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en:companias:aventuras_ad [2020/09/27 21:59] (current) – created jevicac
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 +===== AVENTURAS AD =====
  
 +{{:logos:ad_logo.jpg?300}}
 +
 +AD is the name of the company that was born under the auspices of Dinamic and Dro, with the aim of creating conversational adventures. It was formed by a fixed core team of programmers and illustrators, and they also had sporadic collaborators.
 +
 +Aventuras AD was a Spanish video game company located in Valencia and dedicated exclusively to the production of conversational adventures. It was the only professional company dedicated exclusively to this genre and one of the most representative of the so-called golden age of Spanish software, in the 80s. In addition to the production of adventures, they translated the PAWS parser into Spanish, which, together with The convening of the MicroHobby Adventure Contest and the creation of the AD Adventure Club greatly contributed to the spread of the genre in Spain and the creation of hundreds of non-professional adventures.
 +
 +The company grew out of a first adventure created by Andrés Samudio and Carlos Marqués with The Quill: La Diosa de Cozumel. Andrés Samudio sent his adventure to Dinamic for distribution (under the Samusoft label). However, Dinamic was looking to strengthen its conversational adventure division with a team of exclusively dedicated authors such as Fabián Escalante, Nicolás Lecuona, Pedro José Rodríguez Larrañaga, and finally they agreed with Samudio to create an independent subsidiary company dedicated to adventures. Samudio bought the AD brand from Dinamic and registered the new company under the name Aventuras AD SA, rented offices and expanded the staff by looking for his own programmers and graphic artists and assuming the production expenses of future adventures, leaving Dinamic and Dro Soft (the Dinamic's distributor record company) only the commitment to market a certain number of adventures of the new company per year. The next to join were Manolo González and Juan Antonio Darder, both as programmers, although the second went on to dedicate himself to the work of graphic designer after showing his work on site. Later, Paco Zarco would be incorporated as a graphic artist and Juan Manuel Medina as a programmer (replacing Manolo González). Other graphic artists and illustrators were occasionally hired on some adventures. The first shareholders of the company were the programmers themselves. At first, Andrés Samudio's idea was for the company to be open to the collaboration of other programmers and graphic artists as freelancers.
 +
 +** __ First projects __ **
 +
 +Among the first projects of the new company was its own version of La Aventura Original and the adventure La Diosa de Cozumel. Furthermore, Andrés Samudio cites in an interview as a future Carvalho project (an adventure that Dinamic would finally publish independently of AD Adventures). In the same interview, he talks about a parody of Indiana Jones entitled In Search of the Lost Harp and another of Don Quixote, as future projects (which would never finally see the light of day). Also from the beginning the project of translating and commercializing the parser PAWS in Spanish was raised. Apparently one of the first works undertaken by AD was the conversion to Atari ST of some Dinamic adventures such as Don Quijote or Carvalho
 +
 +The first adventure written by Andrés Samudio (The Goddess of Cozumel) was originally programmed with The Quill, which is how it was sent to Dinamic. However, after the agreement between Dinamic and Andrés Samudio to create the subsidiary dedicated to adventures, he traveled to Wales where he met with Tim Gilberts (creator of the PAWS), who convinced them to program an exclusive parser for AD (the DAAD, acronym for Adventure Designer AD) that would allow the conversion of adventures to the different computer models on the market. This is how Gilberts was hired by AD Adventures for the following year to develop the programming tool and teach the AD team to use it. The price of the DAAD was more than two and a half million pesetas, and thanks to it the AD team hoped to publish an average of ten adventures per year.
 +
 +In addition to creating his own adventures, another of the important fronts opened by AD for the dissemination of the genre in Spain was the translation into Spanish of the aforementioned PAWS. PAWS, programmed by Tim Gilberts, was a simple adventure programming environment for Spectrum, very popular in Britain. Thanks to Andrés Samudio's collaboration with MicroHobby magazine, the new parser enjoyed immediate acceptance and sparked a veritable boom in amateur authors and companies. AD Adventures itself published through MicroHobby an improved version of the PAWS sample adventure titled Survival (El Firfurcio) .All this was also encouraged with the convening of an adventure contest at the national level, in which more of 100 creations.
