View topic - Mantra (1997) - Canceled - Windows, Apple, Application, Abandonware and Game Beta Downloads/Repository

Hallfiry · **Post subject:** Mantra (1997) - Canceled **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 8:46 pm

I recently came across some screenshots of an RPG called Mantra. It was developed by Crack Dot Com and Mountain King Studios back in 1996 and early 1997. When they started working on DemonStar, they canceled the game.

In 1997 Crack.com wrote:

The Story of Teat
You are an apprentice knight named Teat, and your clan, the Donners, holds domain over seven lands. But the Donner lands are under siege by a powerful dark clan, the Melange. They have installed themselves in the outer lands and are slowly suffocating the Donners. They have killed off most of the Donner fighting men and left the clan in disarray.

As an apprentice, you are powerless to help. Teat's challenge is to become a man, take down the Melange, and restore power to the Donners!

Crack dot Com has teamed up with Mountain King Studios to bring you Mantra, an action/role-playing game for Windows 95. Mantra is written by the celebrated game author Scott Host, maker of the hit action games "Raptor" and "Galactix", and produced by Dave Taylor, co-author of "Quake", "Doom", and "Abuse".

Mantra leverages the Windows 95 Direct X interface to bring you, fast smooth, 640x480 HiColor graphics and exploits a new rendering technology that brings 486's and old Pentiums back into modern 3D gaming!

Mantra is scheduled for release in 1997, but a release date has not yet been set.

z180

Thanks for starting all that interesting threads

Beta

Thanks, interesting read, keep up all the good work!

john11

Interesting, did they make a beta? I wonder what the gameplay would have been like, to be released in 1997, can't wait

. Could have been good back in the day, too bad they cancelled it.

Hallfiry

john11 wrote:

Interesting, did they make a beta? I wonder what the gameplay would have been like, to be released in 1997, can't wait

. Could have been good back in the day, too bad they cancelled it.

Their old website mentiones alpha version that they sent to interested publishers.

I'm already trying to get an alpha. Maybe we'll have luck

john11

Hallfiry wrote:

john11 wrote:

Interesting, did they make a beta? I wonder what the gameplay would have been like, to be released in 1997, can't wait

. Could have been good back in the day, too bad they cancelled it.

Their old website mentiones alpha version that they sent to interested publishers.

I'm already trying to get an alpha. Maybe we'll have luck

Hmm, I wonder which publishers might have been interested?

Other than that, you could try tracking these down and requesting the source *hehe*

Quote:

Dave Taylor - Designer and part owner
Carly Staehlin-Taylor - Scriptwriter and voice talent director
Gene Rozenberg - Musician / sound effects stud
Trey Harrison - 20-year-old genius programmer
Stephen C. E. S. Wilson - Playing field and vehicle artist
Oliver Yu - The unknown entity...
Jacob Leverich - Our 16-year-old wonderkid sysadmin

They did make the Golgotha and Abuse source code public domain, so why not Mantra?

Hallfiry · Last edited by Hallfiry on Sat Nov 17, 2012 4:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

On one of my old magazine CDs (PC Player 12/97) I found a prerelease demo of a game called Mageslayer. It's not really related to Mantra as far as I know, but it looks very similar and feels to me like sort of an Action Mantra.
Or in another metaphor: Mageslayer is the child of GTA2 and Blood.
The (quite interesting) PE version info of the demo:

Code:

File Flags:      PRERELEASE; PRIVATE BUILD;

Comments:           Do NOT distribute!
CompanyName:        Raven Software Inc
FileDescription:    mageslayer game under development
FileVersion:        0.6
InternalName:       mageslayer
LegalCopyright:     Copyright © 1997 Raven Software, Inc.
OriginalFilename:   mageslay.exe
PrivateBuild:       for GT testing
ProductName:        mageslayer working title

For comparison the info of the 1.0 demo:

Code:

File Flags:      PRERELEASE;

Comments:           Enjoy!
CompanyName:        Raven Software Inc
FileDescription:    3D overhead game
FileVersion:        1.0
InternalName:       mageslayer
LegalCopyright:     Copyright © 1997 Raven Software, Inc.
OriginalFilename:   mageslay.exe
ProductName:        mageslayer

The "prerelease" flag is quite normal and doesn't mean it's a beta. (But the first version obviously is some sort of beta)

Download:
http://www29.zippyshare.com/v/51698286/file.html

john11

Cool! And yeah, that looks quite similar to Mantra.

HarryHoudini

Hallfiry wrote:

Their old website mentiones alpha version that they sent to interested publishers.

I'm already trying to get an alpha. Maybe we'll have luck

Hi, Hallfiry. Thanks for this very interesting post. Are there any news? Have you managed to get at least something apart from screenshots?

Hallfiry

HarryHoudini wrote:

Hallfiry wrote:

Their old website mentiones alpha version that they sent to interested publishers.

I'm already trying to get an alpha. Maybe we'll have luck

Hi, Hallfiry. Thanks for this very interesting post. Are there any news? Have you managed to get at least something apart from screenshots?

Nah, I didn't get anything

Delacroix

Mageslayer looks way more like top-down version of Hexen to me. Very good game this is.

Mantra (1997) - Canceled

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