From ‘Ornithopter Assault’ to Elland: an interview with John Roo of The Retro Room Games

In 2002, a Dune game called ‘Ornithopter Assault’ was almost finished and ready for release on the Gameboy Advance. But when publisher Cryo Interactive went bankrupt, the game ended up cancelled. For years it was trapped in a vault, and the only way to play it was via a ROM of the unfinished game that had made its way onto the Internet.

20 years later, John Roo of Retro Room Games changed that by releasing a digital and, incredibly, a physical version of the game under the name Elland: The Crystal Wars.

I had to find out more, so I interviewed John about games preservation, The Retro Room Games, and how and why he had resurrected ‘Ornithopter Assault’.

Let’s start with a big one, John. How did you get into game preservation?

Well I started programming with my dad. We were building stuff with microcontrollers, mostly to control things like lights or alarms. And I grew up with video games, I’ve been a gamer all my life. So it just kind of made sense for me to work on games. So I made a game for fun, Quest Arrest. And people enjoyed it, it ended up taking off. People started reviewing it and I got a couple of nice reviews from some sizeable YouTubers.

You released Quest Arrest on the Gameboy. Why did you choose the Gameboy for your first game?

I came across the engine GB Studio and it’s a really good introduction into game development. It was kind of in its infant stages when I was playing with it, it was really a new thing. I made something like 100 copies of the game and they sold out in that first day. So I ordered more and I started investing the money into licensing. I wish I had a “I knew what I was doing” kind of story, but it wasn’t that way at all. I had no idea what I was doing and I still don’t!

To be honest, every team I’ve spoken to said the same thing: “We didn’t really know what we were doing, we just tried it!” How did you go from making your own Gameboy game to game preservation?

I really liked the idea of feeding old consoles with new games. That was a really cool idea. It keeps those consoles alive for generations to come. And it really grinds my gears that someone could work so hard on developing a video game and it just got cancelled by a company because of bureaucracy or money. Now I’ve done several games on several platforms, I knew how much work was involved. So I started trying to hunt down these games that didn’t get their opportunity.

What was the first game you licensed?

The first one was Chip’s Challenge. It came out in 1989 for Atari Lynx. It’s such a cool puzzle game and I had this real fond memory of playing it as a kid and being able to have the opportunity to give it more life was awesome. And it had never been released on the Super Nintendo or the Sega in the way we did it. It was really cool to bring that community back to life.

How do you track down the rights holders for these old games?

I’m telling you, it’s an art to hunt down some of these companies. The hunting process of this company bought this company and this company went bankrupt but this person owns the intellectual property. My first venture into this was, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the game Ski Free? The old PC game where you ski down a mountain and a yeti will chase you?

Yes! I used to play that all the time!

Right! (laughs) It gets that reaction every time. I reached out to Windows, I reached out to the original developer. I wanted to make a sequel or rerelease it on modern platforms. I never heard back from anybody. It was this endless hunt. But through looking for Ski Free, I ended up find those who owned the rights to Chip’s Challenge. And they introduced me to some other people, and it spiralled from there. A lot of times, these games die in obscurity which is heartbreaking, but I just can’t find who owns them.

How did you get your hands on ‘Ornithopter Assault’?

I was working with a company called Evercade and they put one of my indie games on their platform. Evercade introduced me to someone who then introduced me to a company called AUK Studios. And they said, “We have something for you, but there’s a catch: we can’t get the Dune licence. So you’re gonna have to remove everything Dune.” And I thought, that’s going to be a challenge because I know nothing about Dune!

What did you do next?

I asked the community if they wanted a physical release of this game, and we ended up raising I think $21,000 through crowdfunding. I hired one of my friends to do some programming, I spoke with some of the original developers. We had to go back to the old Windows XP machine to develop and export versions of the game. I started working with a tester named Ryan, and he’s a very big fan of the Dune franchise. He really helped me go over every bit of the script and change everything. AUK told me how they wanted to change words, what they wanted to use instead of ‘ornithopter’, what they wanted to use instead of ‘spice’.

Were you worried about this at all?

It definitely makes me nervous to do any sort of licensed release. It’s not my game, you know, it’s somebody else’s. It’s a little bit of a weight on my shoulders in terms of making it right with everybody. You have to jump through hoops with the rights holders, with designers. But I go back to my dad, he says, “No risk, no reward!”

Does removing the Dune references change the game in your view?

In this game in particular, the gameplay is what makes the game. It’s not a huge, story-driven experience. The story was already kind of basic: there’s a bad guy collecting the resources and now you have to collect the resources and kill the bad guy. You can jump into Elland and have a really good time.

How important do you think an IP is to a game? Does it change a game if you strip the IP out?

