You made Snail Mail?

[Revalopod]

Is Chromodrome 2 the sequel? I could never find Chromodrome 1
I loved snail mail and always thought it could have been the predecessor to chromodrome 2.
Anyways, love this game. Have completed it to 100% many years ago:)

[LComeno]

Snail Mail was fun. I bought it when it first was released for PC. Wish we could get it on Steam too!

[kilicool64]

Chances of that happening are pretty much zero. It was a joint effort with the now defunct Sandlot Games. Whoever currently owns the rights to their assets certainly doesn't care about them in the slightest.

The game is still available at http://wildtangent.com/ and http://shockwave.com/, but seems to have issues running on modern systems that will probably never be fixed.

[Revalopod]

Originally posted by kilicool64:

Chances of that happening are pretty much zero. It was a joint effort with the now defunct Sandlot Games. Whoever currently owns the rights to their assets certainly doesn't care about them in the slightest.

The game is still available at http://wildtangent.com/ and http://shockwave.com/, but seems to have issues running on modern systems that will probably never be fixed.

Who owns the rights to sandlot games' games? A company bought them over but now that company is gone too

[kilicool64]

That's exactly the issue. Digital Chocolate (the company who bought Sandlot Games, then laid them off) has ceased all activity years ago, but it's unclear whether or not their assets have been transferred to anyone else.

The only thing indicating that they still own them is the fact that all of Sandlot Games' and Digital Chocolate's titles recently got simultaneously delisted from Big Fish Games, another casual game storefront.

[Revalopod]

So, who actually gets the money when you buy a Sandlot Games game on Steam? :/

[kilicool64]

No clue. It has to be someone or else they would've been delisted years ago.

[LComeno]

Given the age of the game, I figured it wouldn't run on modern computers. I build my own boxes too, so am positive it wouldn't run on mine. LOL. Too bad, there's quite a few old games I'd love to play again, but for me it's just not worth all the hassle it would take to try to get them to run. I am great at hardware, but totally suck at software issues.

I can see my vid card lit up thru the side of my case as I sit here and I've got a feeling that if I did try to run an old game, it would quit saying '"EVGA GeForce GTX 1070" and change to 'Are You Friggin' Kidding Me Lady?" Heh. :)

[Alpha72 Games]

I still have all the code and assets for Snail Mail and rights to the actual game but not for the "Snail Mail" title, art and music. I'd love to bring it back but I have no idea who owns them now, for a time after DC folded, some company was getting royalties from it with out sending me my share but now it seems to have disappeared from everywhere, it's very frustrating. I worked on a sort of sequel called 'Galactic Skater' but that just bombed. Chromadrome 1 was a bit rough but good enough to get me noticed and a shot at doing Snail Mail.

[LComeno]

What about Chromadrome 3? Do you have the time to code up a new version of the game. That would be so totally cool. I'd love to see what all could be done with the background graphics today ... got a feeling it would blow the mind even more than 1 and 2 did. (I did get the chance to play both btw.)

Can I also ask what happened to the Intro music on the Steam version of Chroma 2? It's silent instead of playing a bit of the first song on the music track. Just does NOT feel right or give the Chromates the total cutemess they had in the original opening. Most probably don't care I'm sure. Hearing that music start playing and watching the cute little lost Chromate at the beginning though, always made me smile and let me know I was gonna start having a good time very quickly. :)

[kilicool64]

Originally posted by Alpha72 Games:

I still have all the code and assets for Snail Mail and rights to the actual game but not for the "Snail Mail" title, art and music. I'd love to bring it back but I have no idea who owns them now, for a time after DC folded, some company was getting royalties from it with out sending me my share but now it seems to have disappeared from everywhere, it's very frustrating. I worked on a sort of sequel called 'Galactic Skater' but that just bombed. Chromadrome 1 was a bit rough but good enough to get me noticed and a shot at doing Snail Mail.

Like I said in an earlier post, Snail Mail is thankfully still available on WildTangent and Shockwave, but it seems to have pretty severe compatibility issues on modern systems. My Windows 10 PC can't run it at all and my Windows 7 PC runs it at a really low framerate.

It's good to hear you own the game's main components though. While negotiating with the owners of Sandlot Games' assets is obviously impossible without knowing who they even are, you could theoretically get around the legal restrictions by making a reskinned version of the game with different assets. Like a Chromadrome 1.5 for instance.

It's unfortunate to hear that the iOS only Galactic Skater you made in cooperation with Sandlot Games' failed successor UpTap did poorly. I don't think it's even available for purchase anymore, is it? How much of that game do you own yourself?

Anyway, I just noticed Chromadrome 2 is now available for sale here and bought it immediately. If you release any of your other games here as well, you can count on my support. It's commendable to see people continue to support their old games.

[kilicool64]

I finally managed to get Snail Mail to run properly on my Windows 7 PC, so it seems its compatibility issues aren't quite as bad as I thought. Still can't get it to work on my Windows 10 PC, but now I can finally play it again.

That said, I had a quick look at the game's credits and was concerned to learn that its levels were apparently not designed by you, but by Andrew Lum, an employee of Sandlot Games. Are you sure you still own them regardless?

[Revalopod]

Originally posted by LComeno:

What about Chromadrome 3? Do you have the time to code up a new version of the game. That would be so totally cool.

i agree :D
I emailed and got this response:
"Once I can make enough money to give up the day job ;) I'll do Chromadrome 3 one day for sure, until then, or retirement, whichever comes first..."

[LComeno]

Retirement? Sounds like he may be close to or in my age group then. Wow, don't come across gamers my age all that often. I think the gang of us that have Alpha and Beta tested StarPoint Gemini 1, 2 and WarLords (curently in Beta) are the only ones that come to mind atm. We did a thread there while testing SPG 2 asking everyone how old they are and were surprised when the majority were 40 and over! Given the age of Chromadrome 2 and Snail Mail, I think I'll start a thread here like that and see what stats we get over time. Hopefully the thread can be pinned if this forum starts getting real busy so it won't get lost. :)

Also kinda curious what the 'day job' might be. OK, I'll admit it, I'm being nosy. LOL. When you have no life like me, there's nothing else to do other than live thru others met onlnine.

[LComeno]

I got a new computer this year running win 10 with RTX 3080 and I just found an old copy of Snail Mail that runs without any problems. oldgamesdownload.com/snail-mail/ is the site it's on. While I've played Chromeadrome 2 since it came out, I just found out how badly I suck at Snail Mail all these years later. LOL.

[kilicool64]

Worth noting that the latest iOS and Android versions of Snail Mail are superior to the PC version in that they have more visual variety, some minor gameplay tweaks and most notably a set of extra hard bonus levels.

Sadly, they're abandonware, so there's no legal way to get them. And they will probably never come back. It's not even clear who co-owns the game right now, as the latest owner of Sandlot Games' assets, RockYou, has been in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings for years.