Bits Corporation was another company that had a lot of plans with CD-i, but in the end all the plans were either too ambitious or not suited for the CD-i hardware. As we've seen before, Bits took the money of Philips to develop for their CD-i system. Philips was at that time subsidizing companies in order to let them develop CD-i titles.
London games developer Bits Corporation has linked-up with Philips Media to develop three cd-i titles. The first of these will be "New Day", a futuristic adventure game, which is already in production and is due for release in the first quarter of 1996. The other titles in development are "Cartoon Academy" and "Riqa". Riqa eventually popped up as N64 prototype.
In New Day, which is currently being filmed at the Roundhouse in Camden, North London, you take the part of Dwayne, who wakes up after a devastating explosion. He then takes a journey through the non-linear virtual world of the game to discover why is under threat and how his murky past is tied to his current predicament. His quest takes him from London to Vietnam, home of his mother's family and also of the electronics giant SEAcorp.
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| The Roundhouse Camden, where the material of "New Day" was recorded. |
New Day features 60 real-life characters and is being filmed using 16 digital cameras on a 360 degree blue screen circular stage.
Bits Corporation has already worked on game titles like "Terminator", "Spider Man", "Aliens 3".
It’s probably worth trying to sort out a timeline and seeing who worked on what game. I think Itchy and Scratchy was started before I finished T2 and overlapped a bit on No Escape and Frankenstein although I could be wrong. But I guess someone just snuck it in. After Frankenstein, a lot of people then spent time working on a title for Philips CDi and PC. I think it was called New Day, although I remember it as Citizen Dwayne. Citizen Dwayne I think was just an internal working title, or could just have been a nickname we gave it. Lots of 3D image capture and it was looking pretty good when Philips canned it.
CD-i Magazine wrote about Bits Corporation in June 1995: "“Bits corporation signs joint venture with Philips
London games developer Bits Corporation has linked-up with Philips Media to develop a range of new games for CDi and other platforms. Three titles are currently in development.
The first of these will be New Day, a futuristic adventure game, which is already in production and is due for release in the first quarter of 1996. The two other titles in development are Cartoon Academy and Riga.
“We are thrilled to enter a long term partnership with such a dynamic company”, says Philips Media president Scott Marden. By combining our expertise in technology and distribution with Bits’ creativity and strength in cutting edge production techniques, we can create some of the hottest new software in the market.”
In New Day, which is currently being filmed at the Roundhouse in Camden, north London, you take the part of Dwayne, who wakes up after a devastating explosion. He then takes a journey through the non-linear virtual world of the game to discover why he is under threat and how his murky past is tied to his current predicament. His quest takes him from London to Vietnam, home of his mother’s family and also of the electronics giant SEAcorp.
New Day features 60 real-life characters and is being filmed using 16 digital cameras on a 360-degree blue screen circular stage.
Foo Katan, president of Bits Corporation, says: “We have been working with Philips Media for the last year on New Day. I believe this venture will allow us to fully harness Philips Media’s distribution strength and support, enabling us to create highly innovative leading titles.” Bits has already worked on top game titles such as Terminator, Spider Man, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and Aliens 3.”
Steve Howard: "Many years ago the company I was working with were creating a game 'New Day' for the CD-I. We did lots of work on it including using 16 digital cameras on a 360-degree blue screen circular stage in the roundhouse Camden. Sadly it was dropped before it could be released. It was sort of a 3rd person 3d adventure. Walk around, talk to people, pick up things etc. The backgrounds were pre rendered, static, pans, scrolls etc using 3ds. I grabbed all the data including camera settings, zbuffer and used that to project the 3d captured characters into the scene."
[Thanks, Steve Howard, Everything Amiga, CD-i Magazine]