 +
 +The reviews from specialized magazines were enthusiastic, always highlighting the professionalism of the company and the difference in quality between its adventures and those of the Spanish market. Despite all this, the public's response did not seem to measure up and, with the exception of La Aventura Original, none of the AD shows appeared on the best-seller lists. An English translation of Cozumel was prepared and was never distributed (although the Spanish edition box contained screenshots of the English version). A version of The Space Adventure was also distributed in Portugal with instructions in Portuguese.
 +
 +Despite the good reviews received by trade magazines, the company never made a profit. The costs of the DAAD, a response from the public less than expected, and internal organization problems, ended up determining the closure of it. Manolo González left the company, leaving several ventures in the middle due to disagreements over payments. One of the programmers who replaced him (Juan Luis Cervera) also left for the same reasons, and finally it was Juan Manuel Medina who took over the programming, assuming the economic difficulties of the company. The last adventure published, Chichen Itzá, did so even after it had been announced on several occasions that it was not going to see the light of day. Some rumors pointed to the possibility of a recycling of AD in the company of Graphic Adventures in the style of Lucas Film (then very fashionable), but it was only fan speculation. Among the projects that remained unfinished, it is worth highlighting the second part of La Aventura Original, which had a completed script and some graphics.
 +
 +** __ Adventures and tools created by AD __ **
 +
 +  * __Published adventures__
 +
 +  * 1988 Supervivencia (El Firfurcio) (published in 1989)
 +  * 1989 La Aventura Original
 +  * 1989 Jabato
 +  * 1990 Cozumel
 +  * 1990 La Aventura Espacial
 +  * 1991 Los Templos Sagrados
 +  * 1992 Chichen Itzá
 +
 +** __ Tools for creating adventures __ **
 +
 +  * 1988 PAWS in Spanish.
 +  * 1988 DAAD: not published. It was put up for sale after the closing of the company at a price of one million pesetas, without being sold. Finally a reduced version was given to the winners of the MicroHobby contest. The complete program recently saw the light and has been used by the programming group ESP Soft for conversational adventures
 +
 +** __ Unfinished projects __ **
 +
 +In Search of the Lost Harp: idea for a parody of Indiana Jones, not developed. Don Quixote parody: undeveloped. In the Deep: adventure that would take place inside the human body, undeveloped. Original Adventure 2: with a script by Juan José Muñoz Falcó, it had some graphics by Paco Zarco.
 +
 +** __ The AD Adventure Team __ **
 +
 +__Director and screenwriter: __
 +
 +  * Andrés Samudio
 +
 +__Programmers: __
 +
 +  * Manuel González Martínez
 +  * Juan Manuel Medina
 +  * Juan Luis Cervera
 +
 +__Graphists: __
 +
 +  * Carlos Marqués
 +  * Juan Antonio Darder
 +  * José Luis Masmano
 +  * Paco Zarco
 +
 +__Illustrators__
 +
 +  * Luis Royo
 +  * Fernando Carrión
 +  * Vicente Misas
 +
 +__Collaborators: __
 +
 +  * Tim Gilberts
 +  * Eva Samitier
 +  * Juan José Muñoz Falcó
 +
 +** __ Controversy over the name of Aventuras AD __ **
 +
 +The name Dinamic Adventures was first used in the Megacorp game and continued to be used in the rest of Dinamic's adventures. When Andrés Samudio decided to create his own adventure company and agreed with Dinamic for them to take over the distribution, it was decided to continue using the Aventuras Dinamic brand, which is the one that continues to appear in La Aventura Original. From the next adventure of Aventuras AD, Jabato, the name of Aventuras AD was definitively established, as an independent company exclusively dedicated to the production of adventures and distributed by Dinamic.
en/companias/aventuras_ad.txt · Last modified: 2020/09/27 21:59 by jevicac