6. Amulets and Armour

Project Name: Amulets & Armor

Developer: United Software Artists
Publisher: United Software Artists
Platforms: PC
Start date: July 1995
Date canned: January 1997
Reason for cancellation: Unable to publish

Personnel:
David & Eric Webster - Producers
Lysle Shields - Lead programmer / designer
Janus Anderson - Programmer / designer / music & sfx engineer
Joel Thomas - Artist
Michael Kirkbride - Artist
Dean Beers - Artist
Tiffany Webster - Artist
Tenley Thurston - Artist
Billy Fox - Music
Edward Singer - Map design
Tyce Toothaker - Map design 

Estimated 'man months' in the can: 100 

Janus Anderson writes:

History of conception: An angel-funded small time startup, United Artists, 
set out to produce and market an RPG game that would combine the best
aspects of DOOM with multiplayer RPG character development.

Assured that publishing channels and marketing efforts would be taken care
of by the angel funders, the development team set out to produce a 
masterpiece of entertainment. After a little more than two years of
development Amulets & Armor was created.  

Innovative Features: 2 1/2D DOOM-style engine with: 

    multiple character selection 
    full RPG character development 
    hundreds of items 
    dozens of different monsters 
    an innovative spell-casting system with hundreds of spells 
    4 player cooperative or death-match play 

 
Tale of Final Days: The game was never 'hit the can', but was never published
or marketed correctly. An attempt at shareware marketing was made, with the 
net result of selling somewhat less than 100 copies. 

Other Comments: It's good to pay attention to your publishing channels 
before you create a game! Monstrous game corporations now rule the world, 
and it is extraordinarily difficult to publish a game without
begging EA, Havaas, or another game giant to do it for you. 

The days of 'garage game hits' are unfortunately long gone. 

Final Word: You can still download a demo, although I doubt you can buy it! 

Download the Amulets and Armour demo

Screenshots:

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