K.A. Applegate’s new book The One and Only Ivan has been released! The official website, theoneandonlyivan.com, has been launched with a new blog and video trailer (with a very haunting score, I might add). A Q&A with K.A on Publishers Weekly was also released, for those that missed it in our previous update.
The second new release for the month is Havoc by Jeff Sampson (the Animorphs Classic-Era Informer and Official Anibase author). The book is the second part in the Deviants YA trilogy. Since the summary is kind of spoiler-ish for those that haven’t read the first book, the new order and plot details can be found at jeffsampsonbooks.com.
Finally, we have some Relaunch news: The lenticular edition of Animorphs #8 is now available to pre-order via Amazon, and the links for it are up on our order page (see right). I have also updated the individual relaunch pages with the new official summary for #8, and a new official promo sheet for #7.
One last thing, because a lot of people have been asking: There has been no reveal yet regarding the new Ax cover for Animorphs #8, or news for Megamorphs #1, or any future relaunch books. Any future releases past #8 depend highly upon the sales figures for the books released so far, and whether Scholastic thinks they’re successful enough to continue being published. Rest assured that once there is any official confirmation, you will all know right here on Hirac Delest.
Thanks to Jason, there was a new interview with Jay Barnson recently in PC World. He was the former senior programmer of SingleTrac, which was the studio that was responsible for Animorphs: Shattered Reality, the 3D adventure platforming game that was released on Playstation in 2000. Here’s a brief snippet that provides some insight into the project.
The last official game by SingleTrac was Animorphs: Shattered Reality. In addition to being SingleTrac’s only licensed game, it was also an unusually low-key release for the studio. How and why did this uncharacteristic project come about?
JB: I don’t know the business side of how it worked out, but I know we’d had several discussions about doing licensed games previously that had fallen through. Animorphs was just the first and, as fate would have it, the last licensed title on which we went into full-fledged development. We ran into a lot of problems on that one, though.
What were the issues that you encountered?
JB: In the middle of development, the Columbine massacre happened, and for several weeks the media was making the video game industry out to be the designated scapegoat for that tragedy. Scholastic and [Animorphs series author] K.A. Applegate grew concerned and wanted to distance themselves from anything resembling “violent video games,” even though the books themselves got pretty violent at times. They demanded that we radically change the game design, salvaging what work we could, but the release date wasn’t going to move too much.
The new design was much more of a platformer, but that style of game wasn’t one of our strengths. It was a really pretty crazy scramble to re-design and re-write the game to get it ready for release. Before the final release, half the studio was laid off, including myself, and the remainder knew the company was on borrowed time. That might be part of the explanation why the release was “low-key.”
You can read the full article at goodgearguide.com.au. Thanks again to Jason for providing us with the link.
K.A. Applegate’s new book The One and Only Ivan has been released! The official website, theoneandonlyivan.com, has been launched with a new blog and video trailer (with a very haunting score, I might add). A Q&A with K.A on Publishers Weekly was also released, for those that missed it in our previous update.
The second new release for the month is Havoc by Jeff Sampson (the Animorphs Classic-Era Informer and Official Anibase author). The book is the second part in the Deviants YA trilogy. Since the summary is kind of spoiler-ish for those that haven’t read the first book, the new order and plot details can be found at jeffsampsonbooks.com.