As promised, here's issue 3 of Working Designs' newsletter, Direct Line. This issue builds upon the model of the second issue with two more pages of information! Lots of neat information here, such as Working Designs' intent on bringing over Cosmic Fantasy 3 and Exile 2. They even mention that they'd bring over Cosmic Fantasy 1 if interest and sales are good. Other titles mentioned are Cyber Twins (possibly Kaizou Chounin Shubibinman 2 or possibly 3), and Ghost Warrior Spriggan. Of course, Exile 2 (Exile: Wicked Phenomenon) was the one out of all of those games that were released here in the US. I wonder how far along the localization for Cosmic Fantasy 3 was, as that would have been the one game I would've liked to see most.

So when was this issue mailed out? Well, we know that the drawing for the contest results on Page 1 occurred on or around May 16th, 1992, so this issue had to be released well after that. This issue also implies that Exile had not been released yet and that it was scheduled to be released in October. So we're looking at a time frame of around June through September of 1992.

Continue reading "Direct Line, Issue 3 (circa Summer 1992)" »

Posted by Gyoshi at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Now that Working Designs is gone, what better way to honor the company's memory than by taking a look back at their old newsletter, Direct Line. I think part of what made WD a fan-favorite was their willingness to connect with their fans. Direct Line was a great way to let people know that they were listening and that they relied on the feedback of us, the game players. While other companies' newsletters had a more 'corporate' feel to them, Direct Line felt more personal and down to earth. Unfortuately, I was a little late realizing what a great company WD was, and missed issue 1 of Direct Line (if anyone has it, please let me know!).

Continue reading "Direct Line, Issue 2 (circa December 1991)" »

Posted by Gyoshi at 02:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Say it ain't so! It seems Working Designs' website, workingdesigns.com, no longer exists. The site was still up last week, but it appears the payments for the site has finally run out. I wish I had downloaded more stuff as there was a ton of great info and history there. The forums had regular visitors and posters even though the site no longer accepted new members. So did anyone by chance download the whole site before it went offline? I hope someone out there is saying "yes".

Posted by Gyoshi at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)