The Making Of: Shadow Man
Discover how Acclaim Teesside made its atmospheric graphic novel adaptation
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he early-to-mid-nineties proved to be a successful period for Acclaim Entertainment. Mortal Kombat was raking in the dollars, and with the millions invested by cable company Tele-communications Inc burning a hole in its pocket, Acclaim was looking for companies to acquire. Valiant Entertainment was founded in 1989, partly by Marvel alumni Jim Shooter and Bob Layton. The comics industry was approaching its peak, which was reached around four to five years later when Valiant’s venture capital investor, Triumph, sold Valiant to Acclaim. As Acclaim’s CEO, Greg Fischbach, told Retro Gamer in issue 149, “We paid 75 million dollars [for Valiant] and lost a shitload of money. It was a banker. They were the third biggest comics company, and we were looking for something else to invest in.” Acclaim took over publication of Valiant’s line of comics, and naturally eyed up several titles as potential videogames. “But we bought into the comic book business right at the top of the market,” continued Greg, “and then all of a sudden it starts to fall apart. And we rode it all the way down.”
Acclaim’s first cross-media product was an obvious choice in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Dinosaurs were back in vogue thanks to the Jurassic Park franchise and Turok became a massive hit, particularly on the Nintendo 64. It was developed by Iguana Entertainment, based in Austin, Texas, and in addition to Valiant, Acclaim was busy acquiring more games developers and subsuming them as satellite development studios. In the UK, Optimus Software, founded by Jason and Darren Falcus in 1988, would become part of the American company.
“We were a small team in the northeast of England, working on games for a few major publishers such as Codemasters and Gremlin,” explains Jason Falcus. “Our first employee, Adrian Ludley, emigrated to the US and ended up working for Iguana Entertainment.” When
Adrian hooked up his former employers with the CEO of his new company, Optimus Software soon became Iguana UK and subsequently Acclaim Studios Teesside when it purchased Iguana Entertainment. After the success of Turok, Valiant’s line of comics were scrutinised for further possible videogame franchises. “Acclaim sent a load of Valiant comics to our studio and asked us if we’d like to pitch for a game based on any of them,” Jason continues. “We looked through them all and Shadow Man stood out as being perfect for the transition to videogame. We felt it filled the gap in the market for a platform adventure game with a darker, more mature theme, as well as a rich storyline.”
Shadow Man is the story of Michael Leroi, an undead voodoo warrior caught between two worlds: our world, the Liveside, and the Deadside, a grim and dangerous place where all souls eventually reside. The game begins in 1888 as legendary serial killer Jack
The Ripper prepares to take his own life, disappointed the unearthly powers his killing spree was meant to unlock has not materialised. Enter Legion, a powerful being seeking to recruit five serial killers, each harbouring a dark soul that he plans to use to create an immortal army. Legion’s target: Liveside.
Acclaim Teesside assembled a team of approximately 20 people to work on Shadow Man. A budget and timescale were set although, as was fast becoming common, these changed over time as the scope of the game was extended. Development began in 1997. Creative director
Guy Miller and senior designer Simon Phipps began storyboarding their ideas on how the game would work; graphic artists such as Trevor Storey and Nick Patrick began digitising this vision, and a group of programmers including Paul Taylor and Jonathan Ackerley set about organising the nuts and bolts beneath the hood. Ex-ocean audio expert Tim Haywood was another vital cog in the Shadow Man machine.
On his personal website, Simon Phipps details a slightly different account of how the Shadow Man project started. “We were asked by Acclaim’s head office in New York to come up with a 3D horror adventure… along the lines of Resident Evil, but in full 3D.” A small team within Acclaim Teesside created a proposal that focused on Thomas Deacon, an EX-NYPD cop who had assumed a new career as a demon hunter. Simon also recalls the material Teesside was sent when its proposal was not taken up. “The comics were Ninjak, Magnus Robot Fighter, Bloodshot, Trinity Angels and Shadow Man, penned by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Ashley Wood…[shadow Man] had been running for about five issues, so it was very easy for us to slot into the timeline and expand the world of Deadside. The premise we worked under was, simply, that if there is no Heaven or Hell and everyone who dies goes to Deadside, then what happens when the really bad people get organised and decide they want to come back?”
