''Skull Cracker'' is a 1996

supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...

beat 'em up A beat 'em up (also known as brawler and, in some markets, beat 'em all) is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in Side-scrolling video game, scrolling, 2D c ...

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developed by American studio CyberFlix and published by GTE Entertainment on Macintosh and Windows. It is sometimes considered a spiritual successor to the 1991 title '' Creepy Castle'', which the game's head of technology William Appleton had previously written for Reactor Inc. ''Skull Cracker'' was conceptually designed by Ben Calica.

Development

After the release of '' Titanic: Adventure Out of Time'', Cyberflix released this old project which had been sitting in the vaults for a few years. The game was demoed on October 28, 1995 at the Double Tree Hotel (Crowne Plaza) in Rockville. It also previewed at the 1994

Summer Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

along with other Cyberflix games, presented by Paramount.

Plot and gameplay

The developers described it as an "old-fashioned

side-scrolling A side-scrolling video game (alternatively side-scroller) is a video game viewed from a side-view camera angle where the screen follows the player as they move left or right. The jump from single-screen or flip-screen graphics to scrolling grap ...

arcade game". The game sees the player battle through 16 levels of the undead and monsters. The game contains 50s-style monsters and 90s-style urban grit.

Critical reception

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

offered a scathing review, panning the title's "bad art, poor animation, limited controls, no decent action, lame gameplay". MacLedge felt the game was a letdown from Cyberflix's previous work. Inside Mac Games praised the title's intriguing storyline, witty humor and exciting gameplay. Cyberflix head Scott Scheinbaum would later say "Every company makes mistakes, and that was ours...It should have come out a year and a half before it did", noting that 1994 technology seemed stale by 1996. World Village noted the game was a departure from the history-based title ''Titanic''.

References

{{GTE Interactive Media 1996 video games Beat 'em ups Horror video games Classic Mac OS games GTE Interactive Media games Side-scrolling video games Video games developed in the United States Windows games Single-player video games CyberFlix games