Difference between revisions of "MTropolis"

Revision as of 21:19, 26 February 2023

mtropolis
Engine developer
Companies that used it	Various
Games that use it	Dozens
Date added to ScummVM	2022-08-05
First release containing it	2.7.0

mTropolis, (pronounced like the English word "metropolis"), was a multimedia creation tool by mFactory. It had a userbase of a few thousand during the mid-to-late 90s but was outcompeted by Macromedia's Director. A few games were built on mTropolis with high profile titles including Obsidian and Muppet Treasure Island. Though mTropolis lent itself to the development of HyperCard-like point-and-click games, the tech was a fully-featured multimedia project creation suite that was used for various niche projects.

Games

See mTropolis/Games.

History

mTropolis was released to the public at 1995's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The mTropolis "authoring system" was designed for Mac System 7 and supported both 68K and PowerPC CPUs. Despite the Mac-centric development ecosystem, runtimes or "playback systems" were available for Mac and Windows. A web target and accompanying Netscape plugin was also developed.

mFactory's assets were purchased by Quark in 1997 who released mTropolis v2.0 in 1998. This was a final update and the end of all support for the product. A usergroup attempted to purchase the mTropolis IP and possibly make it open-source but negotiations fell through.

Versions

mTropolis v1.0: January 1995
mTropolis v1.1: May 1996
mTropolis v1.1.1: October 10 1996
mTropolis v1.1.2: December 16 1996
mTropolis v1.1.3: September 5 1997
mTropolis v2.0 Beta 3: December 2 1997 (save-disabled)
mTropolis v2.0: March 1998

Resources

External Links

Articles

Game Developer Magazine: "Goodbye, mTropolis" by Kevin S. Willis of Ransom Interactive (1998-06)
King of Dragon Pass (Blog): An Architecture Overview (2011-02-06)
Salon: The Software that Refused to Die (1998-10-06)

Emulating a 68K or PPC Mac to Run the mTropolis Authoring Software

The authoring software isn't needed to run any games though it may be useful for research about the engine.

Other

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 |companies=Various
 |usedBy=[[mTropolis/Games|Dozens]]
-|dateAdded=
+|dateAdded=August 5, 2022
-|release=
+|release=2.7.0
 }}
 '''mTropolis''', (pronounced like the English word "metropolis"), was a multimedia creation tool by '''mFactory'''. It had a userbase of a few thousand during the mid-to-late 90s but was outcompeted by Macromedia's [[Director]]. A few games were built on mTropolis with high profile titles including ''Obsidian'' and ''Muppet Treasure Island''. Though mTropolis lent itself to the development of HyperCard-like point-and-click games, the tech was a fully-featured multimedia project creation suite that was used for various niche projects.
-==Games targeted by the engine==
+==Games==
 See [[mTropolis/Games]].
-==mTropolis Files==
-Built mTropolis projects used standard file-naming conventions although there were some deviations. The runtime files, known as "mTropolis Player" tended to be renamed or have their icon changed to match the game. If a mTropolis game was small enough, they tended to be have a single release on a hybrid CD-ROM with separate Mac and Windows partitions. Larger or multi-CD games tended to utilize separate releases for each OS.
-* All mTropolis versions Data Files
-** External Video Files -- folder "Videos"
-* mTropolis v1.0 or v1.1 Data Files (Mac)
-** Segment Startup File -- name of the project and "1"
-** Other Segment Files -- name of the project and number starting at "2"
-* mTropolis v1.0 or v1.1 Data Files (Win)
-**Segment Startup File -- name of the project and "1" with extension ".MPL".
-** Other Segment Files -- name of the project and  number starting at "2" with extension ".MPX"
-* mTropolis v2.0 Data Files (cross-platform)
-** Segment Startup File -- name of the project with extension ".mfx"
-** Other Segment File -- name of the project and  number starting at "2" with extension ".mxx"
-* mTropolis v2.0 Data Files (Mac)
-** Segment Startup File -- name of the project with extension ".mfm"
-** Other Segment File -- name of the project and  number starting at "2" with extension ".mxm"
-* mTropolis v2.0 Data Files (Win)
-** Segment Startup File -- name of the project with extension ".mfw"
-** Other Segment File -- name of the project and  number starting at "2" with extension ".mxw"
-*mTropolis v1.0 Runtime Files (Win)
-**mTropolis Windows Player v1.0.0.1 -- "MTPLAY16.exe"
-**mTropolis Windows Player v1.0.0.1 -- "MTPLAY32.exe"
-*mTropolis v1.1 Runtime Files (Win)
-**mTropolis 32-Bit Windows Player v1.1.2.241 -- "MTPLAY31.EXE"
-**mTropolis 32-Bit Windows Player v1.1.2.241 -- "MTPLAY95.EXE"
-*mTropolis v2.0 Runtime Files (Win)
-**mTropolis 32-Bit Windows Player v2.0.0.0 -- "Mtplay32.exe"
 ==History==
@@ Line 51: / Line 22: @@
 * mTropolis v1.0: January 1995
 * mTropolis v1.1: May 1996
+* mTropolis v1.1.1: October 10 1996
+* mTropolis v1.1.2: December 16 1996
+* mTropolis v1.1.3: September 5 1997
+* mTropolis v2.0 Beta 3: December 2 1997 (save-disabled)
 * mTropolis v2.0: March 1998
+==Resources==
+* [[mTropolis/Common Files in mTropolis Software|Common Files in mTropolis Software]]
+* [[mTropolis/Non-Games|List of Non-Game mTropolis Software]]
+* [[mTropolis/Magazines Including mTropolis Game Demos|Magazines Including mTropolis Game Demos]]
 ==External Links==