Studio head and development director Jason
Falcus kept a close eye on all of the different projects within Acclaim Teesside. “Shadow Man was very close to my heart,” he says, “as it was an opportunity for us to show we could create a new game IP, and make our mark as a creative force. It was an excellent storyline – it took the main characters from the comic and added in a fantastic mix of original characters and some really imaginative locations between the two worlds. Jack The Ripper was a particularly brilliant addition. I don’t recall we considered other real-life serial killers, but I’m sure they were heavily inspired!” owever, as coder Paul Taylor explains, another Valiant property was also being developed concurrently. “I joined in 1997 and worked on a game based on another of Valiant’s characters, Bloodshot,” he reveals. “There wasn’t much to Shadow Man at that stage, but the plan was to use its game engine to give Bloodshot a jump-start.” With the latter project, now a Vin Diesel movie, suffering from a lack of direction and a focus on Playstation-to-pc development (which caused the eventual dropping of the Shadow Man engine and too much time spent rebuilding the tech), it was inevitable that Bloodshot would be put on hold as Shadow Man grew steadily. “I was absorbed into it to help with gameplay programming on the PC version,” remembers Paul, “and this typically involved receiving a large sheet of paper
with a map of the game level, the level mesh and a bunch of assets from the artists. It was my job to plug these together so that all the tricks and traps worked, doors unlocked when you operated a particular button, cable cars moved when you entered them, cutscenes triggered at the right moment, and so on.”
But perhaps Paul’s most vital role was the creation of an animation system. “The artists could animate characters just fine, but there was nothing in place for other objects, which had to be done in code. This included doors opening and closing, sliding platforms and, the one I’m most proud of, a big hammer that swings down and strikes a monolith, forming a bridge.” The PC version of Shadow Man was initially its only planned platform. Having had much success on various consoles, Acclaim was keen to grow its PC market share. When the game expanded to consoles, Acclaim held back the completed lead PC version as the other versions were finalised.
While the driving force of the story remained with Simon Phipps and Guy Miller, artists such as Nick Patrick and Trevor Storey also had important roles in shaping the unusual look and design of Shadow Man. “I started as lead artist and worked as a level builder, effects and front end designer,” says Trevor. “I thought the story was cracking and
[it] really swept us along during development.”
Nick Patrick, who began as a concept artist on the project, agrees. “Guy and Simon really pushed to keep a story to the game and make it unnerving and unsettling. I worked quite closely with Trevor, and we had to keep a consistent look to the levels. I do remember we played a lot of Quake at lunchtime back then – I think he must have been losing at one point when his mouse took off and hit me on the back of the head!”
Shadow Man had a complicated development period in terms of both design and realisation. With both Simon and Guy having worked at Core Design, comparisons with Tomb Raider were inevitable – if a little off the mark, according to Jason. “The success [of Tomb Raider] helped us appreciate the potential for such a game,” he admits, “but I would say the main inspirations were games such as Mario 64 and Zelda. These titles both utilised expanding 3D worlds, and we loved the way they were based around a central hub, and the world expanded as the player increased their abilities.”
The team also preferred the dynamic controls that Nintendo platform games often honed to perfection. “We wanted to emulate that,” continues Jason.
A European launch game for the Nintendo 64, Acclaim’s version of the loinclothed beast-slayer was a big hit and paved the way for multiple sequels. Developed by Iguana Entertainment (Acclaim’s studio in Austin, Texas), the first-person shooter had its faults, but benefitted from a dearth of similar titles on the N64. The mixed reviews of 2008’s Turok on the Xbox 360 and PS3 appear to have ended the franchise for now, although recent remasters proved popular with gamers.
nCreated as an adversary for superhero
X-O Manowar, the Armorines were a government-sponsored team of super marine soldiers, and a logical choice for a videogame. Another first-person shooter, the game used the same engine as Turok 2, but was received badly, and poor sales ensured there would be no further titles in the series. A shame, as its Starship Troopers-style man-versus-bugs theme could have been a winner had it been better implemented.
nDespite a botched Playstation port, the original Shadow Man sold decently enough to ensure a sequel was optioned, although given the original’s poor effort on the Sony console, it was a little strange that Shadow Man: 2econd Coming only saw release on the Playstation 2. The plot of the sequel more or less mirrors the first game, with Armageddon this time threatened by a pair of demons known as Asmodeus and Grigori. The collapse of Acclaim two years later spelled doom for the series, although the comic was rebooted for a short time in 2012.
