In this episode of Video Game History Hour, Michael Mendheim joins host Frank Cifaldi and guest-host John Rairdin to reflect on his career, from early work on Fester’s Quest to cult favorites like Mutant League Football and Sarge’s Heroes. Mendheim shares stories about creative risks, industry shakeups, and the challenges of keeping games alive — with Rairdin diving deep into his personal love for Sarge’s Heroes, expanding the definitive Vikki Grimm lore, and discussing the development materials Mendheim saved along the way.
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See more from Michael Mendheim:
Twitter/X: @mmendheim
Website: https://www.digitaldreamsentertainment.com/
Website: mutantfootballleague.com
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Twitter/X: @jtsknight92
YouTube: /ninwrtv
Website: nintendoworldreport.com
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TRANSCRIPT
–Transcript edited by Jeremy Seith
Frank Cifaldi 00:08Welcome once again to the Video Game History Hour presented by the Video Game History Foundation. I’m your host, VGHF founder, Frank Cifaldi. Today’s conversation is with a game designer, Michael Mendheim. The conversation’s about most of his career, but there’s a particular emphasis on the Sarge’s Heroes franchise. And we actually invited a very special guest, a total nerd for this franchise, who came in and asked all the right questions. So let’s, let’s roll the tape. This conversation was back from August 5th of 2024.
Frank Cifaldi 00:42
We are joined today by two very special guests, returning to the Video Game History Hour is John Rairdin from Nintendo World Report. Hi John.
John Rairdin 00:50
Howdy, everybody. Thanks for having me, Frank.
Frank Cifaldi 00:53
And then for the first time ever, Michael Mendheim, the president of Digital Dreams Entertainment. Hi, Mike. Sorry. Hi Michael.
Michael Mendheim 01:02
Whatever. It’s good to be here, Frank. Thanks for having me.
Frank Cifaldi 01:05
We were– let’s keep that in the show. We were joking before the show, because Michael prefers Michael. And just it was one of those brain bugs in my head that I’ve just been calling him Mike all this time, and I just learned that right before this recording. So bear with me as I get that right. But yeah, Michael is on the show because he was very generous to offer us a lot of his paperwork and discs and things like that from his career in video games. And, you know, I think I actually just kind of want to start there, Michael. A lot of people listening to the show might not necessarily be familiar with your name, but I think that they’ve definitely heard of one or two products that you’ve worked on. So can you just kind of give us a high level overview of your career in games?
Michael Mendheim 01:51
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ll start with: I’m an old fart, so I’ve been in the industry for a while. The first game I ever did was a game for the NES called Fester’s Quest. And that game actually is kind of known as a classic, one of the most challenging games ever, because I was too much of an idiot to put in a save feature on the first video game I ever did.
Michael Mendheim 02:26
Yeah, that’s how we marketed it. I started out as an illustrator, and, yeah, I had a successful career in Chicago doing illustration, and that’s kind of how I got into the industry, doing box covers for video games. And then also, you know, doing character design, and as well as game design. So from Fester’s Quest, I did a game called Taz-Mania, which was a first person, very innovative game for Nintendo. Then I went to EA, and I pitched them Mutant League Football. And Mutant League Football is also a pretty– considered a all time classic. And from Mutant League Football, we went on to hockey. And then EA decided they were going to kill the entire brand, because they were the real sports people, and they changed their whole strategy to simulation. So that kind of all went away. Just as we had a cartoon show come out, probably the most violent Saturday morning cartoon show ever, and also the first animated Saturday morning cartoon show to ever use 3D graphics in it, in the opening, I went on to do a variety of different games, but then switched from, you know, my path at Electronic Arts to 3DO because I was a huge fan of Trip Hawkins and I released the first console product. When three do transition from, you know, hardware to software. The first game we put out was a game called BattleTanx on Nintendo 64 which was, you know, it was a top 10 hit, really fun multiplayer game. And after that, the company started to put out its Army Men games. And I did a Christmas project also on the Nintendo called Sarge’s Heroes, and that was also a top 10 hit. So 3DO was doing really good on those days. And with the success of Army Men, you know, they just put out way too many Army Men games. And then I went back to EA. I did some work for EA on their Def Jam series, and I worked on a variety of different products. And then I started up Digital Dreams Entertainment and we decided we were going to bring back Mutant League Football, but the spiritual successor of that, so that was Mutant Football League, and that kind of takes us to where we are today.
