I just got back from MAGfest 8 in Alexandria, Virginia, and not only was the experience awesome, but I was given a birthday gift from Stevo a.k.a. Level99, Hope Fails, and Moonlapse. Guess what that gift was?
They performed a live rock/metal version of Ecco II for Game Gear’s most prominent theme, no shit. And here’s an MP3 for everybody! 
Here be link. EDIT: Fixed link; the old one died. Sorry ’bout that!
And guess what. It won not third, not second, but FIRST friggin place in the Dwelling of Duels competition at MAGfest 8. Yes, I concur, this is awesome.
More to come after I recover from MAGfest.
-Epicenter
p.s. I am considering a twitter feed IF the ecco community will use it. Will you? If so, I’ll make updates every single day via twitter. Gracias. Hasta later.
Yep, no joke. Expect prototypes from us on a much more regular basis! Here’s a link to the ROM file and documentation! Thanks to Hidden Palace without whom this release would not be possible.
Stay tuned Ecco fans!
- Epicenter
Sorry about yesterday, had a bit of a family issue to deal with that ate up all my time. Current plans are to release 0429 tonight. The docs will need a little cleaning up after the fact, but it’s about ready to go.
For live updates and info on 0429’s release, go to the Live Chat using the link on the sidebar to your left, or connect to irc.rscript.org #darksea … see you there. 
Less than 5 stages left to document in 0429. We expect to release it this weekend in partnership with Hidden Palace. In the meantime we are preparing Ecco: Sentinels of the Universe for Dreamcast for release, along with 2 other Ecco prototypes for Genesis/MegaDrive.
Stay tuned!
Finished 5 more 0429 stages’ documentation tonight; we’re in the home stretch now. Epicenter out.
Tails151 found a strange glitch in this build– take a look on the Vortex Entrance page of the X11 docs. Two more stages documented in 0429 tonight; getting close! ~15 stages left to go and 0429 will be ready to go.
Just a quick news update to keep you guys in the loop as to what’s coming to DARK SEA. 0429 is nearly fully documented and will be released shortly. My move from New Jersey to Atlanta has been slowing things down, but I’m finally all settled.
After 0429, we’ll be documenting/releasing the first May 1994 build of Ecco II. We’ll also be releasing documentation of our first Ecco Jr. prototype, with the help of Mecheon and his encyclopedic knowledge of that game’s nuances.
Ecco: Sentinels of the Universe, sequel to Defender of the Future, is in our possession along with a large collection of development materials, many gigabytes of it– as well as an early Ecco 3D engine test for Dreamcast. Once we have raised the funds to finish paying for these prototypes, we’ll be releasing them to the public. I’ll keep you all posted when our official fund raiser is initiated in full.
Stay tuned! Epicenter out.
The 0429 prototype documentation is nearing completion and we have a new helper to speed up the process– Magical Trevor X of the Dark Sea BBS. Despite massive hard disk failures and other setbacks we’re finally back on track– once 0429 is up, you’ll be seeing new prototypes from us on a FAR more regular basis.
To give you a taste of what’s to come in this new build from Novotrade, here’s a small preview of two of the stages.
Is this what Dolphins’ dreams look like?
Nope, it’s ONEWAY, a bizarre test stage loaded with peculiar current objects and a vertiable army of fish. Curiously enough, it’s built upon a very broken version of Dark Sea.
Next up we have a much-improved version of “Spiral” from Build X11, which later became Secret Cave. If you think Welcome to the Machine was difficult, wait til you see the nightmare challenge 0429’s version of Spiral has in store. It’ll even scare speed-runners.
So what’s this other treat? A terrific medley of Ecco II tracks covered by This Place is Haunted. This may be their finest work yet. Not only that, I’m finally fixing the Ecco remixes section and adding some new goodies to it. I’ll make another post the moment it’s ready to roll.
In the meantime, feast your eardrums on some This Place is Haunted. Check out more of T.P.I.H.’s awesome music at http://www.myspace.com/thisplaceishaunted.
Stay tuned for more Ecco news!
After a lengthy ‘debate’ with Arkon, I decided to take a piece of his advice. As we work on big things for the site to share with you all, we’ll be posting smaller, more regular updates to keep the community abreast of Ecco news.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting a preview of what’s in store in Ecco Prototype 0429 (which is nearing completion, after some ill-timed disk failures) and reimplementing the Ecco remixes section.
In the meantime, check out some stellar 3D rendered concepts by Alphalien of the Dark Sea BBS, proposed for Ed Annunziata’s proposed ‘Ecco III’. Click any of the images below to view at full size. Images are ~1 MByte each.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s update!
No, we’re not dead. Due to some lovely catastrophic disk failure our work has been slowed down, but we’re still moving forward. Here’s what’s coming up shortly:
- Ecco II Prototype 0429 (April 29, 1994), complete with a ROM and full documentation, same as we gave build X11
- Ecco I Revision 01, with ROM and documentation– this improved version of Ecco I from Novotrade improves on Ecco I’s US/EU release but predates the Japanese release. It’s in English and so far as we know, was never released in Genesis cartridge format. It was also the basis for various ports/emulated versions of Ecco I for more modern consoles.
- The new and improved Ecco Remixes section, with all the old content and some exclusive new additions from some very talented artists including RushJet1, Illusen and more.
- Ecco Dreamcast Prototypes and LOADS of prototype development material from Appaloosa — We’re still building up funds to release these, so any donations will help speed that process up.
Stay tuned, DARK SEA is going big places. We’ll keep you posted.
