Oni: Difference between revisions

'''Oni''' is an action video game developed by [[Bungie West]], a satellite studio of [[wp:Bungie|Bungie]], and released on January 29, 2001<ref>[http://oni.bungie.org/newsarchives/2001/jan01.html Bungie.org, News for January 2001].</ref> for Windows, Macintosh, and PlayStation 2.

An additional influence came through Oni's concept artist Alex Okita, who was a big fan of ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]'', calling it and ''Ghost in the Shell'' "the two main influences at the time."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170705124855/http://www.glixel.com/interviews/oni-bungies-classic-inspired-by-ghost-in-the-shell-w474297 Glixel, "Flashback: 'Oni', Bungie's Cult Classic Inspired by 'Ghost in the Shell'"].</ref> He particularly cited Kenichi Sonoda, character designer of ''Bubblegum Crisis'', as an influence on [[:Category:Art by Alex Okita|his work]].<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20010118230100/http://www.onicore.com/interviews/alexokita.html OniCore, Interview with Alex Okita].</ref> Later, Lorraine Reyes also showed her familiarity with Sonoda's work with [[:Image:Konoko_Variants.jpg|a sketch]] that resembles her [[:Image:Konoko Kneeling Pre-Beta.png|finalized design]] for Konoko. In August of 1999, Hardy LeBel was brought in as Design Lead, and revamped the story.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20010727151534/www.insidemacgames.com/features/00/lebel/ Inside Mac Games, Interview: Oni's Hardy LeBel].</ref> He cited ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' as a personal influence when doing so.<ref name=conquer>[https://web.archive.org/web/20041209033107/http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2001/02/oni/ Apple.com, Conquering Demons: Bungie on Oni].</ref><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4618 OCF post by Hardy LeBel, "Re: The Analytical reasons behind Oni's influences"].</ref> The final version of Oni abandons the cyborg nature of the heroine and instead introduces original concepts such as the [[Daodan Chrysalis]] and [[SLD]]s.

After an initial onslaught of advertising which saw Konoko appear on many gaming magazine covers, Oni's development stalled (as discussed below), and Bungie suspended the advertising of the game so as not to expend their budget before Oni was even released.<ref name=advert>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4570 OCF post by Matt Soell, "Re: Matt- could you address this?"].</ref> At the same time, Bungie's HQ in Chicago had their own game under development; previously known only by its code name "Blam!", in 1999 it came to be known as "Halo" and slowly drew attention away from the oft-delayed Oni as images and trailers for it began to appear.

In order to ship the game by year-end, the Bungie West staff worked massive overtime for several months straight. During this "crunch" period, the unexpected departure of the graphics programmer led to his replacement and a minor overhaul of the graphics code.<!-- Congratulations, you found a secret reference! For a citation on the graphics programmer leaving, see this auction of a copy of Oni by Stefan Sinclair: https://archive.is/njEe3. Stefan tells the story in the Description section. We know that he replaced the previous programmer by August because that's when Stefan started posting questions online about OpenGL ^_^ Anyway, it's a bit awkward to link to a page like this as an official citation so I am hiding it here for now. -Iritscen --> Technical and/or gameplay issues required all 14 levels to have their geometry significantly altered over the course of 7 months.<ref name=conquer /> According to Hardy LeBel, "It was as bad a crunch as there has ever been in the video games industry."<ref>See the documentary [https://youtu.be/jbrPu15jjPs?t=960 Bungie's Forgotten Franchise - Oni], 16 minute mark.</ref> It is only due to this final push that a playable and enjoyable game was forged out of over two years of prior work.

Oni went through a short period of beta testing, starting just before September 2000,<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4556 OCF thread, "New news groups?"].</ref> during which leaked beta builds of the game surfaced on the Internet.<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=6634 OCF thread, "Leakage?"]</ref><ref>[https://groups.google.com/g/alt.games.tombraider/c/vB9G_SbOrmU/m/i6D6zJQvNngJ Usenet alt.games.tombraider thread, "ok wtf!"]</ref> As Bungie West reached the end of development, Oni's publisher, Take-Two Interactive, granted them an extra month to polish the game, even though it would mean missing the holiday season.<!--No official citation for this because it's in the private full interview video with Hardy, but see 33:48 in that video.--> This final period of asset development apparently spanned October 2000, during which time the training level was added.<ref>See [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=5646 OCF thread, "Re: is the "new' movie really the old trailer"]. A candidate for GM produced on Oct. 30, 2000 already contained the training level. The timestamp on the retail game data is Nov. 3, 2000, so clearly all assets were done by that point.</ref>

Oni was finally released, much later than originally expected, at the end of January 2001<ref>[http://oni.bungie.org/newsarchives/2001/jan01.html Oni Central News Archive, Jan. 2001].</ref> (spring 2001 in Europe). Oni was translated into other languages, including Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.<ref>[http://oni.bungie.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2102 OCF thread, "What language is your copy of Oni in?"]. These localizations generally included re-dubbing the game's dialogue in that language, except for the Chinese localization which only translated the in-game text. Unofficial distributions of the game were made in additional languages such as [[Slovak game manual|Slovak]] by only translating the manual and not changing any of the data on the game disc.</ref> These localizations were critical to building Oni's fan base, which today is largely based outside of primarily-English-speaking countries.

