Bioshock (Mobile 3D version for BREW) - Part 1
226Bioshock was released about 12 years ago, on August 21, 2007 and started a succesful and loved franchise, set in a retro-sci-fi environment.
Bioshock spawned two sequels, Bioshock 2 in 2010, and Bioshock Infinite in 2013. Later, remakes and remasters were made, including in 2016 BioShock: The Collection. The latter was released June 1, 2020 on Nintendo Switch.
Little is it known that in 2008, in Mumbai, India, Indiagames secured the rights to release the game on mobile phones from 2K Games - the company behind BioShock - in both 2D and 3D. The work began in 2008, to be finished by 2010 when the game finally became available on a range of BREW-based mobile phones on Verizon's carrier. 2D and 3D versions were developed and released on BREW, and a 2D version was made for the j2me phones.
What you see here is a 3D version of the game.
Indiagames had to develop their own engine ICE3D, whereas the existing solutions were insufficient for the intended 3D experience. Due to devices' space constraints, the set of data was split into parts which got downloaded from Indiagames' servers once the player completed a section of the story. There were several builds of the game, depending on supported phone, its screen size and control capabilities.
The set of game levels which was released covers roughly one half of the original story. It appears that a second set of levels was made for the 3D version, according to Poornima Seetharaman, the lead game designer. But it was never released, and is probably lost.
I will not retell here the story of making the game, you can read articles on the development and constraints the developers had to overcome here: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/features/bioshock-mobile-3d-making-of-1737364, and here: http://theindiangamedesigner.blogspot.com/2010/02/bioshock-3d-pc-vs-mobile.html
Today I demonstrate the first half of the first level of the game "Welcome to Rapture" as played on Casio C781 mobile phone. Unfortunately it does not run on the Zeebo (the game runs till the main menu, but crashes when the game itself is invoked).
Should there be some interest I can play the full set of the released levels.
Finally, I would like to thank my 100+ subscribers for helping me reaching this important mark.
Other Videos By KrZ One
Other Statistics
BioShock Statistics For KrZ One
KrZ One currently has 42,922 views spread across 10 videos for BioShock. BioShock has approximately 5 hours of watchable video on his channel, roughly 6.30% of the content that KrZ One has uploaded to YouTube.