Digital Eclipse is an American

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The resident population was 12,905 as o ...

. Founded by Andrew Ayre in 1992, the company found success developing commercial emulations of

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

s for

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

. In 2003, the company merged with

ImaginEngine Backbone Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Emeryville, California. The company was formed in 2003 as the result of a merger between developers Digital Eclipse and ImaginEngine. In 2005, Backbone merged with The Colle ...

and created

Backbone Entertainment Backbone Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Emeryville, California. The company was formed in 2003 as the result of a merger between developers Digital Eclipse and ImaginEngine. In 2005, Backbone merged with The Collect ...

. A group of Digital Eclipse employees split off from Backbone to form Other Ocean Interactive, which, in 2015, bought and revived the Digital Eclipse brand. Among its staff is

video game preservation Video game preservation is a form of preservation applied to the video game industry that includes, but is not limited to, digital preservation. Such preservation efforts include archiving development source code and art assets, digital copies of ...

specialist

Frank Cifaldi Frank Cifaldi (born May 22, 1982) is a video game preservationist, historian, and developer. Cifaldi founded ''Lost Levels'', a website that collected information about unreleased video games, in 2003. This began his career in the video game i ...

History

Digital Eclipse was founded in 1992 by Andrew Ayre, Hans Kim, John Neil, and Howard Fukuda. The company's first offices were opened on a "nondescript, factory-filled" street in

, where Ayre (a native of

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans and is the easternmost city in North America ...

) had moved following his graduation from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

to live with his girlfriend. Initially a technology

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

, Digital Eclipse soon found that their software would be useful in the

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstream. , ...

, and turned to game development instead. Using their technology, the company opted to produce commercial emulations of

s, such as

Williams Electronics WMS Industries, Inc. was an American electronic gaming and amusement manufacturer in Enterprise, Nevada. It was merged into Scientific Games in 2016. WMS's predecessor was the Williams Manufacturing Company, founded in 1943 by Harry E. Williams ...

' ''

Joust Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horse riders wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament. The primary aim was to replicate a clash of heavy cavalry, with each participant trying to strike the opponent w ...

'', '' Defender'', and '' Robotron: 2084''. For these games, Digital Eclipse developed an interpreter that emulated the games' arcade machines'

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are ...

, including the

Motorola 6809 The Motorola 6809 ("''sixty-eight-oh-nine''") is an 8-bit microprocessor with some 16-bit features. It was designed by Motorola's Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. Although source compatible with the earlier Motorola 6800, the 6 ...

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

. This approach was meant to have the emulations act true to the original versions of these games, and not carry any imperfections direct

ports A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

could have introduced. All three emulated games were released as part of ''The Digital Arcade'' series for

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

in 1995. Digital Eclipse found further success when the

was released; the new

handheld console A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the cons ...

included a central processing unit based on the architecture of the

Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples wer ...

, the processor used in older arcade machines. While other developers were moving on to develop for the more powerful

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

home console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

, Digital Eclipse developed about 60 games for their niche market on the Game Boy Color. These games included '' Klax'', ''

Spy Hunter Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

'', ''

Moon Patrol is a 1982 arcade video game developed and released by Irem. It was licensed to Williams for distribution in North America. The player controls a moon buggy which can jump over and shoot obstacles on a horizontally scrolling landscape as well as ...

'', ''

Paperboy A paperboy is someoneoften an older child or adolescentwho distributes printed newspapers to homes or offices on a regular route, usually by bicycle or automobile. In Western nations during the heyday of print newspapers during the early 20th ...

'', ''Joust'', ''Defender'', and ''

720° ''720°'' is a skateboarding video game released in arcades by Atari Games in 1986, in which the player controls a skateboarder skating around a middle-class neighborhood. By doing jumps and tricks, the player can eventually acquire enough poin ...

'', as well as an original game, ''

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...

'', which Digital Eclipse produced for

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

. Digital Eclipse also opened a second studio in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, Canada. In February 2001, the company announced their move into the games market for "wireless Web" devices, hiring Scott Nisbet as director of wireless gaming, as well as Bruce Binder as Nisbet's consultant. In 2003, Digital Eclipse merged with

, creating

; while ImaginEngine remained an independent studio within that structure, Digital Eclipse's studios became Backbone Emeryville and Backbone Vancouver, respectively. By this point, Digital Eclipse had produced 70 games on 11 different platforms. In February 2006, Backbone opened another subsidiary studio, Backbone Charlottetown, in

Charlottetown Charlottetown is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, and the county seat of Queens County. Named after Queen Charlotte, Charlottetown was an unincorporated town until it was incorporated as a city in ...

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...

, Canada, under the lead of Ayre. In May 2007, the new studio, including Ayre and several former Digital Eclipse employees, spun off from Backbone and became

Other Ocean Interactive Other Ocean Interactive is a Canadian-American video game developer based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Emeryville, California. Originally founded in 2006 in Charlottetown, as a studio for Foundation 9 Entertainment, the studio ...

, aiming at showcasing Digital Eclipse's former traits in a smaller fashion. Backbone Vancouver was mostly dismantled in September 2008 and closed entirely in May 2009, while Backbone laid off the majority of its Emeryville-based staff in October 2012. On June 8, 2015, after acquiring the Digital Eclipse name, Other Ocean's parent company, Other Ocean Group, announced that it had reformed Digital Eclipse as part of its Other Ocean Emeryville studio. Co-founders include Ayre, Mike Mika—who had acted as

technical director A technical director (TD) is usually a senior technical person within e.g. a software company, engineering firm, film studio, theatre company or television studio. This person usually has the highest level of skill within a specific technical f ...

for the original Digital Eclipse—and former ''

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 ...

'' writer

. The new Digital Eclipse laid its focus on

, and Cifaldi became the studio's "head of restoration", a title which Cifaldi noted was an industry first. At the time, Cifaldi also stated that Digital Eclipse aimed at becoming the video game equivalent of

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

Eclipse Engine

Part of Digital Eclipse's work include their own Eclipse Engine, a tool that allows them to

decompile A decompiler is a computer program that translates an executable file to a high-level source file which can be recompiled successfully. It does therefore the opposite of a typical compiler, which translates a high-level language to a low-level lan ...

the code from older games into a machine-readable format that is then used by the Eclipse Engine to play them on modern systems. While it may take some extra work by the company to decompile the older game into the proper format one time, this approach allows them to rapidly port the Eclipse Engine version to any modern gaming system, including

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

s, consoles, and portable and mobile devices, with minimal effort. This engine has been used in Digital Eclipse's ''

Mega Man Legacy Collection ''Mega Man Legacy Collection'' is a series of video game compilations based on Capcom's ''Mega Man'' franchise. Each compilation features several playable video games from one of the ''Mega Man'' sub-series and adds new gameplay features and bonus ...

'' and '' The Disney Afternoon Collection''. The Eclipse Engine was primarily developed by Digital Eclipse's

studio head Studio manager, studio director, or studio head is a job title in various media-related professions, including design, advertising, and broadcasting. Design and advertising A design or advertising studio manager's responsibilities will typically ...

, Mike Mika, and Other Ocean

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Kevin Wilson, branched off from Other Ocean's Bakesale engine.

Games developed

As Digital Eclipse (1992–2004)

As Backbone Entertainment (2004–2012)

As Digital Eclipse (2015–present)

Notes

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.digitaleclipse.com/ 1992 establishments in California Companies based in Emeryville, California Video game companies based in California American companies established in 1992 Video game companies established in 1992 Video game development companies 2015 mergers and acquisitions