Spellbound Entertainment

The Spellbound Entertainment AG was a German computer game developer based in Offenburg. The company was founded in 1994 by Armin Gessert.

History

After Armin Gessert had worked in Rainbow Arts and Blue Byte, he founded in 1994 with Jean- Marc Haessig own development studio. The team is composed mainly of developers from Germany and France. The net income of the corporation amounted to 6708.13 euros in fiscal 2009.

Initially supplied the studio graphics for the third part of the Nordland Trilogy by Attic before it received the order to develop a real-time strategy game for the German science fiction novel series Perry Rhodan.

Published in 1998 the first own game Airline Tycoon (AT ), a business simulation, which was characterized by high complexity and at the same time easily accessible. The comic style in which the game was implemented, was maintained at the following games, albeit in a partially attenuated. Airline Tycoon First Class received with AT, AT and AT Deluxe evolution in subsequent years, several add- ons or new editions. Work on the successor Airline Tycoon 2 were terminated after the name and marketing rights were sold to the publisher Kalypso Media.

The first big hit made ​​the game Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive from what was regarded by many game magazines and players as well thought-out and coherent than the previous genre Primus Commandos. However clouded disputes with Publisher Infogrames complimentary extensions, the so-called " webisodes " to success, as they have been announced but never released.

The quasi- successor Robin Hood - The Legend of Sherwood and Chicago 1930 could partly by radical changes to the gameplay unable to build on this success ( emphasis on action elements ) and the disappointment of the " webisodes ". But, at least for Robin Hood, some of which were welcomed innovative ideas.

During this time as a " game for in between " was Gunsmoke, a kind of grouse clone.

The Desperados successor Desperados 2: Cooper 's Revenge, which was published on 26 April 2006, tied back to the elements of the first part and was well received by both buyers as well as from game magazines.

Company founder Armin Gessert passed away on November 8, 2009. His former deputy Andreas Speer leads since then, the company, the creative direction lies with the co-founder Jean -Marc Haessig.

On 12 October 2010, the game appeared Arcania - Gothic 4, the fourth installment of the Gothic series of RPG, the Austrian publisher JoWooD.

Insolvency

In March 2012, Spellbound was forced to file for bankruptcy. The business, however, was for the time being continue as normal. In July 2012, it was announced that a large part of the workforce have established a new development studio under the name Black Forest games. 35 of the last 60 employees moved into the new studio and took over the last developed by Spellbound projects.

July 30, 2012 Black Forest Games started on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, a project financing for the completion of the Project Giana, which was called the " grandson " of the C64 - success track The Great Giana Sisters. The soundtrack of the game was, as already composed for the original by Chris Hülsbeck.

Developed Games