What is Robotech: Crystal Dreams?

R:CD is an incomplete game for Nintendo's N64 game system, based on the popular Robotech cartoon series. It was developed by Gametek, who unfortunately went out of business just as R:CD was nearing completion after two and a half years of work.

Robotech got its start in the early eighties as three seperate Japanese cartoon series: Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Super Dimensional Calvary Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Harmony Gold and producer Carl Macek combined the three series as they translated them into English, creating an 85 episode animated epic that maintained many of the mature themes from the Japanese prime-time originals, despite some necessary "kidification" for the younger American audiences. Over the twenty-five or so years since it appeared on American TV, Robotech spawned fan clubs, comic books, toys, role playing games, novels, and a couple of movie-length sequels. Apparently, a live-action movie of Robotech is in the works....

Crystal Dreams was going to be the first full-featured space combat simulation ever built specifically for a console machine. The game storyline and gameplay style would be tightly connected to the Robotech universe, using many familiar characters and ships, and written by fans of the cartoon series. In general play style, it would be similar to PC games such as the LucasArts Star Wars combat sims (X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, etc), or the Origin Wing Commander games. However, unlike most space sims I've ever played, R:CD would have allowed the player to fly anywhere, at any time. Instead of the traditional sim games, where the player sees a cut-scene, then plays a single mission, then sees another cut-scene before the next mission, in R:CD the player would fly anywhere he wanted, and the game would adjust to his actions.

For example, you could decide in the middle of a combat mission to turn around and fly to Armor Platform 4. You might anger the people who are depending on you in the current battle, which could hurt your "reputation" with the RDF, but the game did not require you to win or lose the battle you are in to move forward in the game. Once you started heading towards Armor 4, you might get attacked at random, or get a radio message calling for help... there could actually be two or three seperate battles going on at the same time, and you would have to choose which was most important to you. If you actually made it to Armor 4, you would then have to maneuver yourself into the landing tunnel of the capital ship, where you could then land and visit the shop and buy ammo, fuel, and upgrades for your Veritech using any money you have earned. The idea was to have an open universe to fly around in, rather than a series of linear scripted missions you must win or lose.

This project started off as a dream come true for me... I was both a fan of space sim games and a big fan of Robotech. Ever since I got my first game programming job at Sega, I had been designing Robotech games in my head, and with this project I had a chance to do it for real. Though the game never got completed, it did give me, on the internet at least, my 15 minutes of minor fame among my fellow Robotech fans, and allowed me to write off my Robotech collecting hobby on my taxes for a couple of years.

What did you (Opus) do on R:CD?

My primary job on R:CD was as the second of two programmers developing the project. However, I was also hired as the story designer of the project, since the Robotech crew at Gametek already knew me from a previous job, and knew I was a Robotech fan (I think the toys scattered all over my work computer gave me away).

When I first joined Gametek (in December, 1995), my first task was to come up with a good Robotech story to fit the game we wanted to do. At that point, Gametek only had a single Ultra64 development system (which didn't work very well). It was already being used by the lead programmer, so there was little I could do in my primary job as a programmer. Within my first couple of days at Gametek, I had come up with the outline for Crystal Dreams (you can find the original outline elsewhere on my R:CD webpage), and over the next couple of months I added details and started writing game dialog (with the help of my friend and then co-worker, Lizard).

Then, for the first eleven months or so of the project, I split my time between doing some programming, and finishing the story design and dialog for the game. After that, however, I spent the majority of my time on programming.

Specific areas of the game that I programmed included the smoke trail effects, the talking character faces, and a bunch of the tools we had to build to get the data we needed from the artists into the N64, as well as many smaller things throughout the game engine.

What was Robotech Academy?

When Gametek first got the license for Robotech (nearly a year before I joined the company), the original game design they created was called "Robotech Academy". The basic idea was that the entire game was going to take place before the Zentraedi show up at Earth... you would have played a Robotech Academy cadet, and all the combat would have occurred in "simulators".

The instant I joined Gametek, I threw out the entire design for Robotech Academy, and started from scratch. To me, it didn't make a lot of sense for cadets to be training in simulators against Zentraedi craft before the Zens ever showed up. More importantly, though, Robotech Academy didn't give me any sense of story or excitement... if all the combat takes place in simulators, where is the tension in the game? How would main characters like Rick Hunter and Minmei fit in to the game when they had not even met yet? It was a decent game design in most ways, but it was obviously put together by someone who only had a passing familiarity with the Robotech universe.

Why did you create the story you did?

When I first joined Gametek, and was asked to come up with a story, there were several things that had already been decided.

First, the game would be based on the Macross era of Robotech, using the first generation Veritechs (the Valkyries), with the Zentraedi as the enemy, and the Macross characters (Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes, Lynn Minmei, etc).

The second important factor was the addition of a new alien threat in the form of simple to draw crystals. The reason for this was that at the time we didn't know what the final display capabilities of the N64 would be (Nintendo was still changing the hardware on us at that point). We needed to make sure we could fill the screen with enemies, and the only way to ensure that without knowing how powerful the final N64 hardware would be was to add something simple to draw to the game. The rather unfortunate name of "Ebolians" had already been chosen by the time I joined the Robotech team.

