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[Canis lupus]

Interesting article from USGamer. How many of you heard about the Net Yaroze or played its games?

Over 15 years ago the seeds were sown by a strange and brilliant enterprise on the original PlayStation with Net Yaroze. The offbeat, rough-around-the-edges and weirdly compelling games that resulted represented the first time Sony fostered a community of emerging talent and helped launch a generation of game development careers.

Sony launched the Net Yaroze project in 1997. It made available to hobbyist coders a basic version of the PlayStation dev kit housed in an attractive black casing for the princely sum of £550 (about $836 at today's exchange rate), though this was later cut in half. Around a thousand units were sold in Europe, which effectively created a ready-made community of budding developers working independently on the PlayStation platform.

TimeSlip, inspired by an episode of Dr Who, was the one of the first games to use the idea of one player co-op, where people played with past echoes of themselves. It was also super-difficult. Robot Ron was an early revival of the twin-stick shooter; its name a pun on the genre's originator Robotron 2084. Decaying Orbit was a compulsive planet-lander with impressive physics. Other games included stylish retro-shooter Samsaric Asymptote, top-down football game Total Soccer (which went on to play a crucial role in development of the engine for several handheld FIFA games), and Rocks 'n' Gems, which developed a cult following in the pages of the magazine.

Alongside the hardware Sony also provided private forums for Yaroze creators. "Every creator had a page," recalls Johnston. "I remember feeling at home there. I spent hours looking through pages of other users and trying out their games." It gave creators the opportunity to seek help not only from their peers, but directly from Sony.

"The private newsgroups were the best place to get help because you could talk to both users and dev support," says Cartier. Sony essentially created a potted indie community and nurtured it with technical help, as well as holding events and competitions. Matt James was late to the party, but he remembers that even toward the end Sony was still engaged. "I think the Sony people were active and helping because they liked Net Yaroze. They weren't even officially assigned to work on it."

The lack of distribution meant many games were never seen outside of this community. This made it even more special when a game was selected for the Official PlayStation Magazine cover disc. "It felt amazing!" says Johnston. "It felt like an awful lot of people would end up with a copy of my game." Cartier, who lives in the US, bought a new PC monitor just so that he could play the PAL discs ("It was my first officially published game!").

This small community became very Euro-centric. Although each region had its own newsgroups, SCEA did not offer much support and Japan was isolated by the language barrier. The latter developed an air of mystery. It could be quiet for months, only for an incredibly accomplished game to emerge, such as the WipEout-inspired Hover Racing or the 3D adventure Terra Incognita. Lead developer of the latter Mitsuru Kamiyama now works at Square-Enix, while the game is available on iOS.

The support in Europe did not just represent a significant advancement for hobbyist developers. Now prevalent across the globe, games technology courses simply didn't exist in the '90s. Professor Ian Marshall helped set up what was arguably the world's first at the University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland.

"[The Net Yaroze] was incredibly important," he says. "We had a whole range of developers in Dundee who wanted students for 3D console programming. Students from a traditional computer science background could do C++ but not programs that worked in 3D. Access to a Net Yaroze meant we could put them in a console environment and we could actually host target programming which is basically how most of the games industry worked at that time."

Sony was generous in its support of the course. "Sony was giving a few people in universities one [Yaroze]. We got two rooms full of them - around 40 Yaroze platforms - free of charge." This presented a steep learning curve for all involved, but, like the private newsgroups, Sony was keen for Abertay to get the best out of the hardware. "We got support from their technical people, their educational people," says Marshall. "Sometimes we had to go back to Sony Europe and say 'Help!' They were always there."

The importance of Sony's support on both an individual and academic level should not be underestimated. Graduates from Abertay emerged equipped with skills relevant to the rapidly evolving console market and were quickly snatched up. Similarly, a huge number of Yaroze creators went on to work in game development - several of them at Sony.

Some independent developers remain wary of working on consoles. Horror stories still circulate (although it must be said, rarely about Sony). Professor Ian Marshall believes the Net Yaroze can act as a blueprint for winning trust and nurturing new talent. "Make it easy for indies to jump from developing on a PC to developing in whatever they want. The Yaroze communities were classic social networking. Continue that and provide support materials so that developers can get that first step, that first little game together."

