Digital Eclipse is an American video game developer based in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The resident population was 12,905 ...

. Founded by Andrew Ayre in 1992, the company found success developing commercial emulations of arcade games for Game Boy Color. In 2003, the company merged with ImaginEngine and created

Backbone Entertainment Backbone Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Emeryville, California. The company was formed in 2003 as the result of a merger between developers Digital Eclipse and ImaginEngine. In 2005, Backbone merged with The Collec ...

. A group of Digital Eclipse employees split off from Backbone to form Other Ocean Interactive, which, in 2015, bought and revived the Digital Eclipse brand. Among its staff is

video game preservation Video game preservation is a form of preservation applied to the video game industry that includes, but is not limited to, digital preservation. Such preservation efforts include archiving development source code and art assets, digital copies o ...

specialist

Frank Cifaldi Frank Cifaldi (born May 22, 1982) is a video game preservationist, historian, and developer. Cifaldi founded ''Lost Levels'', a website that collected information about unreleased video games, in 2003. This began his career in the video game i ...

History

Digital Eclipse was founded in 1992 by Andrew Ayre, Hans Kim, John Neil, and Howard Fukuda. The company's first offices were opened on a "nondescript, factory-filled" street in

, where Ayre (a native of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador) had moved following his graduation from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

to live with his girlfriend. Initially a technology

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend ...

, Digital Eclipse soon found that their software would be useful in the

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstrea ...

, and turned to game development instead. Using their technology, the company opted to produce commercial emulations of arcade games, such as

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' ''

Joust Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horse riders wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament. The primary aim was to replicate a clash of heavy cavalry, with each participant trying to strike the opponen ...

'', '' Defender'', and '' Robotron: 2084''. For these games, Digital Eclipse developed an interpreter that emulated the games' arcade machines'

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System" that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on the mo ...

, including the

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central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just Processor (computing), processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes Instruction (computing), instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU per ...

. This approach was meant to have the emulations act true to the original versions of these games, and not carry any imperfections direct

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could have introduced. All three emulated games were released as part of ''The Digital Arcade'' series for

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in 1995. Digital Eclipse found further success when the Game Boy Color was released; the new handheld console included a central processing unit based on the architecture of the

Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

, the processor used in older arcade machines. While other developers were moving on to develop for the more powerful PlayStation

home console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

, Digital Eclipse developed about 60 games for their niche market on the Game Boy Color. These games included '' Klax'', ''

Spy Hunter Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

'', ''

Moon Patrol is a 1982 arcade video game An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are ...

'', ''

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'', ''Joust'', ''Defender'', and ''

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'', as well as an original game, ''

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'', which Digital Eclipse produced for

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. Digital Eclipse also opened a second studio in

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, Canada. In February 2001, the company announced their move into the games market for "wireless Web" devices, hiring Scott Nisbet as director of wireless gaming, as well as Bruce Binder as Nisbet's consultant. In 2003, Digital Eclipse merged with ImaginEngine, creating

; while ImaginEngine remained an independent studio within that structure, Digital Eclipse's studios became Backbone Emeryville and Backbone Vancouver, respectively. By this point, Digital Eclipse had produced 70 games on 11 different platforms. In February 2006, Backbone opened another subsidiary studio, Backbone Charlottetown, in Charlottetown,

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, Canada, under the lead of Ayre. In May 2007, the new studio, including Ayre and several former Digital Eclipse employees, spun off from Backbone and became Other Ocean Interactive, aiming at showcasing Digital Eclipse's former traits in a smaller fashion. Backbone Vancouver was mostly dismantled in September 2008 and closed entirely in May 2009, while Backbone laid off the majority of its Emeryville-based staff in October 2012. On June 8, 2015, after acquiring the Digital Eclipse name, Other Ocean's parent company, Other Ocean Group, announced that it had reformed Digital Eclipse as part of its Other Ocean Emeryville studio. Co-founders include Ayre, Mike Mika—who had acted as

technical director A technical director (TD) is usually a senior technical person within e.g. a software company, engineering firm, film studio, theatre company or television studio. This person usually has the highest level of skill within a specific technical f ...

for the original Digital Eclipse—and former ''

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'' writer

. The new Digital Eclipse laid its focus on

, and Cifaldi became the studio's "head of restoration", a title which Cifaldi noted was an industry first. At the time, Cifaldi also stated that Digital Eclipse aimed at becoming the video game equivalent of

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...

Eclipse Engine

Part of Digital Eclipse's work include their own Eclipse Engine, a tool that allows them to

decompile A decompiler is a computer program that translates an executable file to a high-level source file which can be recompiled successfully. It does therefore the opposite of a typical compiler, which translates a high-level language to a low-level la ...

the code from older games into a machine-readable format that is then used by the Eclipse Engine to play them on modern systems. While it may take some extra work by the company to decompile the older game into the proper format one time, this approach allows them to rapidly port the Eclipse Engine version to any modern gaming system, including

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

s, consoles, and portable and mobile devices, with minimal effort. This engine has been used in Digital Eclipse's ''

Mega Man Legacy Collection ''Mega Man Legacy Collection'' is a series of video game compilations based on Capcom's ''Mega Man'' franchise. Each compilation features several playable video games from one of the ''Mega Man'' sub-series and adds new gameplay features and bonus ...

'' and '' The Disney Afternoon Collection''. The Eclipse Engine was primarily developed by Digital Eclipse's studio head, Mike Mika, and Other Ocean

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

Kevin Wilson, branched off from Other Ocean's Bakesale engine.

Games developed

As Digital Eclipse (1992–2004)

As Backbone Entertainment (2004–2012)

As Digital Eclipse (2015–present)

Notes

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.digitaleclipse.com/ 1992 establishments in California Companies based in Emeryville, California Video game companies based in California American companies established in 1992 Video game companies established in 1992 Video game development companies 2015 mergers and acquisitions