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“I used to get very frustrated by the animationdriven controls of the early Tomb Raider games.” The central hub created its own set of design issues. While Shadow Man’s storyline and plot was relatively simple for Simon Phipps and Guy Miller, the construction of the various levels was not so.
With the game requiring the player to revisit locations from earlier in the game, and be able to explore further thanks to new weapons and abilities, considerable thought and planning was needed to ensure everything operated logically. The designers discovered that the easiest (and fastest) technique was to sketch out a level on paper before passing it on to the world modellers who’d build, texture and light it. With the comic version of Deadside a black and desolate area, it was left to the imagination of the art department to give this part of the game its detailed and unearthly look. “I worked quite a bit on the asylum,” says Nick, “so those were my favourite parts. The level design was well-planned, but when I look back now, I’m surprised how sparse it feels in places. There are quite a few long corridors with not much in; you wouldn’t get away with that these days!” The asylum is a superbly-designed part of Shadow Man,
“It came right at the end when we were finishing off the PC version. The infamous Columbine High School massacre took place in April 1999, and this led to the sudden and arguably misguided opinion that violent videogames were a key factor. I believe Acclaim CEO Greg Fischbach was called before a senate committee investigating the issue, or something like that. Afterwards, as a result of what was discussed, or nervousness about the public perception of violent videogames, the order came through that Shadow Man’s content should be toned down. Gore was cut down across the board, and as quickly as possible. I got an interesting bug caused by this rapid censoring. There was one room where the tiled ceiling bled if you shot it. The collision detection was reporting the bullet was hitting flesh, so I traced it through thinking it must be going wrong and thinking it’s hitting something else, possibly outside the room. The trace didn’t find anything broken, but it did reveal that there was a body pinned to the ceiling with surgical instruments. In a rush to hide this, they simply removed the textures, rendering it invisible. There are rumours of pre-columbine copies of Shadow Man floating around out there, but I’ve never seen one.”
and also used as a hub for some of the game’s later levels. “Some of my favourite sections were those in the asylum,” agrees Jason, “which I think was down to the weird and wonderful creatures, and also the New York tenement building which was very atmospheric and creepy.”
Technically, Shadow Man was also a huge challenge for the studio. “We had to build all of the 3D tech and tools, including our own engine, called VISTA,” continues Jason. “The design was ambitious, requiring large interior and exterior locations with seamless transitions – which at the time was quite unusual. We also wanted a dynamic animation-blending system so we could have a more versatile character control system. This allowed Shadow Man to run while aiming his two weapons in different directions.” Mike Leroi also possessed uncanny athletic abilities, his slender figure leaping around each level, grasping ledges with one hand and taking out assorted demons
with the other. All of the game’s controls needed to be fine-tuned so that these complex moves operated correctly.
nother, perhaps overlooked, element of Shadow Man was its sound. Former Ocean Software employee Tim Haywood was recommended by another ex-ocean worker who now coded for the Tees developer. “They didn’t have any audio staff at all, so I had to start from scratch and set up a studio myself,” says Tim. “It was exciting because I had nothing more than a PC,
Sound Forge, a simple recording device and one sample CD.” Tim improvised to begin with, before approval for additional equipment was granted. Soon the department had expanded to include a Kurzweil K2500R (a synthesiser), vocal processor, semi-acoustic guitar and a large sample library.
Tim’s first job was providing all of the audio for Shadow Man. “I was audio director, composer,
sound designer, audio tester, voice casting, voice director, actor, dialogue editor, audio implementer, and trade show evangelist,” he grins. “And it really was a blank page. We had the comic books as a reference, and I talked to Guy [Miller] and we picked various film references to draw from. The rest of the audio came from the visual style of the game and how it made me feel.”
