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Smithereens is my daughter's best friend's (a little 6 year old) favorite game


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That is an interesting title. Many sources claim it was developed by Robert L. Cheezam, but then again other say he must've only adapted Stone Sling (the European version from Philips) to run on the US Odyssey^2 under the new name Smithereens! In the book "Svensk videospelsutveckling från 50-tal till 90-tal", it was disclosed that a Swedish guy, Christer Medin (born 1950) would have been contracted by Philips to make the original game, before he joined Intron with Göran Öhman and others who made additional games. However it is the only source I've got on that and while the authors seem to have done a detailed job on finding people, it is otherwise undocumented knowledge.

Edited by carlsson
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1 minute ago, carlsson said:

That is an interesting title. Many sources claim it was developed by Robert L. Cheezam, but then again other say he must've only adapted Stone Sling (the European version from Philips) to run on the US Odyssey^2 under the new name Smithereens! In the book "Svensk videospelsutveckling från 50-tal till 90-tal", it was disclosed that a Swedish guy, Christer Medin (born 1950) would have been contracted by Philips to make the original game, before he joined Intron with Göran Öhman and others who made additional games. However it is the only source I've got on that and while the authors seem to have done a detailed job on finding people, it is otherwise undocumented knowledge.

that is fascinating, but regardless it's a fun game and the voice really gives it charm.

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On 7/3/2020 at 4:14 AM, carlsson said:

In the book "Svensk videospelsutveckling från 50-tal till 90-tal"

Sounds like an interesting book, but I can't read Swedish.  Do Swedish books usually get translated into English? 

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Only occasionally, depending on market interest. This book is chock full of previously undocumented information, to the point that one really has to trust the authors they have done their research and not just extrapolating. It is written in a talkative language with some personal opinions weaved in so in case of an official translation, it could benefit from editing first. Given it is more than 500 pages, I'm not sure anyone is up to the task.

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17 hours ago, carlsson said:

Only occasionally, depending on market interest. This book is chock full of previously undocumented information, to the point that one really has to trust the authors they have done their research and not just extrapolating. It is written in a talkative language with some personal opinions weaved in so in case of an official translation, it could benefit from editing first. Given it is more than 500 pages, I'm not sure anyone is up to the task.

Thanks for the info.  Maybe I'll have to restart my Swedish language lessons so I can just read it myself.  :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/3/2020 at 5:14 AM, carlsson said:

That is an interesting title. Many sources claim it was developed by Robert L. Cheezam, but then again other say he must've only adapted Stone Sling (the European version from Philips) to run on the US Odyssey^2 under the new name Smithereens! In the book "Svensk videospelsutveckling från 50-tal till 90-tal", it was disclosed that a Swedish guy, Christer Medin (born 1950) would have been contracted by Philips to make the original game, before he joined Intron with Göran Öhman and others who made additional games. However it is the only source I've got on that and while the authors seem to have done a detailed job on finding people, it is otherwise undocumented knowledge.

Bob Cheezem himself confirmed this to me. He said this was pretty common for them at the time, for European games to be sent over to them to rework to run on NTSC systems. The addition of the Voice was all him, though - otherwise I think he matched up with Stone Sling pretty closely despite the differences under the hood.

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On 7/20/2020 at 2:46 PM, ubersaurus said:

Bob Cheezem himself confirmed this to me. He said this was pretty common for them at the time, for European games to be sent over to them to rework to run on NTSC systems. The addition of the Voice was all him, though - otherwise I think he matched up with Stone Sling pretty closely despite the differences under the hood.

Very interesting! And since the Voice is (IMHO) what elevates the game from "pretty fun" to "a blast and hilarious", it was effort well spent. :)

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