Cyberlore Studios, Inc. was an American

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a larg ...

based in

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an a ...

History

The company was founded in 1992 by Lester Humphreys, Ken Grey, and Herb Perez. Since 1992, they produced

expansion pack An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game or collectible card game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, characters, or a ...

s for ''

MechWarrior 4 ''MechWarrior 4: Vengeance'' is a vehicle simulation game, developed by FASA Interactive and published by Microsoft. It was released on November 22, 2000. It is the fourth game in '' MechWarrior'' series. It takes place in BattleTech universe ...

'', ''

Heroes of Might and Magic II ''Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars '' is a turn-based strategy video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joysti ...

'', and '' Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal''. They also produced '' Playboy: The Mansion'' (2004), a simulation game based on the life of

Hugh Hefner Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of ''Playboy'' magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles which provoked charges of obsc ...

and ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

'', and a PlayStation 2 version of the classic board game ''

Risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environme ...

''. Their most notable game is '' Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim'', whose original concept was created by Jim DuBois, who worked for the company as a senior designer. In 2005, Cyberlore ceased development of general entertainment games after the collapse of their publisher,

Hip Games In vertebrate anatomy, hip (or "coxa"Latin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) in medical terminology) refers to either an anatomical region or a joint. The hip region is ...

, and the subsequent layoff of two-thirds of their staff. The company refocused on the

serious game A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...

corporate training market, under the new company name of Minerva.

Published works

*'' Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse'' (1994) *'' Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall'' (1995) *'' Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal'' (1996) *'' Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty'' (1997) *'' Deadlock II: Shrine Wars'' (1998) *'' Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim'' (2000) *'' Majesty: The Northern Expansion'' (2001) *'' MechWarrior 4: Black Knight'' (2001) *'' MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries'' (2002) *'' Risk: Global Domination'' (2003) *'' Playboy: The Mansion'' (2004)

References

External links

Cyberlore Studios
Video game development companies Video game companies established in 1992 Video game companies disestablished in 2005 Defunct video game companies of the United States Defunct companies based in Massachusetts {{US-videogame-company-stub