Alone in the Dark’s creator is crowdfunding a new Mega Drive / Genesis game with a unique controller
Frédérick Raynal wants to fund PopCorn: Duel with its own spinner controller
Survival horror game pioneer Frédérick Raynal, who directed the original 1992 Alone in the Dark game, is crowdfunding a new game for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis.
The game in question is a remake of his own 1988 PC title, PopCorn, which at the time of publishing is around half way towards its funding goal on Kickstarter.
PopCorn is a Breakout-style brick breaker game. The new version, PopCorn: Duel, will include a ‘PopCorn Spinner’ controller, if funded.
Speaking to Time Extension about the project, Raynal explained that losing a friend inspired him to scale it up beyond his original intentions.
“A little over a year ago, a friend of mine, David Mekersa (from the site GameCodeur.fr), who writes books on learning how to program, contacted me,” he said. “He wanted to create a C programming course for the Mega Drive using SGDK and asked if I had an old game that would be a good fit for it.
“I immediately thought of Popcorn, a brick-breaker I created in 1988, which was perfect for a console released the same year! This game is very well known to (older) gamers worldwide, and I have a special affection for that era and the time spent with Christophe Lacaze when we made it.”
He continued: “So, I started working on the adaptation with very didactic code and progressive steps: first just a paddle and a ball, then bonuses, monsters, and so on.
“Unfortunately, and this is the sad part of the story, David fell very ill and passed away. The adaptation was almost finished, and I decided to complete it as a tribute to him.”
Raynal said that, after creating a prototype spinner controller, demand from his friends convinced him to make it part of a crowdfunded project.
“There has never been a controller of this type for the Mega Drive, and those that exist for arcade cabinets are expensive and bulky,” he said.
