Friday, September 3, 2010

The original story behind Secret of Evermore.

The Secret of Evermore was one of my favorite games as a kid. I play through it again every few years and it somehow always manages to immerse me in its universe. The gameplay is certainlyno better than other SNES RPGs, especially the multiplayer Secret of Mana, but the game has always had a certain allure for me that I didn't quite understand.

While it ended up receiving an unfairly poor reception, the game sticks out in a lot of ways: it was the first and only game developed by Square developers in North America. It has a very unique art style that was ahead of its time and still remains appealing today. It had an very vivid and memorable soundtrack that seemed to go far beyond the capabilities of typical SNES sound, with high quality ambient nature sound effects accompanying many of the game's songs. Most notably, it had a tremendous amount of dialogue and characters; the main character speaks very often, sometimes even when he is alone, seeming as if he is speaking almost directly to the player, and there are almost a dozen unique and named NPCs, each with their own personalities and back story.

The reason for all these traits was the creation of the Square USA development team. "The entire team was built from the ground up with new hires." said Brian Fehdrau, lead programmer behind the project. At the time, Square was making huge pushes towards reshaping the way its games were designed. The extreme popularity of games like Final Fantasy IV and the Mother series in Japan had Square execs wanting to put a lot more focus on the artistic side of videogames, most notably the sound, graphics and plot. A few people know that Secret of Evermore was famed videogame musician Jeremy Soule's first project.

Almost nobody knows of another person hired for the development team, a young 22 year old writer by the name of Ed Kann. Interestingly, he apparently won the job through a writing contest put on in search of new, young writers who could deliver the distinct 'American feel' that Square had been looking for when they formed Square USA.

This is where things get fuzzy. At some point before the game's release, Kann was no longer a member of the development team. Whether he was fired, let go for another reason or simply quit is unclear. What is clear is that he left sometime in July 1995, just a few months prior to the game's release. What is also clear is that his name does not appear anywhere in the game's credits.

Common sense dictates that for such a series of events to have occured, Kann must have been a dud. Perhaps after months of producing no useful content he was simply fired without fanfare well after other people had stepped in to pick up his slack. That he didn't fit in makes sense: Kann later gained temporary cult status for his disturbing short story The Noise Coming from Inside Children. Since Evermore was rated K-A and had a rather carefree story, the involvement from such a dark author was clearly out of place.

But was it? There are some indications that Kann was more heavily involved, spawning rumors ever since about the real reason for his departure. One thing about the game has always stuck out very clearly - other than the story, it appears to be a very dark game.

The title screen opens with deep, pounding music as the camera pans over a tremendous and terrible looking machine. Neither this machine nor this music is ever heard anywhere in the game. The monsters and settings, most notably from the concept art, all have a distinctly gritty feel. Almost the entire game is set in swamps, dungeons and sewers. The entire soundtrack is permeated by a haunting, high pitched leitmotif that certainly doesn't remind me of a game for children.

There are piles of creepy artwork like this, but almost none of it appears in the actual game.

Still, all of this is mere conjecture. Games will often have a gap between their story and content. I wanted to see if I could get past the rumors and hear any hard facts on the matter, so I did something pretty out of the ordinary and actually asked one of the original game's developers. I had seen old threads where this particular member of the team had discussed the game before and so, after finding a current e-mail, I sent him a greeting and let him know I was working on an article about the development of the game. He was very helpful, and before long I asked if he knew anything about Ed Kann.

Unfortunately, he told me that he was just a programmer and didn't often work with the art department, but said he remembered the name. When I asked about the 'art department', he had this to say:

That's actually an odd issue. They had this group of new hires, mostly young people, taking care of the creative side. They had a lot more control than you usually see over development. Occasionally we would get a note or request from them to change an aspect of the game, and we were asked to honor those requests if possible.
I asked if there was anything else notable about the art department. He had this to say.

One thing that bothered me and a lot of people on the team was the lack of communication across the board. They kind of seemed like their own club and we were never sure where things were going. One example is, and I'm not sure where this came from, but we were always talking about how this was a 'darker' kind of game, and how that was the feel we were going for etc. Now that I say that I'm really not sure where it came from or why we thought that but that was always just the feel of things, the impression we got from the lead writers/designers. Then we played the gold release for the first time just months before launch and its this kids game with quirky jokes and a lot of us were surprised.
He added that everyone involved was very talented, and eventually asked not to be named.