Shahid Ahmad agrees. "PlayStation as a company works hard to build and retain trust across the board. Our willingness to engage across social media, at events, in person, and on forums with a mandate to support developers and other partners the best we can means we don't put up an artificial front. Real passionate people at PlayStation and in the development community get to talk about the work they love and to build a business around that." It's a strategy that will look altogether familiar to anyone who was part of the fertile Net Yaroze community.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-net-yaroze-sonys-first-indie-push

Also a Gamasutra article

Some Net Yaroze games

Total Soccer:

TimeSlip

Hover Racing

Terra Incognita

a Lets play:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDxBPc9MwWE

Fatal Fantasy VII

Psychon, dope soundtrack, more Yaroze games in this vid

 

[u_neek]

I remember the demos (or was it full games?) that came with the OPM UK demo disc and reading quite a lot about it in various magazines.

 

[fenners]

I've got one. The company I worked for did a deal with Sony to offer employees NetYaroze kits for a slightly reduced price & a payment plan directly out our paycheques. One side benefit of it was that it was also completely region-free, great for playing US imports like Final Fantasy Tactics.

The community rocked. We did unofficial Dundee Yaroze meetups in a pub.

 

[stolin]

I've still got mine. I did a few distributed projects with a few guys. There were only a couple of us in Canada. The closest guy to me 400km at that time is now dev manager @ Sony SCEE.

This was Indie Dev

 

[BigDug13]

But I was told Microsoft started the console indie movement with the XBLA.

I do remember something about this back in the PS1 days, but I never had the magazine subscription to try these.

 

[dukeoflegs]

I wanted one of these so bad when I first read about them, but being in Jr High at the time I didn't really have any kind of income. I would read websites of people making games which made me incredibly jealous.

 

[Shiloa]

The soccer game was pretty good.

There was this tough as nails platformer - dog's tail or something.

I loved a game called Pushy.

 

[Mario]

How many of you heard about the Net Yaroze or played its games?

We started our company on one of these. Our current SCEE account manager also got his game development start in the Net Yaroze program.

Alas, we lost our unit in a burglary only a couple of years after we got it, although we had graduated to proper PlayStation development hardware by that point.

 

[Priz]

Sony held a contest in Japan for the best Net Yarouze project and the team behind said game would get a 3 year deal with Sony where they paid for housing, salary and published everything that company made during that timeframe. The winners were a group called Shift.

They created this addictive dice-based puzzle game called XI[sai]. It later had a great sequel called XI Jumbo and on the PS2 had a final game called XI Go (Which also meant final as in the last of the series). XI Go was originally something that Enix USA was looking at bringing here (before the Square merger) but Capcom released it here as Bombastic. This is the one game I wished was on PSN as I still play it now and then.

Shift worked on God Eater Burst and is currently doing God Eater Burst 2.

Just a small bit of history...

 

[SolidSnakex]

Sony held a contest in Japan for the best Net Yarouze project and the team behind said game would get a 3 year deal with Sony where they paid for housing, salary and published everything that company made during that timeframe. The winners were a group called Shift.

They created this addictive dice-based puzzle game called XI[sai]. It later had a great sequel called XI Jumbo and on the PS2 had a final game called XI Go (Which also meant final as in the last of the series). XI Go was originally something that Enix USA was looking at bringing here (before the Square merger) but Capcom released it here as Bombastic. This is the one game I wished was on PSN as I still play it now and then.

Shift worked on God Eater Burst and is currently doing God Eater Burst 2.

Just a small bit of history...

DD also sold a million units in Japan. So, it was a huge success.

There's also rumors that the creator of Ape Escape won a contest through Yaroze which landed him at Sony and then led to AE.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

I've heard of it and, initially, it stood out as a black PlayStation.

I was young though and probably didn't fully comprehend it but now I can really see just how Sony, right from the first PS system, had a focus on small developers being able to make games on their platforms, which is cool.

 

[dallow_bg]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/terra-incognita-hd/id383087798?mt=8

The iOS version of Terra if anyone is interested.

 

[Visualante2]

I remember the demos (or was it full games?) that came with the OPM UK demo disc and reading quite a lot about it in various magazines.

