakefield a few years back, and have made the effort to try and met up each year.

I didn't met Andrew until Bracknell last year. That was 3 yrs after joining VOTI.
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The Icon Bar: News and features: VOTI call it a day