Frank Cifaldi 02:47
Well, and you probably know that was the marketing too, right? The marketing for Fester’s Quest is like, It’s really hard!
Frank Cifaldi 05:13
Mutant Football League, I gotta be honest, I think it’s a better title because of MFL.
Michael Mendheim 05:22
Yeah. I mean, it works better, and you know, when we did the original Mutant League, I mean, that was on the Sega Genesis, and it was a really fun game, but what we can do now is just so much moreso. It’s just an awesome product to be working on.
Frank Cifaldi 05:41
So I want to go into a little bit of detail on some of this. And we’re going to especially get into your time at 3DO. And I imagine particularly Sarge’s Heroes is because John here is not only a huge nerd for that game, he’s actually been looking at the material that you had kept around its development, and I actually haven’t, so I’m kind of interested in hearing what John’s uncovered. But I want to go back to sort of the beginnings you mentioned, Fester’s Quest, for example, you know, something that I took away from looking through the material, that you had kept, is that, at least in that era, it seems like your main output as a creator, Michael, was really lavishly illustrated game designs. Like, very detailed, what we would call game design documents, typically, but I think you call scripts.
Michael Mendheim 06:40
Yeah, I actually was one of the first people to ever do scripts the way I did them with the illustrations, because I found it really helpful to present the idea and the concept and to kind of get everybody on the same page as to kind of what the look and feel of this game was going to be. So they were doing design documents, like I saw EA’s early Madden, like in 1994. They definitely had design docs and when Trip was, you know, head of Electronic Arts, he always liked to kind of follow the Hollywood model with promoting the creators of the product and giving the terms directors for on video games and stuff like that. But the scripts that I did were super visual, and that’s kind of what I did, like I was an illustrator, so it came very natural to me to kind of design the characters and everything and includ3 it in the design doc. And then when you read it, it was like a presentation. So it was kind of visual eye candy, but it also gave the details of the game design. And for a game like Fester’s Quest, I did that for Sunsoft, and they were doing the development in Japan, and they didn’t know what the hell the Addams Family was or anything like that. It was a licensed title. So, you know, we had to, kind of, you know, have all the characters in there looking kind of how we wanted them to look, and then also all the level maps kind of had to be designed out so– because they didn’t– culturally, it was just they didn’t understand Addams Family. So the more we could give them, the closer we could get to how we wanted the title to be.
Frank Cifaldi 08:47
And you know, I do want to say here, unfortunately, for those listening the Fester’s Quest script does seem to be lost. Michael didn’t hold on to a copy, and we actually did manage to get a collection from someone who was at Sunsoft, who had other scripts, including, I think one of yours, Michael, but unfortunately, Fester’s Quest we couldn’t find. But the question that comes to mind for me, this is your first game design. I don’t think you’ve ever worked remotely with a Japanese game dev studio at this point, was there anything that you had to learn in terms of, like, Oh, that’s not possible on this system. Or like, That’s not how tile maps work.
Michael Mendheim 09:29
Yeah. I mean, pretty much everything. I had a really good producer who held my hand throughout the entire project and gave me really good direction on what they needed. But I also played video games like, I mean, I had Pong, right? I mean, I always played video games, Intellivision and whatnot. So I kind of knew, you know, I enjoyed gameplay, and I kind of knew what hooked you. It’s just I was a virgin, right? I just– I knew nothing. So it was actually quite terrifying, but it was also a really good experience. But, I mean, I made a lot of mistakes on that product, none more so than not including is save. But it was, I mean, I just, you know, I learned on the street, man. There was no school or anything for that. It was just, just go and try and do it. And it was even more difficult because the people we were developing the game with, we didn’t share the same culture or the same language, so that made it even harder. So I just communicated everything as best I could visually.
Frank Cifaldi 09:38
And how did you get that role? I mean, did you start as, like, a packaging illustrator for Sunsoft?