Seemed like full games, I remember there was an asteroid style one that I kept but I chucked most of the discs now. I know Edge has done a couple articles on Net Yaroze of the years. One of them was quite interesting because they went back 10 years later to see where the interviewed people are now.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/feature-net-yaroze-class-2000/

 

[Saiyar]

I remember the demos (or was it full games?) that came with the OPM UK demo disc and reading quite a lot about it in various magazines.

It was full games. Terra Incognita (above) was on one of them.

 

[Waylon Drums]

I remember hearing about it when it first came out and thinking, "oh my, what a stupid sounding name"

 

[Canis lupus]

Rocks 'n' Diamonds clone Rocks'n'Gems looks fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkXRu0l8jDw

 

[NinjamicWZ]

Sony held a contest in Japan for the best Net Yarouze project and the team behind said game would get a 3 year deal with Sony where they paid for housing, salary and published everything that company made during that timeframe. The winners were a group called Shift.

They created this addictive dice-based puzzle game called XI[sai]. It later had a great sequel called XI Jumbo and on the PS2 had a final game called XI Go (Which also meant final as in the last of the series). XI Go was originally something that Enix USA was looking at bringing here (before the Square merger) but Capcom released it here as Bombastic. This is the one game I wished was on PSN as I still play it now and then.

Shift worked on God Eater Burst and is currently doing God Eater Burst 2.

Just a small bit of history...

Devil Dice was freaking amazing. I never knew that was a Net Yaroze yield. I've actually been trying to work out the illusion of rotating dice logic on LBPV lately (since cubes can't actually rotate) as an exercise, and it's been mindwarpingly fun, so it's funny to see that here and find out they made God Eater Burst. That's sick.

I also saw Devil Dice end up in a PS2 budget title called Bombastic with semi-cel shaded visuals.

I knew of this thing from magazines back then, and have seen youtube vids since. Was really cool sounding to me, even as a teenager.

 

[amar212]

Two words.

SUPERBUB CONTEST.

Nothing comes close, nothing will ever come close.

Yaroze masterpiece. It shuould be selling for gold on PSN.

 

[Canis lupus]

Two words.

SUPERBUB CONTEST.

Nothing comes close, nothing will ever come close.

Yaroze masterpiece. It shuould be selling for gold on PSN.

Looks more fun than Bust a Move!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSGOtsu-TFM

They should indeed bring some Yaroze games to PSN.

 

[fvng]

Always wanted one when I was a kid :/

 

[Micerider]

Sony held a contest in Japan for the best Net Yarouze project and the team behind said game would get a 3 year deal with Sony where they paid for housing, salary and published everything that company made during that timeframe. The winners were a group called Shift.

They created this addictive dice-based puzzle game called XI[sai]. It later had a great sequel called XI Jumbo and on the PS2 had a final game called XI Go (Which also meant final as in the last of the series). XI Go was originally something that Enix USA was looking at bringing here (before the Square merger) but Capcom released it here as Bombastic. This is the one game I wished was on PSN as I still play it now and then.

Shift worked on God Eater Burst and is currently doing God Eater Burst 2.

Just a small bit of history...

Oh man, I still have my copy of Devil Dice. fantastic game. I did not know it was related to Net Yaroze.

 

[Lagunamov]

I had a disc demo with a few of this games. My favourite was a gore game, you had fireguns and the screen was plenty of blood.

 

[Persona7]

Devil Dice is awesome!


I always remember this : http://www.actsofgord.com/Annoy/chapter23.php

"This is Gord calling from Gamer's Edge. Just informing you that Devil Dice is late by a week."

"Actually, I lost it. What will it cost me to replace?"

"Twenty-four dollars."

"That's cheap. Uhm... Can I have the case since you won't need it anymore... Just in case it turns up one day... You know how kids are..."

"Sir, while Devil Dice is an uncommon game, I have them in stock brand new for $30."

"Really?"

"Really. Wouldn't you prefer buying a new one?"

"Oh, in that case I'll be right down with your game. Can you hold a new copy for me?"

"No problem."

 

[wonzo]

hello

 

[Siegmeyer]

I remember really wanting one of these back in the day, not because I had the first clue about programming, I just thought a matte black PS1 looked cool as fuck.

It still looks great now.