Animation Magic

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Animation Magic Inc.
Founded1991 (Massachusetts branch)
1992 (Saint Petersburg branch)[1]
FoundersIgor Razboff and Dale DeSharone
Defunct2001 (2001)[2]
FateDissolved by Vivendi
Headquarters
Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.
Number of locations
3
ProductsVideo games and animation
OwnerCapitol Multimedia
Vivendi (1998–2001)
Number of employees
~150
SubsidiariesООО "АМИ"

Animation Magic (Russian: «Магия анимации», romanized: Magiya Animatsii) was a Russian-American animation studio created in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a 100% owned subsidiary located in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It developed animations for CD-based software.

The company was acquired in December 1994 by Capitol Multimedia.

In 1994 it had 90 employees, including 12 software engineers and approximately 60 animators, computer graphic, background and sprite artists. Its products include Link: The Faces of Evil,[3] Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon,[4] Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam, Pyramid Adventures,[5] I.M. Meen,[6] Chill Manor, Hotel Mario, King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride, Darby the Dragon and the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans.[7][8]

In April 1997, Animation Magic was acquired by Davidson & Associates, for whom the company had been developing Warcraft Adventures, a point and click graphical adventure game based on the Warcraft franchise.

In being bought by Davidson & Associates, Animation Magic became part of CUC Software, and its founder and CEO Igor Razboff, was made a Vice President of CUC Software. In 1998, CUC Software was renamed to Cendant Software after parent CUC International merged with HFS, Inc.

In December 1998, Cendant Software was sold to Havas, a subsidiary of Vivendi, and became Vivendi Universal Games.

In 2001, Vivendi Universal Games closed Animation Magic.

VZ.lab[edit]

In 2001, a number of former staff from Animation Magic formed much of a video game development studio called VZ.lab, and in 2001 registered a domain for the company's official website. In June 2002, they started on their first project, an adventure game called Jadernyj Titbit (Roughly translated: Nuclear Titbit), which appeared in stores on February 14, 2003 and earned a lot of positive feedback from the press and players. In the spring of 2004, "Revolutionary Quest" was released (Although, not much information about this title if found), and in August of the same year, Nuclear Titbit: Flashback (also known as Nuclear Titbit 1.5) hit the world. A collection of mini-arcades based on the sensational game not only earned the love of the fans of the first instalment, but was also called "The best quest of 2004" at the All-Russian Gameland Awards ceremony.[9][10][11][12]

In addition to creating full-fledged games, VZ.lab was actively engaged in outsourcing work for Russian and Western customers. One of the latest outsourcing projects that they worked on was Star Legacy (No relation to the 2006 Star Trek game) - where they stated to have created models of all characters for it. It is likely to be the slightly different title of Star Heritage 1: The Black Cobra from Russia, where the word 'heritage' can interchange with 'legacy' in the title.[13]

In the fall of 2005, two more premieres took place. The company released the 3D action-heavy and wild FPS Nevsky Titbit, which takes place in St. Petersburg, and the turn-based tactical strategy Brothers, which allows you to take on the role of the "legendary" racketeers of the early 1990s.[14][15]

In the fall of 2006, two more games were released, to quote their About page, "created in the bowels of our studio - the psychedelic quest" Nuclear Titbit 2 and the wild point-and-click arcade and adventure game How to get your neighbor 3: In the office. Then, the VZ.lab team was working on a three-dimensional adventure game Roman Trachtenberg: In Search of the Perfect Joke, in which its premiere took place in November of that year. However, more information about that game is missing from third-party websites, and is likely lost forever along with the team's demise after 2007, with their website having gone down by early 2010.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Puffer, Sheila M.; McCarthy, Daniel J.; Satinsky, Daniel M. (2018). Hammer and Silicon: The Soviet Diaspora in the US Innovation Economy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 152–153. ISBN 978-1107190856. I went back to computer design and computer manufacturing, and in 1991, I started my own business in multimedia called Animation Magic. When I started that business, Russia opened up and my partner, who was also from Massachusetts but originally from California, suggested that we should probably hire some animators from Russia because that would make us more competitive in the marketplace. We would have better animation and therefore more success, so I went to Russia and we opened a business there in 1992.
  2. ^ Игорь Варнавский (Igor Varnavsky) (January 31, 2008). Закрытые страницы истории. Крупные игровые компании в России были еще в 90-е, но мы об этом не знали. Igromania (in Russian). Vol. 1, no. 124 (published January 2008). Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  3. ^ "Link: The Faces of Evil". MobyGames. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  4. ^ "Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon". MobyGames. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  5. ^ "Pyramid Adventures Episode 1: Treasures of the Lost Pyramid - The Cutting Room Floor". tcrf.net. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  6. ^ Brad Cook. "Test of I.M. Meen". Allgame. Archived from the original on March 6, 2013. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  7. ^ "Animation Magic". The Video Animation Company. Archived from the original on August 5, 2014. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  8. ^ "Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on January 1, 2013. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  9. ^ "About Us page". Official site (in Russian). Archived from the original on 14 Oct 2008. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  10. ^ "Giant Bomb database". Giant Bomb. Red Ventures. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  11. ^ "For Games's database". www.sockscap64.com. WordPress. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  12. ^ "IGDB database". Internet Game Database. Twitch. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  13. ^ "Star Heritage 1 remake's Credits". MobyGames. Atari SA. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  14. ^ "Retrolorian database". Retrolorian (Spanish website). Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  15. ^ "Gamepressure's database". Gamepressure. Retrieved 24 March 2022.

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