Michael Mendheim 10:56
So, I started doing a lot of box covers for the video game industry, right? And I did a lot of box covers for Sunsoft, you know.
Frank Cifaldi 11:07
I think you did Freedom Force, right?
Michael Mendheim 11:09
Freedom Force. I think I did a Spy Hunter. I did–
Frank Cifaldi 11:12
I think you did Xenophobe. Is that right?
Frank Cifaldi 11:17
Xenophobe, yeah. And there was a Cyber Ball, like I did all those illustrations, and then they started having me– I mean, development teams back then were very small. I mean, there’s like, three or four guys, right? I mean, they weren’t very big. But when an artist goes to create, you know, whatever type of pixely character he was creating, he still needed to know what the character looked like. So, you know, I would draw out the characters in very simplified form, because I did, like, when I was working with EA, they gave me ,like, their tools. So I actually created some of the pixel art for mutant Football League. So you kind of learn what the limitations are for the pixel artists who are, like, 20 times better than me, but Fester’s Quest, I mean, that was, that was a very hard project to do. Scraped my knee a lot on it, but, you know, in the end, you know, it’s considered one of, you know, one of the early classics. And part of that is because of its challenge level, because of the no freaking save on it.
Frank Cifaldi 11:53
What an odd license at the time, too. Like, just put this in perspective. There wasn’t a movie yet. This was, you know, this is a property that was– I’m a fan, like, a good sitcom, but that had been off the air at least, you know, in terms of new episodes for like, two decades at that point, and there wasn’t a movie even on the horizon. I don’t think.
Frank Cifaldi 12:58
Yeah, and, in fact, something that you worked on was a Superman design that I don’t think became a product, right?
Michael Mendheim 12:58
So, the producer on that product was Richard Robbins, and he was a producer at Sunsoft, and he always liked the Addams Family. But, I mean, these guys weren’t a big publisher. I mean, they were mid-tier kind of publishing. And, you know, back in those days, everybody was looking for licenses to attach to the product, right? I mean, if you remember the NES days before they imploded, that’s kind of how a lot of publishers, how they did it. So being a mid-tier company, I guess they were looking for licenses that had high brand recognition but weren’t super expensive. And I know this was a license that was a little difficult for him to get, but then he did get it. And then they also, I mean, Sunsoft also licensed Batman and they licensed Superman. So they did licensing.
Michael Mendheim 14:10
No, it was a product, but–
Frank Cifaldi 14:12
Oh it was the Sega Genesis, Superman.
Michael Mendheim 14:14
Well, I think it was NES, or, I mean, it’s, this is going back forever, but it was a horrific product. And this was the classic case of not knowing who Superman really was culturally, and rushing a product out. So like, I liked the design that I had, and I liked all the stuff I had. I thought it was super innovative. But once it got to Japan, they just went, What is this? This? Nah, we’re just gonna do some game with robots. And as I started seeing builds, I’m like, Um, does Superman make an appearance in this game?
Frank Cifaldi 15:03
It’s kind of funny. What that reminds me of is like, I don’t know. I can imagine them being like, Well, you don’t understand video games. This is what a video game is, like, I don’t know what the Superman stuff is. And it almost reminds me of like, Hollywood adapting, you know, like a video game or a comic book property, like, back in the old days, anyway, where it’s like, well, you don’t know what a movie is. Let me show you what a movie is.
John Rairdin 15:28
Yeah, I’ll show you how to make Doom into a movie. It’ll be great. Yeah.
Michael Mendheim 15:33
What they did was, I mean, it went to Japan, and they just wanted to get the thing out for Christmas. And they took an existing engine that they had from another game and just threw stuff in there, and it was just a disaster.
Frank Cifaldi 15:54
You know, I actually heard a similar story from– did you ever work with Jay Moon when he was at Sunsoft?
Michael Mendheim 16:04
No, that name is not familiar to me.
Frank Cifaldi 16:07
Yeah, I don’t think you did either. But he, because he produced Batman like and he, I don’t know, you know where the design came from, or anything like that. And unfortunately, Jay is no longer with us to ask him, but I remember him telling me that, you know, he would get builds back from Japan, and it would just be nothing like what he sent them. I think he described it as Batman fighting space monsters. And he’s like, this isn’t what Batman does. You need to make a Batman game.