It was obvious to me why rumors about the game's original writer/script had been around for so long. A fairly high profile writer with creative control, fired just before release? A developer saying the designers were leaning for a 'dark' feel, only to create a game for kids? Most compelling of all is the game itself, with soundtrack and art that still gives me chills.

All of this seems to point to the same direction, but sadly the trail ended there. There was simply no evidence that Kann had actually worked on Evermore. Any work he did was gone forever. If there was some scandal or secret, it surely would have come out in the 15 years since the game's release.

This, originally, was where my article ended. Honestly I felt it was pretty mediocre, and the more research I did into the issue the less I believed that anything was there. Thinking the article was baseless and kind of stupid, I saved a draft and mostly forgot about it for almost a year.

Then, almost completely by chance, I found a picture of a copy of the game next to a preview article in a gaming magazine.



The picture made me smile and I saved it. For some reason I barely looked at it. A couple of days passed. I had almost entirely forgot about this article, but seeing that picture had brought it up again in the back of my head. It seemed like a sillier idea than ever, and I very nearly dropped the issue entirely.

Then, suddenly, it struck me. I was at dinner with friends, but the picture popped back into my head. I immediately knew that something was very off about it.

If you've looked at the enlarged photo you've probably already noticed, especially if you played the game. The article itself is fairly uninteresting and barely visible. One of the screenshots, though, is almost disturbing. The dialogue in the rightmost screencap reads: "How can you live with what you've done? Those poor children..."

This line seemed very out of place to me. The context is even stranger; the boy on the left is the main character, and the girl is one of the friendly characters you meet who helps you through the game. Who is saying the line? What part of the plot are they referring to? There are children in the game but they are all unnamed NPCs never referred to at all, let alone as an entity.

I barely felt I needed to check, but I did anyway. I played through the entire game, talking to Fire Eyes (the girl character) after every possible trigger event. Maybe the line was the punchline of a joke, and made much more sense in context.

The line appeared nowhere in the game. Now, it isn't entirely uncommon for the preview copies that developers send out to be slightly different than the final release. It's entirely possible that the line was simply changed. Maybe it was the punchline of some joke, removed for compression purposes or for some other reason.

Still, the line seems out of place. In fact, it is downright bizarre, and baffling me. In the context of everything else already discussed...well, there must be something to this.

I leave you with only one last piece of evidence. The previously mentioned Brian Fehdrau, lead programmer behind the game, has repeatedly mentioned something I found interesting.

"I had a lot of fun setting up and tweaking the language, its encoding, the interpreter, the text compressor, etc. We spent a lot of time on data compression. The game was probably more like 50-70mbits, uncompressed, maybe more. We had different ways of compressing nearly everything: maps, map tiles, sprite tiles, scripts, dialogue, etc. Some of them had to be decompressed very, very quickly, every frame.

We actually had to do a lot of work on text compression towards the end. There was a huge amount of work that had to be done in that area for various reasons. I think in those final months some guys did more work on text than they had done throughout its development *laughs*."

Could it be possible that large parts of the game's story were cut or somehow modified in the final days? Was Kann actually involved, and was the direction he took the game simply too inappropriate, or too dark and disturbing?

On my latest playthrough, one particular portion of the game made me think. There is a scene where Queen Bluegarden, fed up with your foiling of her plans, hurls herself off of a balcony to try and crush you. She misses, crashing into the floor. Of course, it is explained that she was merely an evil robot. But without the dialogue, there is no indication that she is a robot, or even that she is aiming for your character. Without the text it is just a woman hurling herself to her death.

Some music from the game:

Edit: Already some doubters claiming the text in the image is illegible. Here's a much larger version that should make things clear: http://i54.tinypic.com/34nha14.jpg

Edit 2: IXCE linked me this great article that clearly shows a lot of the final changes that took place.

