A California-based video game company with Newfoundland roots has helped Spider-Man swing on to Nintendo screens again.
Other Ocean Interactive, started by siblings Andrew and Deirdre Ayre, originally of St. John’s, and with studios in St. John’s and Charlottetown, launched “Spider-Man: Edge of Time” earlier this month for the handheld Nintendo DS (versions for the Wii, PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 were done by Beenox).
Pauly Schiavone, a producer at Other Ocean’s St. John’s office, said almost all of the work for the Nintendo version of the game was done in Newfoundland.
“The whole concept, drawing up the design for the game — we’ve got a full complement of artists, designers and programmers here in the St. John’s studio, so everything right from the initial concept and planning for the project, right through to the end product, the final art, the final integration of all the programming as well as all the artwork,” he said.
“We even have a testing house that’s in-house, so we do basically everything right from the initial concept right through to the final product that gets shipped out and put on the shelf.”
Other Ocean worked on the project for about seven months, he said, adding that — with several comic book fans on staff — it was a fun assignment.
“It was exciting for us. For me, personally, I grew up in the age of comic books, so to work on an intellectual property like ‘Spider-Man,’ part of Marvel Comics, was a huge, huge opportunity for us,” he said. “It was something we were all excited to be working on.”
Releasing a game involves promotion by the game’s publisher Activision (for whom Other Ocean also produced “X-Men Destiny,” released in September) and showcases at videogame expositions such as E3 in Los Angeles and at the PAX Expo in Seattle.
“Nintendo Power also did a nice article for us,” Schiavone said.
“We’ve had some really good reviews so far from some of the online portals that critique games.”
dmaceachern@thetelegram.com
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