The crystals meant that I would have to come up with a completely new Robotech story, since no crystals were ever mentioned in the cartoon series. For the same reason, though, the only time period that made much sense was after the end of the Macross portion of the Robotech, but before the beginning of the Sentinels, when the SDF-3 and the Macross characters head off for Tirol. By this time in the Robotech timeline, however, the SDF-1 had been destroyed, and we definitely needed a good-guys mother ship. Since the SDF-3 was the only one available, I set the game a few months before the Sentinels, and made the assumption that the SDF-3 could come out of the Factory Satellite for testing purposes, allowing it to be involved in the combat. I then made the further assumption that damage taken during the "Crystal War" delays the launch of the SDF-3 to Tirol to the final date. This allowed me to have a multiple month period for the war that fit in the Robotech continuity at least as good as a lot of the comic book stories have (I know... that's not saying much), as well as explaining how the SDF-3 was mostly functional at a time six months or more before the Sentinels cartoon.

Once the time period was decided, the enemies were easy... the arrival of a small lost fleet of Zentraedi made the perfect enemy, and I created Eboliar, the giant crystal intelligence behind the Ebolian crystals, as an ally of the enemy fleet... which seemed like an anime-like way of explaining the existence of the crystals in the game.

Since, by this time period in the Robotech saga, Rick Hunter was a Vice-Admiral, I decided to create a new character (Kyle Bartley) to be the game's main character. Since I also needed a love interest (what is Robotech without the main characters having lots of romantic trauma?), I also created the micronized Zentraedi character of Vala Norri. The rest of the game details came as I began to write the dialog.

The game name (Crystal Dreams) seemed natural given the crystal enemies... we wanted a name that wasn't just "Robotech 64," and "Robotech: Crystal Dreams" fit (though my co-worker Lizard Harac was the one to come up with it).

Why was R:CD delayed so many times?

In actuality, Crystal Dreams was only delayed once. The original release date set by Gametek when they got the license for Robotech was supposed to be around the time the N64 got released in the United States (September, 1996). However, almost all the work done on the project before I joined Gametek ended up having to be tossed out, due to changes Nintendo made to the Ultra64 (as it was called then). Thus, we didn't really start development of the game until the beginning of 1996. The game was delayed one time the following September.

After that, however, Gametek never set a release date. Anytime we were asked when the game would be completed, we said that it would be done when we finished it. However, numerous eager magazines and websites made up or misinterpreted comments we made, and claimed release dates for us. Thus, though we consistently told everyone that we were not going to set a final release date, there was the constant feeling in the media that we were setting release dates and then delaying the product.

What kind of problems did you have in making R:CD?

I could give you a number of various problems we had, but in the end the main problem was Gametek... it was a small game software company that made most of its money from game-show games (Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, etc) and whatever cheap games they could buy off small development houses. That was marginally profitable in the late 1980s, but by the mid-90s, the gaming industry had changed a lot. It cost a lot more to make even a small game, so Gametek didn't have the money to hire enough people and the right equipment to get the job done efficiently.

From the beginning of the project (at least, from the time I joined Gametek), we were struggling against a bunch of expensive but inadequate tools. The art package Nintendo required us to purchase was an obscure piece of software that none of the artists had any experience with, but cost a huge amount of money. To add insult to injury, the N64 art exporter attached to it couldn't export the artwork in a form we could use in our game... the N64 exporter had been designed for another game (Pilot Wings, I think), and was largely useless unless you did things exactly like they did on that game. Because of this, for the first two-thirds of the project, it took days (and the full time attention of one of the two programmers) to get a single game model into the game... we had to go through the data the art tool exported, and then modify it by hand... a very tedious process. If there was any mistake anywhere along the way, we would often have to start from the beginning, losing hours or days of work.

Another problem was the number of people on the project. Gametek did not have the money to hire enough people to get the project done, so we were all doubling up on tasks. For example, I was both the game designer and one of two programmers. The other programmer was not only lead programmer on the project, but ended up having to fill the shoes of producer on the game. He not only had to be a full-time programmer, but he had to manage the entire project himself (which I know made his life miserable for most of the project). We also had a total of 5 artists on the game, most of whom were also working part-time on other Gametek projects. As comparison, a project I worked on at The 3DO Company a couple of years later had 5 programmers, 7 artists, 5 or 6 game and level designers, a technical director, and a producer. Of those, only the producer was splitting his time on multiple projects.

I could give you a list of many smaller items that contributed to the problems we had on the project (my big mouth on the internet was one... I, quite deservedly, got in trouble several times for talking too much on the newsgroups about the game). However, most of these are the kinds of things that occur on any project, so there is little point in dwelling on them.

What happened? Why didn't the game get finished?

The short answer is that Gametek went out of business just as we were finally getting close to being done. In July of 1998, about two months after we showed an Alpha version of the game at the 1998 E3 trade show, we all came into work one Monday morning to find that the office was closed. Over the course of the day we were led one-by-one to our cubicles to pick up our belongings, and that was then the end of Gametek.

What happened to Macross: Another Dimension, in Japan?