Michael Mendheim 16:34
But at least the Batman game had Batman in it, right?
John Rairdin 16:38
It is something. It is, by definition, a Batman game.
Frank Cifaldi 16:42
Wait, are you saying literally, you saw builds and Superman was just nowhere, right?
Michael Mendheim 16:46
Wasn’t there, there were robots. It’s crazy, right? I mean, it’s a crazy industry, and back then, I mean, during that time, it was especially crazy because E.T. and everything. But yeah, I mean, that was the first and last time that ever happened. Because I just, from that point on, I never would just release a design and have, you know, a developer, just do the game, and I’m sitting off in another country and letting them just go off on it. So, you know, you learn your lessons, and that was one where, you know, I kind of became a little bit of a control freak after that experience.
Frank Cifaldi 17:38
Well, okay, if that wasn’t your approach after that game then what was it? Did you just kind of stay on a product and work kind of as a like, more of a production role?
Michael Mendheim 17:49
Well, I drove, like, I kind of drove the products from that point on, from the start to the finish. So not only was I the designer, I was the producer. I was involved in the marketing, I was involved in the project management, I was involved in hiring. I was involved in every facet of the game, from you know, who’s the voice over artists we’re going to use to what is the music we’re going to play?
Frank Cifaldi 18:16
Control freak, to use your term. So you know, you mentioned Taz-Mania earlier. That was another Sunsoft game. There was another big license. You know, those who know game history know that kind of Sunsoft went all in on Looney Tunes in the early ’90s. Taz-Mania is actually, for those who haven’t seen the Super Nintendo version of Taz-Mania, go look up a YouTube video or something. It’s a really interesting camera perspective, because it’s Taz actually running at you, like at the screen, and you’re interacting with things that are kind of coming up from behind Taz, like, off in the distance on the television screen. And this is something where, you know, you’re not taking an existing, you know, game archetype and designing around it, like you’re kind of trying to make something new. And, I mean, is this something where, like a team had a prototype and you skinned it, or did you come up with that?
Michael Mendheim 19:20
No, so we– I mean, it was, it was very innovative, right? I believe Nintendo Power, it won one of the Nintendo Power Awards for most innovative games. When it came out, we wanted– the Sega Taz was awesome and it was sprite-based and everything. And we just decided we wanted to do something completely different than that. So it was kind of a driving type of game where you’re trying to collect these kiwis while you’re running down the road with all kinds of stuff happening to you. So perhaps better suited for like a Roadrunner game, but–
Frank Cifaldi 20:13
But someone else was doing that one.
Michael Mendheim 20:14
It was a really cool game, and it was actually a fun game, and it got, you know, it was reviewed well, and people liked it, but it was one of those things where we just tried to do something different.
Frank Cifaldi 20:26
Yeah, and like I said, go look it up. For those who haven’t seen it, it doesn’t look like any other game, especially from that era, with the perspective that it had. And look forward to seeing the script as well, because that is one that did survive and had some really fun illustrations by Michael in it, but, let’s maybe move on to Mutant League, because I bet a lot of people listening have experienced that one themselves, and would be curious about it. So you stopped working for Sunsoft and went straight to EA is that–
Michael Mendheim 20:57
So I was always kind of freelance, right? So I had my own company, and I’d still–
Michael Mendheim 21:06
Yeah, I’d still be doing illustrations and stuff, but I was pretty much transitioning to video games, right? So that’s kind of where my heart was at. So I pitched a product to Electronic Arts, which was like this, monster, mutants, guys playing football, where they could kill each other. And the only thing that was even close to it was like Blood Bowl, right? But the tabletop game, there was no Blood Bowl video games. So I wanted to parody NFL players, but turn them into mutants and monsters, and then have some of the brutality of like Blood Bowl in there so where players could actually die. And, yeah, I put together a whole presentation, and then I went to one of their EA gauntlet meetings. The producer who was at Sunsoft, Richard Robbins, was now a producer at EA and he did like the Desert Strike series and Crüe Ball, a bunch of games like that. And I had pitched him this Mutant League idea, and he thought it was pretty interesting. And then we worked together on it, and we got the presentation, you know, honed where we both felt very comfortable with what we were pitching. And Richard knew I wasn’t going to get supported by a big team, so it was going to be a B title, it just, it’s what it was. And then, you know, they have these times during the year where producers pitch products, right, and they have these gauntlet meetings, and all the you know, the top guys at EA are sitting around this massive table, you know, Richard Hilleman, Richard Hicks, the producers of the project, Trip Hawkins, obviously at the front. Then some– the marketing guys. And then you come in and you have like, you know, you got 20 minutes to just pitch your product. Not even 20 minutes, you got 10 minutes to pitch your product. And then guys like Scott Orr or whoever sitting around the table can come and they could just, you know, they try to basically cut your head off, the project’s head off.