Here is some more stuff from the game that indicates an original plot with disturbing themes:

Video of a fight with Mungola, a mysterious being that controls puppets and people. You can see the king rocking back and forth in a fetal position during the fight. Directly after this fight, Queen Bluegarden on the left jumps off the balcony and kills herself.

Secret of evermore original commercial. Judging by its quality, made well before the game's launch. Does this seem like the depiction of a game for kids, starring a wacky main character with a penchant for B movies? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEu8wDAQuDk&feature=related





85 comments:

  1. Regarding this post:

    I discovered this linked from Something Awful. I've never played Secret of Evermore, but I found your theories about it very interesting, particularly the parts about Ed Kann. Or, rather, his piece, 'The Noise Coming from Inside Children'. A few people in the thread seemed perplexed that a Google search for the story didn't pull anything up and assumed it was a hoax as a result.

    Fortunately (or unfortunately, maybe), I know for a fact that the story is real. I'm fond of collecting small-run magazines- mostly based on music or fiction. I remember a story of this title from a particularly obscure one; however, I've never heard an author name attached to it. All the pieces in this particular magazine were credited anonymously, and frankly I have no idea where it came from, as I got it in a bulk buy off Ebay several years back.

    You're not kidding when you say it's a disturbing piece; above and beyond how bizarre and shocking the content is, there's something distinctly... upsetting about it. It's one of the more distressing stories in a magazine that was already waaaay on the fringe of 'normal' literature, and I think getting a look at it might be useful to gaining a bit of insight on the game and its odd history.

    I don't have a scanner, but if you or others are interested, I might be able to type it up for you. Bear in mind that I'm a slow typist and this was a rather blearily printed publication. Drop me a line if you might want to see it.

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    1. Hey, I know this was 6 years ago but I'd love to read the story if that offer is still open. You can email me at: anbokovokov@gmail.com. Thanks heaps!

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    2. Hey, If you happen to read this, I too would very much like to read that story. My email is: gregor.15@hotmail.com Thanks!

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    4. This story is not true. How do I know? I personally interviewed and hired each member of the Evermore team myself and I can guarantee you - there was never an Ed Kann.

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    5. Hello. If what you said is true, are there any other details you can reveal about the development of Secret of Evermore? Can you post any proof of you working for Square? Is there potentially a beta version that still exists?

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    6. If u r herew after all that years, I realy would like to read it to: lyinsa@gmx.at

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    7. Man this is lost media, you can't just say "I dunno hmu lol" and then vanish. Post that shit where it can be easily found and accessed.

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    8. Exactly "what" is lost media? I'll help if I can.

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  2. I have long been a huge fan of this game. Part of that appeal is the mysterious contrast between the art and music of the game, and the out-of-place light-hearted storyline. I think there's a lot of meat to your theories about Ed Kann and the strange qualities about the game's release.

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  3. This article was a very enjoyable read, but the one part I don't quite buy is pointing to the music as evidence that something darker was initially intended. Plenty of SNES games have music that contrasts with their contents; for example, the Donkey Kong Countries games are loaded with incredibly moody tunes and are about cartoon chimps hunting for their stolen bananas.

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  5. This is an interesting article. I'd love to hear what SoE was REALLY supposed to be like. You're right, that commercial you linked to really doesn't seem to depict a humorous kids game.

    @Noah: I would LOVE to see a copy of that story. I consider my google-fu pretty good, but I also couldn't find it anywhere.

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  6. I think I can confidently attest that Ed Kann never worked on anything like this because I was twenty two in the 1980s and working as a security guard at the time not having done a lick of writing on anything. In the same way I never wrote this fictitious Children story which seems to not exist in the first place. I write simple books very occasionally for table top roleplaying games and only very occasionally.

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  7. Its the music and the art that lives on. I have the full sound track loaded into galaxy S1 which I keep changing as mood changes. The art is one thing that has kept his game alive in my mind and imagination. As it has been said that this game didn't make it to the hall of fames like FF or SoManna series etc. But Evermore has a cult following, which even after 18 years loves to talk about it.

    My favorite piece is the Horace (market place) music and the menu screen one. I must say the entire team has created a master piece.

    Excellent article Jeff.

