Digital Eclipse Software

Background

Digital Eclipse, also known as Backbone Emeryville from 2003-2012, is a video game company formed in 1992 founded by Andrew Ayre. The studio was known mostly for porting classic arcade games from Williams Entertainment and other producers. In 2003, it merged with ImaginEngine into Backbone Entertainment and ceased to exist as an independent unit, although its name was still used as a cap brand of Foundation 9 Entertainment. In 2012, Backbone closed the studio, but in 2015, the company was revived under Other Ocean Interactive, made up of former Backbone employees. It now exists to fulfill video game preservation and strives to be "the video game equivalent of The Criterion Collection."

(1994-2009)

Nickname: "Eclipse"

Logo: On a black background, a stylized solar eclipse is seen, made of a fuzzy white ring around a black circle, with "DIGITAL ECLIPSE" stacked below it.

Variants:

Sometimes, "SOFTWARE INC" can be seen below.
Sometimes, the ring may be yellow/orange, as seen on the GBC port of Army Men 2 and Rayman Advance.
An early animated variant exists for PS1 titles. It features a glowing yellow sphere, representing the Sun, zooming in while a dark sphere covers it as well. As it gets fully covered, a lens flare occurs and "DIGITAL ECLIPSE" in Copperplate Gothic emerges from it, rotating around the screen as a fuzzy ring of yellow particles form around the black sun. The sun zooms out, and several seconds later, the particles freeze and fade to white.
Another animated variant was used later on PS2, Gamecube, Wii, and PC titles. It has an extremely detailed space nebula background, where a "techno" version of the Earth with orange techlines going through it swoops in an arc. A star then drops down from above, where they overlap each other, and it fades to the print logo. A simplified version with a radiating corona on the sun (which fades to white) appears on some GBA games as well, like Namco Museum.
For one last animated variant, the logo flashes in from a white screen, causing a load of particles to spread out from it. The company name and the Foundation 9 byline fade in below, with particles still dancing around. The logo then flashes.
On Spyro 2: Season of Flame, the eclipse has a blue glow effect to it and the name is formed with gradient wipes, before the logo fades to the print logo.
A version of it on a white background, contained in a black box, appears on Interstellar Wrestling League for the HyperScan.

FX/SFX: Mostly none, but sometimes it's animated.

Music/Sounds: None, but the early animated variant has a dramatic choir fanfare with synth drones, and the later one has a continuous synth drone.

Availability: Rare. Seen on most of their games. The animated logo mostly appears on their arcade compilations.

Editor's Note: None.