Macross: Another Dimension was going to be the Japanese port of the game, done by Tomy. Since the mechs used in R:CD came primarily from the popular Japanese cartoon "Super Dimensional Fortress Macross" (which provided a third of the animation for the Robotech cartoon series in the U.S.), Tomy saw an opportunity to have the only Macross game on the N64. However, since R:CD never got completed, there was never any game for them to port for Japan. In addition, though Tomy was certainly interested in the game and even went as far as to advertise it in Japanese magazines, they never actually got the rights to distribute a Macross game from Bandai (at least, as far as I know), so I have no idea what they planned if the game ever got finished.

What about Capcom? Didn't they try to complete the game?

No. Towards the end, Capcom made a deal with Gametek to distribute the game for us. This means that once the game was completed, Capcom would have handled getting the game marketed and into the stores. However, they never had any intention of helping us complete the game. Without a completed game, Capcom couldn't do anything for R:CD. That is certainly where all the rumors about Capcom trying to finish the game came from, though.

Who owns the rights to the game now? Is anybody going to finish R:CD?

Over the year or two after Gametek died, I heard many rumors about companies picking up the game and finishing it (for example, Take Two seemed to buy some of Gametek's contracts at the time, and there were rumors of Capcom grabbing R:CD).

I actually ended up demoing the game to a couple of companies after Gametek's demise, though nothing ever came from that.

Apparently, the rights to the game (and all its source materials) reverted back to Harmony Gold....

So what happens to Crystal Dreams now?

Well, I have my webpage and a lone copy of a demo version of the game, which I frequently show to people when the opportunity presents itself. I have also occasionally added chapters of the R:CD fanfic on my webpage (after all, I already have most of the events and dialog scripted!), and I've put up the complete listing of the dialog we wrote for the game, so you can get an idea of what the story would have been about.

I also occasionally capture new pictures and videos from the game, which I then post on this webpage (video I captured even ended up as a special feature on some of the Robotech DVDs!)

Unfortunately, the game itself will most likely never see the store shelves. That does not mean, however, there will never be other Robotech games. There have been many Macross games in Japan for those of you who occasionally pick up import games, and there have been several American Robotech games, from big console games for the Playstation 2 and XBox, to smaller cell-phone games.

Where can I find a copy of the R:CD Comic Book?

I wish I had better news for you, but the only place you will find the R:CD comic is on my webpage.

Before the 1998 E3 trade show (just before the end), Gametek decided to create a small Robotech comic to promote the game. I, of course, was thrilled with the idea... ever since I was a kid I wanted to try to write a comic book. I took pieces of the backstory I created for the game (which is written up in my R:CD fanfic, also on my webpage), and created a 16 page comic outline. However, once we found out how much it would cost for Antarctic Press to do the artwork and print the comics, the comic got chopped down to 8 pages.

Three thousand copies of the comics were printed (the minimum number we were allowed). We then handed out less than a third of them at the E3 trade show. Unfortunately, Gametek crashed before the remaining boxes of comics got shipped back, so I ended up with only a dozen or so of my own, most of which I have since sent to friends or Robotech fans who asked me nice. I only have a few left, which I am not willing to part with.

I have no idea what happened to the rest of the comics. They are either sitting in a warehouse somewhere, totally forgotten, or have long since been shredded. A few years back I put one of my few copies up on ebay for auction, and it ended up selling for $43! That may make this comic the rarest Robotech comic in existance!

How did you end up with a copy of the game code and a demo cartridge of the game?

It is fairly common for a programmer to keep copies of the code he wrote, in much the same way that an artist keeps copies of his work for his portfolio. Though I can not ever use the R:CD code again, it is a good place to look for how I solved problems in the past, which can help me solve new problems on future games. I can't copy parts of the R:CD code into future games I work on, but I can use it as research materials.

However, when Gametek died I didn't happen to have a complete copy of the game code. Luckily, the lead programmer on the project had a copy at home (since he often did a lot of his work there), and gave me a copy.

The dev-cart was mostly luck. A friend who had also worked on N64 games had a spare dev-cart, so he let me have it. I spent a few nights rebuilding the game code enough that I could compile a ROM of it, and then added back in some of the demo code I created for the E3 demo (so I could hit buttons to launch friendly and enemy ships to fight). I then managed to borrow an N64 cart burner for a few minutes, so I could put the game on the dev-cart.

Will you put the ROM image of the game on the internet, so people can play it with an emulator?

The ROM image of the game is up on my webpage... for several years after Gametek died I refused to put it up (since I didn't know if I had the legal right to do so). However, eventually, an older version of the ROM appeared on the web somehow, and nobody got dragged into court for it. So I decided to add my slightly updated version here on my webpage.

I don't know how well it works in an emulator... I've never tried. However, an interested hacker did send me a patch that fixes a couple of bugs in it, which I've also added to my page.

Robotech is copyright and trademark © 1985 by Harmony Gold, USA, Inc.

Robotech: Crystal Dreams and all game related pictures are copyright © 1998 by Gametek, Inc.

Nintendo, N64, and the Nintendo 64 logo are copyright and trademark © Nintendo,.