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  8. I introduced SoE to my girlfiend a few days ago and she absolutely loves it! This game is truly a masterpiece. Thank you Squaresoft USA!

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  10. There is something in this game who hooked me to replay it once every 2-3 years. Yeah, games like Terranigma or Chrono Trigger are better, but SoE was one of my first SNES games during my childhood and I really love it.

    Thanks for this article, the more I grow the more mysterious is the soul of this game for me...

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  11. There was no Ed Kann involved in Secret of Evermore. I should know, I was the Concept Producer and employee #2 on the development team (#1 was Doug Smith of Lode Runner fame).

    The dialog you see changing was created before the release of the game so that we could get reviews and a LOT of dialog changed in the last few months as the game took final shape. Give credit for the wacky lines and breaking the fourth wall to George Sinfield, who worked for Nintendo Power before we hired him at Squaresoft.

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    1. You're the real Alan Weiss who worked on the game? It's an honour to talk to you, and if you somehow get my reply would it be possible to interview you for something in regards to the game or Square's American division in general?

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  12. Alan Weiss, I was a big fan of Secret of Evermore as a kid. Are there any plans to remake it, or to make a sequel?

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  13. Not that I know of - I've heard people on the web talking about it but when you get into a project like this it becomes a huge undertaking.

    In addition, sometimes it takes a certain combination of team members to come up with the crazy inventiveness needed in a game like that - so assembling a similar team is up to chance.

    Did you know that the sound on Evermore was the first job in the computer industry by Jeremy Soule (lately of Skyrim fame). And he did an amazing, innovative job with Evermore. He sent us a demo tape, I heard it and immediately flew him out from Keokuk, Iowa to interview with us. He moved out to Seattle the following month and never looked back.

    All the other team members went on to bigger and better things, they were a great group of people having fun making games they loved.

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  14. If anyone wants more specific information about Secret of Evermore, just ask. I probably know more than you'd like to hear.

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    1. Sir secret of evermore formed my childhood and is still one if my favorite games. Tell me everything

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  16. Hello Alan Weiss im a huge fan of this game. I dont know if i ask for to much but could you please make an own article abouth how it was to work on that game and some trivia or anything you remember. Im sure a lot of people including me would love and appriciate that. Maybe you also have pictures from the production process.

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    1. Sorry I missed this message. I have only one picture - can I post it here somehow?

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    2. OK, I posted the image - it's pretty cool!

      https://plus.google.com/113574458416509210157/posts/LdPo1174neA

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    3. Heh, I remember that one. I swear I contributed something. I would have expected to find Programmer Art Cat, but I think maybe it was the street pizza cat. :) I don't remember though. Fun, anyway.

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    4. I do believe FlatCat was yours...(the street pizza). =)

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    5. Was this another employee talking? I'm putting together a retrospective like nobody has ever done (because nobody has lol) for this game and I would love to learn everything I can from first hand sources.

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    6. Yeah, as I just mentioned in another response to you, I'm Brian Fehdrau, lead programmer on Evermore.

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  17. Also could you please tell us more about the story and how it was changed in the end. Was it more dark? And what about this Concept Art

    www.viciojuegos.com/imagenes/byakuya/Portadas/SecretofEvermore.jpg

    Why we never see that area in the game?

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    1. Our lead art director, Daniel Dociu, created a LOT of sketch art for the game which wasn't used in the game.

      As we were developing, he was painting what inspired him from the game design discussions and developing the look and feel.

      His original art work was darker than the final game ended up.

      You can see more of Daniel's work here:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dociu

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  18. I'm glad to answer questions. There is a good interview with me at this location, maybe that will answer more of your questions.

    http://tay.kinja.com/the-story-behind-the-only-square-rpg-developed-in-north-1640340675

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    1. Hello,

      Would you ever think that this game would ever make it to a steam release or possibly a port?

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  19. No, I don't think so. Although someone could easily adapt the story and framework for something similar - getting a talented team would be a significant challenge.

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  20. Hi Alan,
    I have two small questions to ask you concerning this game.
    1- Did Nintendo ask you to do any change to the game at all you did you have full freedom?
    2- How much core content was cut from the game? (all games have cut content for whatever reasons - enemies, items, locations, music, boss, etc ; but how much of that was area/story related? there are 2 islands in the map you can't go to and several areas on the continents where there is structures and content but you can't go to!)
    Thanks in advance!