The prime version of Shadow Man (PC) implemented the Miles Sound System – primitive by today’s standards, but highly effective in 1999. “When you walked through the areas of a level, you heard ambient sound coming from lots of places, and it blended very nicely for the time,” recounts Tim, who despite the smaller storage of the N64, used compression technology to squeeze the speech and music into the cartridge. “We just downgraded the quality where we needed to. The Playstation version suffered the most and had only 90 sound effects from the original 600.”
Ah, the Playstation port. While the PC, N64 and Dreamcast versions of Shadow Man were all wellreceived, things were a little different over on the Sony console. “Acclaim decided late in the day that they wanted a Playstation version,” laments Jason. Unfortunately, a lack of experience with the console, coupled with extreme time pressure meant the port was vastly inferior. It was also an unusual move for Acclaim which up to that point had forged a decent reputation based on its support of the Nintendo consoles. “We understood their reasoning – it was a big opportunity to get the game on the biggest platform. But it was a technical nightmare to execute and we weren’t very happy with the end result.”
Sales were unimpressive compared to the Nintendo 64 in particular, probably a reflection of the mass of similar arcade adventures on the Playstation. Mature-themed games were rarer on the N64, and Shadow Man neatly occupied that vacant niche. And on the Dreamcast, things were even better, as the powerful Sega console barely broke a sweat emulating the PC version of the game, and it came with optimised controls due to the lack of a keyboard.
“We literally took the PC version and dropped it straight into the Dreamcast compiler,” says programmer Paul Taylor. “Of course, it didn’t work… but then we chopped out all the Pc-specific code until the compiler stopped complaining. But I was quite proud of it and the team behind it – we managed to pull off a decent conversion in the six months we originally estimated. Just about.”
While it is inevitable that development of such a complex game caused minor disagreements, the learning experience that it became for the majority of the Acclaim Teesside team means most look back on its creation with fondness. “I loved that time,” recalls Trevor, “it was working with a fab bunch, many of whom I’m still friends with today.” Trevor’s colleague in the art and design department, Nick Patrick, adds, “I learnt a great deal from Shadow Man. It was the first big 3D game that Acclaim Teesside produced as the whole industry was changing with longer development times, bigger teams and larger financial risks. It was tough – when the game went into crunch development, I seem to remember Tim [Haywood] was spotted wandering the corridors one night – he had been sleeping in his office and got up for a comfort break.”
In reality, Tim had been living at Acclaim for some time during the development of Shadow Man, but still greatly enjoyed the development experience working on the game offered. “I lived there for about a year and had a room with a bed,” he says. “There were showers and a kitchen, so I had all that I needed. But it was, and still is the best game development experience I ever had. The way it was made is the way games should be made, with deep immersion within the subject matter and total passion for the process and content.” Studio head Jason Falcus admits he learned much too, considering his management role on the game. “I learned a lot about developing large-scale, original console games with a large team,” he concludes, “and am proud to have been involved with Shadow Man. It was an ambitious project, but I think in the end it was an excellent game, and one that people still talk about today.” Jason makes a very good point, as a remaster of Shadow Man has recently been announced by Nightdive Studios. It would appear that the adventures of Mike Leroi are far from over.
Although it’s highly unlikely we’ll be receiving a third Shadow Man game anytime soon, it seems like Mike Leroi isn’t resting on his laurels.
After working on well-received remasters of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter,
Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil, Forsaken and the rather excellent Doom 64, Nightdive Studios revealed that one of the games it’s turning its attention to next is Shadow Man. The company has already re-released the original PC game on services like Steam back in 2014 after acquiring the rights from Acclaim, but it now has bigger plans for the acclaimed action adventure.
Shadow Man Remastered is currently due for 2021, it’s also expected to be significantly enhanced as well. Created using Nightdive’s ‘Kex’ engine, the new remaster will boast a 4K widescreen display, HDR rendering, dynamic shadow mapping, as well as refined art, audio and assets. The most exciting aspect, however, is the news that missing content will be included from the original game – something Nightdive has tackled before in the likes of its Doom 64 remaster.
Add in the fact that the studio will most likely make numerous other tweaks to Shadow Man’s controls, like it does with virtually all its new remasters, and Mike Leroi’s future is suddenly starting to look very bright indeed.