Burn:Cycle Decoded - With developers Eitan Arrusi and Olaf Wendt
5630 years on from its original release, Burn:Cycle remains one of the CD-i's most fondly remembered and ground-breaking titles, and regularly tops lists of best games on the console. In a world exclusive, we interview Eitan Arussi, the game's writer and director, and Olaf Wendt, the game's visual director, to reveal the incredible story of the tiny London-based Trip Media team that developed the game over the course of two years, despite originally setting out to make a comic book and having no prior background in videogame design. They detail the technical challenges they overcame to be able to play the game on a 650 MB CD, the imaginative and immersive creative direction, and how despite the game not being as big of a hit as they had hoped, both have gone on to have long and successful careers in the film and TV industry.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
00:36 What is Burn Cycle?
01:32 Eitan's Logic Bomb
03:11 Olaf joins Trip Media
04:38 Production begins
05:50 A faux form of FMV game
09:27 Flying blind
11:22 Crafting the ultimate interactive movie narrative
15:12 The gift and curse of the CD-i
18:21 The game's ending and potential sequel
20:09 The demise of Trip Media and Virtual Nightclub
20:51 Life after Burn Cycle
24:21 Eitan's Cronenbergian cameo
Interviews, editing, voiceover and script by Edward Hunter.
More work by Ed:
/ @geriatricfan1963
/ @edwardhunter7116
/ @electricmonks361
He also works on @formulaezone @FormulaSimRacing and@GPVWCSimRacing
Featuring clips from:
Scanners (1981) Directed by David Cronenberg.
Bladerunner (1982) Directed by Ridley Scott.
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) Directed by John Carpenter.
Myst (1993)
Burn:Cycle (1994) Directed by Eitan Arrusi.
US TV spot for Burn:Cycle on CD-i (1994)
A Day with Sid, Ed and the CD-i Infomercial (1995)
US TV advert for Burn:Cycle on PC and Mac (1995)
The making of Burn:Cycle for Philips CD-i, subtitled in German (1995)
The Virtual Nightclub (1997) Directed by Olaf Wendt.
Reverb (2008) Directed by Eitan Arrusi.
Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
Telltale's The Walking Dead (2012)
Life is Strange (2015)
Sea of Trees (2016) Directed by Gus Van Sant.
Crypt (2017) Directed by Eitan Arrusi.
Ad Astra (2019) Directed by James Gray.
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Music used:
Burn Cycle theme, Karmic Church, System Software, A Beautiful Relationship and Meltdown, by Simon Boswell and Chris Whitten.
Thunder and Tides by HOME.
With special thanks to Eitan and Olaf for the brilliant interview and the uncompressed footage, David Wilkinson for getting us in touch with Eitan and Olaf in the first place, and Sebastiaan Barneveld, the Half Blind Gamer, without whom's guidance, game capture and inspiration this video would not exist.
About the game:
Title: Burn:Cycle
Developer: Trip Media
Publisher: Phillips Interactive
Genre: Point to click adventure game
Date of release: October 1994
Available on: CD-i, PC, Mac.
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