I think it’s important to marketing and sales. Fans of Batman will buy it because it’s Batman. But a lot of times these no-name games are so fun, it doesn’t matter. The gameplay transcends the intellectual property. If we had gotten a licence for a Dune game, it would have sold a lot better. But I think a game being fun will carry it better. A lot of times, no-name games end up becoming name games because of how fun they are.

How long did it take from getting the source code to publishing the game?

I think maybe a year? A lot of that is because everything in the industry moves extremely slow. It’s not just that game, it’s all games. You’re waiting on this, you’re waiting on that. I need this piece of art before I can do this, I need one logo before I can print the cover, I’m waiting on a rights holders to tell me if one line needs to be changed before we can get the programmer to export the game and get the tester to test it.

What was the toughest part of bringing Elland into the world?

I think I felt the most stress was whenever we were trying to remove that Dune content. I just want to get the game out. I don’t want to take away from anybody else’s wallet, that’s not my goal. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, and I think that’s a personal struggle, really.

What makes you say that?

Whenever you’re a business owner, you can’t make everybody happy. That’s just an impossible thing. At the end of the day, there’s gonna be people who hate what I do, or hate something about my game, or just hate the way I look or talk. I have an internalised struggle with that sort of concept. I wish everybody would just be happy and enjoy what I do. But that’s impossible.

You talk about keeping people happy. Some people will only want the pure, original game. And some are quite happy with changes if it means they can play the game. How do you feel about the conflict between preserving a game and changing it to make something playable and widely available?

I’ve seen a lot of companies get ripped apart for this, and I think that’s because they try to remove the original game to force people to buy it from them. That’s not something I’ll ever do. It’s not this corporate, profit-driven motivation. You can download our version of Chip’s Challenge for free. You can find the unfinished version of ‘Ornithopter Assault’ online. If you want to play our version, it’s also free! And if you want to buy a physical copy, that costs us money so we charge for that.

What was Elland’s launch like?

People have really enjoyed it. It just got a big shout out from a YouTuber the other day. It’s everything that I want out of releasing a game.

You put so much work, so much time, so much of you into the game. But so much work on the game has been done by other people. How does that feel?

I gotta give them full credit. I make sure not to remove any credit. Mostly those people who work on those games got paid a salary, so they got paid. But they deserve the credit. And if there’s bad reception, it still hurts my feelings. I take responsibility for it because I’m the one who chose to release this game. I wish they could have had a better experience with it.

There’s no mention of Dune or ‘Ornithopter Assault’ on the Kickstarter or on your website.

I didn’t want to step on the toes of who owns Dune, you know? And it being a Dune game would help market it, for sure, but it could also get me sued! So I didn’t even talk about it. Dune fans connected Elland with ‘Ornithopter Assault’, IGN did it in their article. That’s fine. You can look at the images and figure it out. But I didn’t want to advertise based upon that. I just wanted to get the game released.

Do you worry that someone looking for ‘Ornithopter Assault’ won’t find Elland?

I’m not too worried about the cross-promotion of it. If someone looking for ‘Ornithopter Assault’ came across Elland and wanted a physical copy, that’d be cool.

As a retro gamer, you had to know this question was coming: what’s your favourite retro console?

Hands down, Super Nintendo. No competition. I love the capabilities of it, the controllers, everything about it is great. I’m working on Super Nintendo games as we speak and it’s just my favourite, hands down.

So what’s your favourite SNES game?

Donkey Kong Country 2. 

Which retro game would you most like to get your hands on?

There’s a lot of unreleased games I would love to get. There’s a dead franchise I would love to get my hands on, Mighty Max. I don’t know if you’re heard of it?

Yeah, I used to have the toys! I’d forgotten about Mighty Max.

Yeah, there were games and a cartoon and toys. The TV show and game got horrible reception, but I’d love to get my hands on that. I’d love to do a revival of that concept. But I think it’s in an intellectual property limbo because two companies own pieces of it.

I’m surprised they haven’t brought it back. Everything’s coming back. And I didn’t even know there was a video game.

People hated it. But I had it as a kid and I have a soft spot for it, even if it is kind of bad.

So if not Mighty Max, what’s next?

I’ve got like 10 games coming up. I have some obscure games from the CDi and the Sega Saturn, a couple of Super Nintendo games, a couple of Gameboy games. We’ve got some PC releases coming up I’d like to get on Steam. I’m starting to dip into doing movies. The first one we’ve landed is a cartoon that was only released in Sweden in the 70s. It’s a really cool cartoon so we’ve had it redone in English.

Thank you again, John, for taking the time to speak to me!

You can get a physical or digital edition of Elland: The Crystal Wars from Retro Room Games.

You can find out more about the creation of ‘Ornithopter Assault’ in my interview with Peter Wodzinsky, or you can find out even more about Dune games by taking a look at Calling the Makers.