In 1993, two technical engineering students, Peter De Jong and Maurice Sibrandi, started an internship at dutch developing studio DIMA to create games on CD-i. They wanted to explore what was possible on the CD-i system. Peter: “Maurice and I had similar interests, so we quickly decided to both do it. There was no Dutch game industry back then. There were some studios making CD-i games, that was it.” Peter and Maurice already had expience in making games on their Amiga system. They both graduaded at DIMA and the studio became well known by publishing the Family Games titles as well as Christmas Crisis on CD-i. In 1996, Philips pulled the plug out of CD-i development and DIMA decided to go independent: They started their own company, the independent Creative Media. For publishing, they set up their own publishing team: New Frontier Entertainment.
1997 was an important year for Creative Media. As an independent software company (and publishing house), costs were very important and their business model was to create entertaining software in a relatively short time. For example, Christmas Country on CD-i was finished in 6 months of developing time. Whack a Bubble was even finished in three months. Tetsuo Gaiden was somewhere in between this, mainly because of the Digital Video sequences that were implemented in the background.
In 1997 Creative Media had three serious CD-i projects: Tetsuo Gaiden was the first one, being released in February 1997. In June, Whack a Bubble was on their release schedule and near Christmas 1997, Creative Media was planning Christmas Country: The Lost Levels, which they planned to be update of the 1996 original, now updated with better scrolling, now including background music and with extra levels.
Whack a Bubble is a Puzzle Game much like the well known Arkanoid and just as addictive. Besides the regular one player game a two player head to head match was also available in the game. This was also one of the few games published on CD-i independently of Philips Media, released under the New Frontier entertainment label which was part of the Creative Media group.
Whack a Bubble is often critized for the simple graphics and simple gameplay. The fact that is was finished in three months adds to the feeling this was a bit of simplistic and rough on the edges. ""Whack-a-Bubble is a colorful but poor looking Arkanoid clone; Arkanoid is Break Out with the ability to shoot the bricks. The bricks have been replaced by bubbles. Though colorful the graphics are plain and a little pixelated.
The sound is alright with a suiting relaxing melody than didn't get on my nerves too rapidly. The control works fine, but the gameplay doesn't offer anything more than you can find in common freeware, shareware or even online Flash-games. Besides the regular 'arcade challenge', there are some additional options like three difficulty settings, beat the clock and your high scores are saved in a nice overview. It is also possible to play the game with two players in 'head 2 head'.", Tom Lenting told us.
Earlier that year, Creative Media released Tetsuo Gaiden. We asked Gir draxa to revisit his classic CD-i review on this title: "Tetsuo Gaiden is a space blast-fest of impressive proportions. Blast your way through wave after wave of aliens as you conquer your way through their home space. Can you and your battle-craft conquer through? Will it be a slaughter? It's all up to you... (Stop looking so worried!)
Usually, most shooters fall short of being entertaining. Happily, thats not the case with Gaiden. Fans of the classic arcade game Galaxian will be right at home here. However, they've taken it a step farther by making it an adventure with a scrolling FMV background, which is smooth scroll, and very cool with lots of activity, and really nice CGI rendered look. However, the actual game graphics layed over the FMV is just standard shooter fare, but thankfully does not get lost in the background.
The sound, ripped straight from the classic gaming days, is very crisp, and brings back the feeling from the old arcade fun. Control is pretty much dead on, but I really had the feeling that it needs more weapons. While gameplay is dead on, it's just not as deep as it could be.
Overall, a good shooter, and good fun for all ages. Though those who play alot of shooters may initally find it simple, it still has enough to keep even the most die-hard fan happy.
"When CD-i became unpopular, De Jong and Sibrandi spent a couple of years working IT jobs. In 2000, the dynamic duo took the step to found their own company, Codeglue, which still exists today."