Little Mathletics

When I was growing up, I idolised Dave Perry. Earthworm Jim wasn’t my favourite game - in fact, I only hired it a few times - but I loved what it stood for. As far as I was concerned, the level in Earthworm Jim 2 where you have to catch the puppies on the Giant Marshmallow of Love was the greatest piece in design in gaming. It’s not too far from how I feel now, either.

For someone growing up in the 80s and 90s, Dave Perry was the man. Aladdin! Cool Spot! The Captain Planet game! And, MDK was kinda fun, for a bit. But, man, what happened? Enter the Matrix? Path of Neo? Jeeeesus.

His resignation from Atari in February, and thus Shiny, the company he founded back in ‘93, gave me some hope. Now he’s announced that he’s working with the newly rejigged Acclaim on a remake of the “brutal M-rated” Korean MMO Dekaron, which could well be very interesting. And not just because the official site of Dekaron says “it is reality which is not game”. Radness.

Also on board for the project, as Perry’s new best friend, is Sunghun Baek, chief technical officer of Korean game maker GameHi, who made the original. According to the man himself, “There’s a clear need for Western designers to get involved if the games end up here, and so this is a special situation where the original game creator and I have decided to partner on this challenge.”

The new game will be titled 2Moons, and, like the rest of the new Acclaim’s line-up, will be a free release, with the profits coming from item sales within the game, and in-game advertising. In an interview with Next Gen, Perry comments that gamers will be able to “turn the in-game adverts off”, and notes that “we want to re-define the term FREE, to completely remove the barrier to entry, to open up the market. If we ram adverts down your throat, it’s not free anymore.”

Admittedly, my computer won’t play the damn thing, but I’m looking forward to it all the same. Do good work, Dave!