In a time where a lot of popular video games are made in Quebec (mostly Montreal), i was curious to know about the early days of game development over there. Unfortunately, i could not find anything except stuff from the late 2000s - up to 2017. I was curious to know what was the earliest known game made in Quebec. BTW, when i say Quebec, i mean the province, and not the city of the same name.
This is going to be a tricky thing to hunt down. I assume there should be something in the mid to late 80s in pc software that existed back then. If you maybe look through the Softkey library maybe you'll find something. You also might have to do some digging in french to get some answers as well. Then the other obvious answer being Ubi in 97. There is a lot written up on wikipedia on the subject. When I started working in Mtl in 2003 by then there was quite a few studios running by then.
I am pretty sure the oldest was a Coleco game. On the list of games onWiki, there's a game made by Hydro-Quebec. Probably a promo thing.
I just took a look on the list of colecovision games on wikipedia, and there is indeed a game from Hydro-Quebec... unfortunately, i can’t find any screenshots. I will try to find something for the Atari or the NES, i’m sure i can find something interesting. Of course, i’ll also look for old computer stuff. Edit: looks like Energy Quizz (from Hydro Quebec) was made but never released
I might have found one of the first released games made in quebec. It is called "Poussinet" and was released for the Atari 8-bit family in 1984. While nothing says that it was made there, what makes me believe this is the case is the fact that it was a Canadian release and the dev's first and last names are very common in Quebec.
No I don't think so. I think based on atari age post, one of the developers now lives in BC but that does not mean the game was made in BC. Also the team and company was very much from quebec because when someone went to sell off some of the stuff there are tons of documents in french and the publisher address is also listed on one with an address in dorval (a city on the island of montreal) http://atariage.com/forums/uploads/monthly_03_2012/post-30992-0-69525800-1330653602_thumb.jpg http://atariage.com/forums/topic/194804-poussinet-goods/
Thank you very much, i never noticed those documents. BTW, i live about 30 minutes from Dorval. I wonder what's at this address now...
Update: I found a game that predates Poussinet by 3 years. "Mariner" (AKA 800 Fathoms) was released in the arcades in 1981 and was developped in St-Laurent, in Quebec. The developper, Amenip Nova Games, would later develop Naughty Mouse (AKA Woodpecker), Round-Up (AKA Fitter) And Intrepid. They also published Taito's Dock Man in Canada as "Port Man".
Thank you! I found this information when looking at strategywiki's Intrepid page. It had a picture of the game's flyer with Nova Games' address on it, which, to my surprise, happened to be in Saint-Laurent, in Quebec! So i looked for more info on Nova Games. The info i found confirmed that Nova Games is one of, if not the first video game dev from Quebec. I would be surprised if i found stuff from before 1981, the date Mariner was released in the arcades.
This is Zarya Vostoka, the sequel of Nova Game's Intrepid. Since the game is not properly dumped, it looks like a garbled mess. The only way to make it somewhat playable is by adding Intrepid's roms to Zarya Vostoka. This is how the title screen looks after the Intrepid roms have been added. [GALLERY=media, 2363]Zarya Vostoka Title Screen by ExplodingLem posted Dec 1, 2017 at 6:47 PM[/GALLERY] If you find footage of this game running properly, feel free to post it on this thread. I want to restore the game's graphics to make it fully playable.