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  21. Thanks for asking!

    Nintendo did not ask for any changes. The lead Designer/Writer was George Sinfield who had previously been an Editor for Nintendo Power - so he was well aware of Nintendo's strict content development guidelines (as was I, having developed Brøderbund Software's NES titles).

    The game was in flux during the entire development. We started down one path but eventually ended up taking another one. There was one world called Romancia (after the Japanese Square game) which never made it but it was pretty well developed. I drove the artist crazy trying to give him direction but in the end it got scrapped. I'm not sure exactly where that world was going to be used.

    The first draft of the story started with a scientist named A'on and his daughter - named B'anne. The working title was "Vexx and the Mezmers". The only remnant you can see of that working title is "The Lost Adventures of Vexx" on the movie marquee in one of the cut scenes.

    I've always thought that we did a great job rendering the bosses in Alias 3D and then converting them to sprites. That was fun work and the bosses show the extra effort.

    Alan

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    1. that's fascinating!
      Do you happen to remember what Romancia was about? we already have all major time periods, so I am curious to know what else we could have gotten!

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  22. I do believe the Romancia world actually turned into Miss Bluegarden's world.

    The art direction I gave to Damon, the artist who tried to conceive Romancia, was seriously flawed.

    Honestly, it was something as ridiculous as "make it all pink and purple with flowers". Which he did, and it looked as bad as it sounds.

    Damon Conklin is now a world renowned tattoo artist in Seattle, and he's even more amazing now.

    I think I stole 2 to 3 months of his life with that work and I will forever regret it.

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  23. Nobody ever mentions the Doughead Software store on Main Street in the opening scene. That's a tribute to our VP of Development Doug Smith, the creator of Lode Runner.

    The programmers had some sort of running joke with Doug about it and one of the artists (Beau Folsom, I think) rendered a sprite for his likeness.

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    1. Alan, I loved SoE as a kid. Im now 28 and just replayed it with my 6 year old nephew (using the two player patch). We had a great time and he now loves it too. We beat it tonight!

      here is a question for you :)

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  25. Thanks for the comment, it's really great to know that the game can still be enjoyed.

    SOE 2 probably would have been a continuation of the boy's story, with him being grown - and maybe his kids discover his hidden past. They find a way to interact with Carltron and get sucked into Evermore.

    It could have been be a multiplayer game and of course, there should be a dog. A nice twist might be for the Dad character to come into the game periodically, too - he is, after all, the expert on Evermore (which would have changed significantly since his adventure).

    I think it would have been fun to bring back and embellish some of the more interesting characters and play with some of the characters we developed that did not make it into the original game (like Al Dumo's OGLIN character).

    Getting such a talented team together again would be the real challenge. Games like this are now put together from the collective experiences of the teams who make them and getting just the right mix to spark life into a game is no easy challenge.

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    1. This was so cool that you responded and entertained my question! Thanks for the game and for the response!!

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  26. Wow, this was a really fun discussion. Thank you Alan Weiss. I'm now playing this with my 5yo son and he's loving the story.

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  28. Hello Alan Weiss, if you are still here, I'd like to ask:
    Does the protagonist and the dog have a name?

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  29. We never did name the boy as whoever was playing was going to assume that persona (how shallow not to include a girl character, too).

    I always thought the original dog in the real world would be named Scruffy. Regarding the other dogs, ToasterDog was the only one I remember specifically? He was our favorite, after all (thank you Beau Folsom).

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    1. Thanks for the amazing childhood. Secret of Evermore was a blast and I'm happy people still mention it.

      I'm curious about one thing, if you're still reading this. What inspired Secret of Evermore to get made? Where did the idea for the setting come from?

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  30. Interesting article. I'm a big fan of this game and its still and always be one of my fav game ever. It has unique story and atmosphere which very different to any other RPG.

    I'd love to see a sequel of this or at least a remake.

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  31. The soundtrack for this game is also one of my fav ever. I still play the music from time to time on my Ipod and PC and also still have the original soundtrack cd.