Michael Mendheim 21:06
Is that New Wave?
Speaker 1 21:30
Mutant League style.
Michael Mendheim 23:00
They try to break it right, because they want to know if you know your shit or not. So, but it’s coming from these really smart guys. And a lot of these guys are like legends of the industry, so it’s a little bit intimidating. But, you know, I pitched it. I had a lot of tough questions coming at me, more specifically, like, how does this differentiate itself from Madden and blah, blah, blah. But it did. I mean, it very much did differentiate itself from Madden. And, you know, I guess Trip liked it, and he liked all the art. And he said, you know, let’s roll the dice on this bad boy. So they did.
Frank Cifaldi 24:34
So is this a situation, even as a freelancer, where you can still sort of, I don’t know if micromanage is the term, but like that, you can still get in there and get your hands dirty and work directly with the team?
Michael Mendheim 24:46
Well, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a great story, because they have a crash pad, right? So you come out there and you stay at the crash pad, and you meet the team. So I was assigned a team, and then, like,he original producer, Richard Robbins, who was on it, he ended up leaving EA, so it was just me and these guys that were working on the product. And it was a reasonably small team at that time. I don’t know about 12 guys, so I’d be, you know, coming back and forth from Chicago to Redwood City, and then I’d stay at the crash pad, you know, like you’d have roommates there, like Dan Geisler, who’s doing Road Rash and stuff. So it was kind of cool. So then we were just kind of ignored, and we were just building this project. And then at some point on the marketing schedule, like the EA execs go, What the hell is this? You know, and who’s producing this? And there was no producer. And like, they started going, Well, this thing’s gonna ship here soon. You know, who the hell is Michael Mendheim? He’s not even on our payroll. Like, what is this dude doing? And then they brought in Sam Nelson, and Sam Nelson took over the project when we were, I don’t know, we were getting close to alpha, and Sam kind of brought everything together. And, you know, I thought he was going to kill me a few times, but he’s a brilliant producer, and he knows what the hell he’s doing, and we ended up, you know, getting along fairly well. But, I mean, there was one time where he took me golfing, and, you know, nobody on the team would change anything. So Sam always had a like, call me, Mr. Mendheim, is it okay if we– Sam talks really slow. It’s probably 10 times slower than that, Michael– you know it was like that. And I’m like, Come on, Sam, spit it out, man. But so we go golfing, and he’s had me up to here, and we’re in like, Pacific Coast Highway, and we’re on the cliffs, and we’re at, like, this one hole is straight down the ocean. I’m just like, Sam, now’s your chance, because Sam’s like a big, burly guy. I’m just like, just a little elbow nudge, and you get rid of your problem. And he never did that.
Frank Cifaldi 27:33
I gotta say, I’ve never heard of this structure before where a video game company with embedded developers, brings in sort of a project lead, slash conceptual person, slash idea guy, right?
John Rairdin 27:51
And then forgets about them.