Some previously-hyped features were missing, such as smart gunfire dodging and alarm behavior on the part of the AI. On the Oni Central Forum, Design Lead Hardy LeBel blamed this on Oni's original AI programmer, saying, "She made a lot of boastful claims about what the AI would end up being able to do that she couldn't deliver on."<ref name=HL-cuts>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=19661 OCF post by Hardy LeBel, "Re: More questions... (mainly for chef...)"].</ref> Interestingly, some hidden AI abilities have been found in Oni's engine, either disabled, slightly buggy, or not utilized by the game's mission scripts.

Finally, Bungie did not hold to their usual practice of releasing level-building tools for their games, since a professional and costly CAD program was used to produce Oni's levels.<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=2321 OCF post by Matt Soell, "Re: general questions...."].</ref> As Oni's release neared, it was pointed out by Matt Soell, Bungie's PR person, that since Bungie no longer owned the game, they were unable to release whatever supplementary tools had been developed. Early statements about releasing the file formats were probably also impossible to follow through on once ownership had transferred to Take-Two. Thus, it was left to the fans to create modding tools after investigating the inner workings of the game on their own.

It is believed that Bungie began suffering from a shortage of cash around 1998 when the [[Myth]] II uninstaller bug was discovered and cost them at least $800,000 to correct.<ref>[https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/monsters-in-a-box/ Chicago Reader, "Monsters in a Box"].</ref> This might have been difficult to absorb for a studio not accustomed to a disciplined release schedule. The next game to release after Myth II was to be Oni in 1999, but as Oni's release date began to slide more and more, it became clear that Bungie had underestimated the time required to finish the game by more than usual. In the meantime, Bungie was bankrolling two studios instead of one. Thus, the decision was made to partner with Take-Two Interactive; on August 13, 1999, it was announced that Take-Two would acquire 19.9% of Bungie in exchange for the publishing rights to Oni and the upcoming Halo.<ref>[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946581/0000891554-00-000145.txt SEC 10-K filing for Take-Two Interactive, 10/31/99].</ref> Take-Two also began work on a port of Oni for the upcoming PlayStation 2 console.

This deal didn't seem to change business much for Bungie, especially since Take-Two was having the PS2 port performed by another studio. But considerably more shocking news was revealed on June 19, 2000, when Bungie announced its acquisition by Microsoft.<ref>[https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-buys-bungie-take-two-buys-oni-ps2-situation-unchanged IGN, "Microsoft Buys Bungie, Take Two Buys Oni, PS2 Situation Unchanged"].</ref> It turned out that Bungie's monetary woes had not been solved by Take-Two's influx of cash, and so MacSoft founder Peter Tamte had been hired by Bungie to find a buyer for the company. Take-Two acquired (among other things) all rights to the Oni and Myth IPs in exchange for its stake in Bungie and its publishing rights for Halo. Take-Two valued the Oni IP at $2.8 million, and the Myth IP at $1.5 million.<ref>[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946581/000112528202003845/b320556.htm SEC 10-K filing for Take-Two Interactive, 10/31/02].</ref><ref>The sale of Bungie to Microsoft has an interesting historical footnote: according to Ed Fries, who was VP of game publishing at Microsoft, Steve Jobs angrily called MS CEO Steve Ballmer immediately after the Bungie acquisition was announced; sources within Bungie have stated that Apple themselves had been close to offering to buy Bungie at the time. In order to appease Apple (a business partner of Microsoft) over the loss of a major Mac game developer, a new company was formed to port Windows games to the Mac, named Destineer, and headed up by none other than Peter Tamte of Bungie. Destineer would go on to publish a port of Halo for the Mac in 2003. ([http://web.archive.org/web/20210116004457/https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/publishing/steve-jobs-raged-at-microsoft-over-game-studio-sale/], [http://web.archive.org/web/20201001195523/https://www.mcvuk.com/development-news/ex-bungie-dev-apple-got-close-to-buying-us/], [https://web.archive.org/web/20181019075755/http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=173])</ref>

At first, Take-Two seemed intent on investing in Oni as a franchise. Shortly after Oni's release, a simple game billed as an Oni prequel<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20020221045402/http://www.fgnonline.com/pc/news/17352.html Fastest Game News Online, "Oni Prequel Announced"].</ref> (developed by Quantum Sheep) was released for [[wp:Wireless_Application_Protocol|WAP]]-enabled cell phones. More significantly, it was rumored<ref>[http://oni.bungie.org/newsarchives/2001/apr01.html Oni Central News, Apr. 1, 2001].</ref> that Take-Two had put Oni 2 into production; however, no sequel was ever officially announced. In 2016, an actual development build of the cancelled game was leaked.<ref>Documented by the game preservation YouTube channel PtoPOnline [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZItobLIJJMY here].</ref> Interviews with former employees of Angel Studios revealed that the game had been in development for about two years without a clear direction, and the troubled project was finally cancelled when Angel Studios was acquired by Rockstar in 2002 and renamed Rockstar San Diego.

::(laughs) Oni isn't currently one of those projects we're looking at, but one should never say never.<br> We'd be happy to work with the individuals who made Oni.<ref>[http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/trans/4players_hr_sk_interview.html 4players.de interviews Shane Kim and Harold Ryan (translated)].</ref>