    I wonder if kickstarter crowdfund for a sequel/remake is a possibility... a game in 2.5D would be awesome.


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  32. What happened to my previous comments?
    Why was it deleted?

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  33. The noise coming from inside children: the game:
    Petscop.

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  34. @Alan Weiss, thank you for making one of the best RPGs of all time. I was wondering, there is a speed runner on twitch that loves your game and is trying to regain his world record (Gintatsu2). He always asks, every time he runs, if anyone knows who these hidden characters in the Colosseum audience are. We know that there are Final Fantasy 6 characters, but who are these guys:
    https://i.imgur.com/gEJmQPD.png

    Also if you ever have the time, please drop in to https://www.twitch.tv/gintatsu2 's stream and let him praise you to death!

    Thank you!

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  35. I am still in touch with the artists, I will inquire...

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  36. Alan, man, I gotta ask you. What DID the Magic Gourd do? I know it has no in-game function now.

    It keeps me up at night sometimes wondering what it was initially put into the game for: and why options would be left in the game to receive it.

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    2. Brian Fehdrau here, lead programmer. This question gets asked a lot, and unfortunately, until recently, the answer has always been that we can't remember. The joke was supposed to be that this item either did something very subtle or nothing at all, and we debated the merits of each idea. However, by the time people started asking, the studio was shuttered and neither I nor anyone I talked to could remember which way we went with it. It was only a few years ago that someone working on disassembling the ROM and reverse-engineering all the data formats determined that it actually does nothing. So now you know what it does AND what it was meant to do: keep the player up at night, wondering. 😉

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    3. Alan Weiss agrees - let me ask Ed Kahn...

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    4. THERE IS NO ED KAHN...not on this game.

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  37. Do the artists still have original works from that game? That would be some amazing memorabilia.

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    1. Alan Weiss here. I wish I had saved more of the concept art. I believe Daniel Dociu (Art Director) has some of the original work, I hope has all of it!

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  38. I think the Magic Gourd was a red herring (just something fun to put you off the track). Brian Fehdrau or Bill Kristianson would know more...

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    1. As I suspected, it IS Bill's fault.
      Thank you Alan. To be honest I never expected a reply because, well, busy people and stuff.

      I'm putting together a video, and although it's a longshot, I have been, and am still, trying to get as much knowledge out of the original devs as I can because...
      Well I mean I'm 30 now: and while I wasn't even 6 when the game released; and you were a full-grown man when you made the game. One day, we might not be able to ask these questions and recieve any sort of answer.

      I mean that with GREAT respect as I, and others like me, revere you and the rest of the team. You'd be surprised how much love you recieve.

      Hopefully I can track all of you down before I cannot, as to preserve the history of something that, sadly, the publishers seem to care nothing about.

      Thank you, Professor Weiss. ;)

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    2. A sidenote: It would mean more than the world to all of us at the Secret of Evermore discord (a very dedicated, if small following) if... perhaps you could send a couple photos of the memorabilia you do possess, to the email that this account is attached to?

      None of us will be offended if you do not / cannot. We just want to throw something together to honor you guys for the 25th anniversary.

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    3. Actually the MG _has_ at least a side effect, most people don't know.

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    5. Link was outdated... so I'll repost it and deleted the original to avoid 404.

      "The side effect appears when buying ceramic pots at Nobilia market. Search for flagMagicGourd."

      https://github.com/CleanCodeX/ROM.SoE/blob/main/Scripting/Merchants/NobiliaMarket.cs

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    6. i just came across some more memorabilia, I'll post soon...

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  40. Love this game, would rent it all the time with Earthbound as a kid. The bugs and desert area is usually how far I got till high school when I finally finished it.

    The question was asked, but I don't think you touched on it, do you remember anything about the 2 islands you could see while flying but not land on? Were they to just fill the world up a bit more? I think Mana had something like that so it wouldn't surprise me if Evermore had something similar.

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    1. Those were planned areas but never implemented. One of them is Oglin Island…

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  41. Hello from the Concept Producer, Alan Weiss. If I can find anything related to the development I’ll post it. Fun game to make, even more fun with that amazing team.

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