Rocket Science Games

Background

Rocket Science Games was a video game developer founded in 1993 by Steve Blank and Peter Barrett, aiming to create games that would "combine the creative forces of Hollywood and Silicon Valley into compelling cinematic videogames". The company was formed at the height of the full-motion-video craze of the early-mid 1990s, and their video games heavily utilized this, earning them heavy hype from the press. However, despite generally good reviews, their games sold poorly. Not helping matters was when the company tried shifting distribution to SegaSoft; they went and cancelled a good portion of their games and forced them to speed up production, resulting in titles shipping without advertised features and/or coming with bugs that wouldn't be patched until later on. The company folded in 1997.

(1994-July 8, 1997)

Logo: We start on a black background. Then, a flash occurs and we see a stylized rocket and a circle burst onto the screen, with a fiery haze moving in the center (as if a rocket was taking off). When the haze dies down, we see the red text "ROCKET SCIENCE" circled around the rocket and the circle.

Variant: On some games, a copyright stamp can be seen below the rocket.

FX/SFX: The fiery haze.

Music/Sounds: A different sound depending on the game or how it's started up, followed by the sound of a rocket taking off.

Music/Sounds Variants:

• On Loadstar, the sounds heard alongside the takeoff sound differ whenever the game is started up. We may hear either a door opening, some footsteps and a "click", or some crickets chirping and a rooster crowing/chirping, or a balloon being blown up and a child laughing, or a ticking clock.
• On Cadillacs & Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm, we hear a cartoony falling sound, then the rocket noise. The Sega CD version may also use the 'ticking clock' variant depending on the startup.
• On Wing Nuts, we hear an airplane engine and another falling sound, then a big explosion and a guy yelling, "Ha-ha! WHOO!"
• On Obsidian, The Space Bar and Rocket Jockey, we hear a UFO-like sound followed by another explosion, then some radio feedback noises.
• On a promotional VHS tape released by the company, we hear a beep and then a test tone.

Availability: Rare. Seen on any game from the company, such as Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine, The Space Bar, and Rocket Jockey.