I've been a huge fan of the Shadowgate franchise since I first came across the NES original. It was due to the video store down the street from me during the NES days, which only had about 30 or so NES games for rent, but I basically ended up going through and renting every day they had multiple times, and am so glad for that opportunity, since there are so many games that I never would have come across or chosen to play, such as Shadowgate, that I did thanks to their selection in that store. From the first time I rented it, I fell in love.
Since then I have continued to be in love with the Shadowgate franchise, and gotten everything to do with it and done everything I could with it. I've written guides for the NES, GBC, and N64 versions of Shadowgate, just to give me something else to do with the games. I've also purchased Beyond Shadowgate for the TurboDuo years back, for like $120, despite still not having gotten around to purchasing a TurboDuo to play it on. One of these days I really need to, but, at least I have the game sitting there as well.
Since the release of the N64 game, the series has had some issues. There had been a follow-up for N64 planned, Shadowgate Rising, which had a comic on the old shadowgate.com website for it as well, but which ended up getting cancelled due to the poor reception to the original N64 one. After that, Kemco had announced plans to use the Shadowgate name for some Cellphone strategy game, using the name but which looked nothing at all like the previous games, and was disappointing enough on its own, but then it ended up getting cancelled and not even being released anyway, and after that the franchise just kind of faded away and disappeared.
In the years since then, everything to do with Shadowgate just kind of disappeared. No plans for other games, no discussion about the franchise, no idea at all who even held the rights to it or if they were ever planning on doing anything with it again. Which was really discouraging, after everything that had been done with the franchise, and how amazing the games were, to think that it might just fade away.
So, when I heard that Dave Marsh and Karl Roelofs had reacquired the rights to this franchise and were planning on doing something with it again, I was overjoyed. I'm so glad that these two still have the same passion about this franchise that they have for years, and are working to ensure that the franchise stays alive and well. I'm really excited to see what the future holds for Shadowgate now, and, this game that's now up on Kickstarter, which I know they've already put a good deal of work into, looks really great. I've played through the original Shadowgate countless times already, both on NES and on the GBC port, and absolutely love it. I'm really excited to be able to have the opportunity to experience it again, with the same great gameplay that made the original so amazing, but with new and exciting things brought into the mix to make it not simply the same thing I've already played countless times before, but feeling like an entire new adventure.
Sorry that this post was so full of gushing and enthusiasm, I just really love the Shadowgate franchise, and am so excited about all of this.
