Mountain King Studios (formerly known as Cygnus Studios) is a computer game company located in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. It was founded by game programmer/ game designer Scott Host. In addition to the development of '' Raptor: Call of the Shadows'', Cygnus also collaborated with Apogee Software on a number of their games. Some members of the company split to form

Rogue Entertainment Rogue Entertainment was an American computer game developer based in Dallas, Texas, which was active in the late 1990s. It was founded by Rich Fleider, Steve Maines, and Jim Molinets in 1994. Rogue Entertainment's office was in the same buildin ...

, while the company itself was renamed "Mountain King Studios".

History

The company started with their former name "Cygnus Studios". After completing their first ever game ''Galactix'', Scott Miller of Apogee Software sent a letter to the leading developer, Scott Host. In response Host contacted him and made an agreement to work with Apogee. After some work on the short-lived RPG ''The Second Sword'', Cygnus Studios and Apogee worked on a vertical-scrolling shooter called "Mercenary 2029" as its working title and then renamed ''Raptor: Call of the Shadows''. Cygnus also helped Apogee with some of their other games under the name "Cygnus Multimedia Productions" including ''

Duke Nukem II ''Duke Nukem II'' is a 1993 platform game developed and published by Apogee Software. The game consists of four episodes (of eight levels each), the first available as shareware. It is the follow-up to 1991's ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nuke ...

'', '' Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold'', '' Hocus Pocus'' and '' Realms of Chaos''. id Software was intrigued by the company's progress and convinced them to relocate to Texas by their office and work with them. Paul Radek, who worked on the audio for Raptor, provided id the DMX sound library for their game ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * L ...

''. By December 1994, members of the company Jim Molinets, Rich Fleider and Tim Neveu went against Scott Host and left Cygnus to form their own company

. After this, Cygnus relocated back to their old place in Chicago and renamed themselves "Mountain King Studios". By 2008, the president of Blitwise Productions, Michael P. Welch met up with Scott Host. ''Raptor: Call of the Shadows'' was Welch's favorite game on the PC and he proposed to Host to port it on the iPhone platform. Using the original source code, lead programmer Ben Moreno programmed the game on a Macintosh computer. The port took 1.5 years to make.

Games

Released

Cancelled

Before ''Raptor: Call of the Shadows'' was in development, Cygnus Studios had worked on a game titled ''The Second Sword'' for Apogee Software, which was to be a

Role playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal a ...

and use the

Shadowcaster ''ShadowCaster'' is a first-person role-playing video game developed by Raven Software. It was published in 1993 by Origin Systems after Electronic Arts acquired them. A CD-ROM version was released in 1994, featuring two additional levels with ...

engine, but the project was cancelled. ''

Strife Strife may refer to: Mythology *Eris (mythology), in Greek mythology the goddess of discord, whose name means 'strife' *Bellona (goddess), Roman counterpart of Eris, and a war goddess *Enyalius, a son of Eris and god of strife * Tano Akora, god of ...

'' was briefly under development and was to be published by id Software; after a few months and during a dispute between some developers and Scott Host, it was cancelled. It was later finished by

and published by Velocity in 1996. After renaming themselves "Mountain King Studios", the company tried to develop a 3D RPG titled ''Mantra'', but this was also cancelled in favor of the ''Demonstar'' game.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web, title=Mountain King Studios web site About page, url=http://www.mking.com/about.html {{cite web , title='Monsters From the Id: The Making of Doom' , url=https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/112355/The_Game_Developer_Archives_Monsters_From_the_Id_The_Making_of_Doom.php , work=

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

, publisher= UBM , first=Alexander , last=Antoniades , date=2009-01-15 , access-date=2018-07-27 {{cite web , title=Get Personal - Interview with Rich Fleider , url=http://www.sharkygames.com/games/articles/get_personal/gp3/ , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001109093900/http://www.sharkygames.com/games/articles/get_personal/gp3/ , url-status=dead , archive-date=2000-11-09 , work= Sharky Games , publisher= internet.com Corporation , first=Vangie , last=Beal , date=2000-10-21 , access-date=2018-07-29 {{cite web , url=http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2006/04/the_apogee_legacy_14.html , title=The Apogee Legacy #14 - Scott Host , publisher=

3D Realms 3D Realms Entertainment ApS is a video game publisher based in Aalborg, Denmark. Scott Miller (entrepreneur), Scott Miller founded the company in his parents' home in Garland, Texas, in 1987 as Apogee Software Productions to release his game ' ...

, access-date=2018-07-29 {{cite web , url=http://blitwise.com/raptor_iphone.html , title=Raptor - iPhone , last=Welch , first=Michael P. , date=2010 , website= Blitwise Productions , access-date=2017-07-29 {{cite book , url=https://archive.org/stream/Hocus_Pocus#page/n7 , date=1994 , title=Duke Nukem II Manual , publisher= Apogee Software , author=Steve Maines , page=7 {{cite book , url=https://archive.org/stream/Blake_Stone_Aliens_of_Gold#page/n31 , date=1994 , title=Blake Stone Manual , publisher= Apogee Software , page=32 {{cite book , url=https://archive.org/stream/Hocus_Pocus#page/n7 , date=1994 , title=Hocus Pocus Manual , publisher= Apogee Software , author=Robert M. Atkins , page=7 {{cite book , url=http://legacy.3drealms.com/tech/manuals/Realms%20of%20Chaos.pdf , date=1995 , title=Realms of Chaos Manual , publisher= Apogee Software , page=7 {{cite web , url=http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=5978 , title=Raptor: Call of the Shadows , work= AllGame , publisher=

All Media Network RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel. Blinkx was founded in 2004, went publi ...

, access-date=2017-06-16 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141114182405/http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=5978 , archive-date=2014-11-14 , url-status=dead {{cite web , title=''Demonstar'' for PC - GameRankings , url=http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/250532-demonstar/index.html , publisher=

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

, access-date=2017-07-29 {{cite web , url=http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showpost.php?p=30610&postcount=23 , title=Who owns the rights to Raptor , last=Host , first=Scott , date=2002-05-30 , website=

Forums , access-date=2017-05-12 {{cite web, url=http://legacy.3drealms.com/faq/apfaq72.txt , title=The Apogee FAQ: Cancelled Projects , last=Stoddard , first=Samuel , work=The Apogee FAQ 7.2 , publisher=Samuel Stoddard , access-date=2018-03-21

External links

Official website

Mountain King Studios
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Companies based in Chicago