Duplo and the Third Dimension - Part One

Returning to the Annals of Duplo narrative… Here I will begin descanting on the multimedia phase of Duplo. This period is of especial interest, as it demonstrates the prescience of Duplo's futurological contemplations.

Nowadays, nearly all computer games employ a 3D graphics engine to some extent. It was quite a different story in the early to mid-1990s when 2D was the dimension du jour. Of course, some notable games bucked the trend, but hardware capability was an issue (particularly on the Commodore Amiga) and there was also the sense that 3D negated the artistry and characterfulness achievable with 2D. There persisted a doomed faith in 2D graphic engines - spurred on by the prospect of full motion video incorporation - exampled by the production of short-lived platforms such as the Philips CD-i, the Amiga CD32 and the misnamed 3DO, all of which were geared toward 2D.

Around 1993, I had programmed a game utilising the Freescape 3D engine (via 3D Construction Kit and Amos) called Mount Viewpoint. Mount Viewpoint was a clumsy game set in a commune where each inhabitant had mislaid a possession, and the protagonist would brave various tightropes, planks over acid-filled swimming pools and murderous hovering cuboids to reunite people with their objects. On completion of the game, the player could climb the stairway to Mount Viewpoint itself, overlooking the entire commune, where the community could literally be 'looked down upon' by the player from a great height in an open-ended sense of lordship.

Mount Viewpoint was unrelated to Duplo - being more of a side-project. It was difficult to inject character into 3D games at this time (making Duplo's character-craft very resistant to a 3D makeover - Freescape did not have textured 3D objects), however, the superior sense of spacial realism and 'infinite control' within interactive 3D environments was very much in evidence, especially when one was virtually stood atop Mount Viewpoint! The superiority of 3D was sensed, along with its seemingly endless possibilities. Sadly, this original Mount Viewpoint is now lost (but possibly still owned on floppy by somebody). Although, there was a larger 'sequel' of a very different nature (now archived)...


Around 1994, there was a widely-felt desire to replicate the school environment in the form of a computer simulation. An ultra-realistic simulation of 'life' was suggested, indistinguishable from real life, where outrageous gestures, surreal actions and sundry vengeances could be enacted freely. With the help of my peers, I set about trying to recreate known locations using this same Freescape engine. The large sprawling secondary school and its teacherhood was still quite unfamiliar and complex, so instead I created a representation of the old primary school. Due to laziness with titling, this new game retained the Mount Viewpoint tag despite this being a completely different and somewhat controversial new project.

This new Mount Viewpoint sequel was offered to an Amiga public domain distributor by post, but the disk was returned with a letter explaining that the game was too slow (pushing the Amiga to its limits!) and "very sick" in theme. In the text-heavy game, all characters were based on real life characters (except the nameless balaclava-clad assassin).


The plot sees a fascist headmistress targeted by a hitman, hired by the teachers' union, after it is disclosed that the headmistress had shot an infant dead in an appallingly misjudged act of corporal punishment (which the player witnesses whilst hiding under the headmistress' office desk). Lacking any true moral framework, the player autistically ambles around with the vague intention of killing both the headmistress, and (nihilistically) random teachers too… With a laser gun.

Familiar locations were painstakingly virtualised. Many banal flourishes were featured, such as the player's reluctance to "step on the nice floral arrangements", and an incident where the player is compelled to stalk a dog walker whose dog fouls a footpath - carrying the turd and sneakily posting it back into the owner's letterbox for bonus points. The protagonist would also suffer tiredness and would fall asleep in sheds and dustbins after exertions. Touches such as these added some realism. Despite this reality-borrowed tedium, it was noted by Duploista Peter R- that all Mount Viewpoint's characters resemble "jelly babies" (lack of character was a real bugbear with the Amiga's 3D capabilities).

Copies of this game were circulated amongst a limited circle, and it was dreamt that we could somehow use a telephone line to all "meet up" virtually inside the 3D world (this dream prefigured the rise of multi-player internet gaming).

Following this game, 'Duplo disks' were developed and distributed. These contained a gallery of several Duplo images and scans, prior to a menu offering a selection of choice playable commercial game demos ripped from magazine coverdisks. The images on these disks featured stills from Mount Viewpoint, with scanned 2D drawings overlaid onto the scenes.

In 1995, the use of the PC allowed for further graphical editing and subsequent conversion to the Amiga IFF image format using CrossDOS. Because there were more Amiga owners than PC owners, the Amiga 'Duplo disks' were still distributed as late as 1997, by this time featuring Duplo music as well as enhanced galleries and animations. At school, Duploistas would submit drawings to be scanned, and placed in virtual worlds before inauguration into Duplo disk galleries. On the walk to school every morning, new multimedia disk ideas were discussed.

As a footnote, it is unfortunate that when 'Mount Viewpoint - The Richard Whittington J.M.I. School Hullabaloo' was finally completed in 1999, its release was understated in the extreme, hence everybody had moved on technologically, mentally and physically. I was rather ashamed to have programmed it in the first place, deeply weird and disconcerting as it was (to illustrate further: in 1999 the Columbine killers in the U.S. were [mistakenly] reported to have designed Doom levels based on their Columbine school). To be continued...