Frank Cifaldi 27:53
Well, yeah. Sure, that too, right? But just in general, like, you know the idea of bringing in someone temporarily to, like, lead a game. You know, I think if you explain that structure to someone who’s on an internal studio now, they would find that insulting. You know what I mean? Like, Well, we can just come up with the games. We have ideas. But, like, was that–
Michael Mendheim 28:18
A little bit more Wildy, Wildy West back then, and so it was a little bit more free than it is today. And then you also have to remember that there was a lot going on with EA at that time, right? So that’s when EA was starting to transition. They transitioned into console. But this is when, like, their sports line was starting to really take off, right? So, and then you also had Trip, you know, doing the 3DO, starting to get that whole thing rolling. So there was a lot of commotion going on at EA at that time. So this smaller project that was kind of under the radar, it just wasn’t on anybody’s, you know, minds on the executive level, like Trip had approved it, then Trip went on, and that their whole sports franchise started really taking off. So they were keeping their eye on the ball, on hockey and baseball and football and basketball, because back then, I mean, EA owned that market. I mean, they still do, but they were actually, you know, helping, you know, companies like Sony or Sega with their sports titles, you know, so they had a lot. They were doing a lot,
Frank Cifaldi 28:27
Is this, when you met Trip was, was during this project?
Michael Mendheim 29:59
Yes, Mutant League Football.
Frank Cifaldi 30:01
So, you know, you mentioned being a fan of Trip Hawkins, and I think I’d like you to extrapolate on that. That’s something that, you know, I think that’s a perspective that I’ve– I almost said something like, I’ve never heard anyone say they like Trip Hawkins, but that’s not what I mean by that. Like, I’m actually just curious to know, like, what is it about Trip that, that, that you found compelling?
Michael Mendheim 30:26
Well, okay, so I think Trip is, you know, he’s a dreamer, and he dreams up big ideas, and then he actually executes on them. And I think his ideas for what he wanted the 3DO system to do are being realized now. He’s just ahead of his time. I think Trip had it right with you know, you’re going to have one system, and you’re going to be able to watch your movies and your concerts, and you’re going to be able to communicate with your friends and play your video game, like that was his dream. I think he’s quite brilliant that way. I also think that Trip puts his money where his mouth is. He’s invested a lot of his personal wealth in trying to make his dreams come true. He’s, you know, he’s a very intense guy, but so am I. So if you put me and Trip in a little cubicle, it’s like, get ready for nuclear reaction. I just respect him so much, and I learned so much from him, just kind of how to think about things and products. So I love the guy, you know, and I know he has his faults, as everybody does, believe me, I got a lot of faults, but he really had an impact on me, and he was like a mentor. And there were several people at EA and at 3DO who were like that. 3DO had some brilliant people within its organization, so I just learned a lot.
Frank Cifaldi 32:14
Got it. Let’s talk about Mutant League a little bit more before we maybe turn it over to John, to Army Men and 3DO. So, you know, obviously the game does well, but you know, more than that, it kind of becomes a franchise play. I mean, you mentioned, you know, a cartoon series. There were action figures. If I’m remembering right there were even, you know, other products in development that didn’t make it out, maybe even like a movie script or something, as I’m thinking it through, like I guess my question is, what happened?
Michael Mendheim 32:54
Well, we did hockey, right?
Frank Cifaldi 32:56
That’s right, that’s right. And there was a racing game that almost happened.
Michael Mendheim 33:00
So we were working on Mutant League Hockey. And there was actually, like an entire floor at EA that we called Mutant Productions, that Sam Nelson was, you know, running.
Frank Cifaldi 33:17
Did they kind of poach you to get in there? Or were you still a merc?
Michael Mendheim 33:21
Oh, no, no, I was there. I mean, EA was paying, you know, my contracting fees, and I also had royalties on the products, and the products did really well. So I was completely fine. We were working on it, like Sam was working on it, but I was always there, like I was always back and forth, back and forth. But, I mean, I was out there, like every month, and it was great. And they had a basketball game, they had a racing game, we had the hockey game, and then we were also working on the sequel for the football game. And so there was a lot going on. So they’re like four and another product that was in development, which was kind of like a fighting game, and they were working on it, but like, EA, once Trip was gone, right? And they kind of got their whole company reorged and set about, kind of, What is our culture? What are we doing? That was, We’re doing real sports better than any other company on the planet, and we’re going to make the best simulated sports games there are, and any sports games that aren’t doing that shouldn’t be part of our, you know, strategy, because all that’s going to do is confuse our message, which is, we’re real sports, right? Get in the game. If it’s in the game, it’s in the game. So there was just no place for mutants, the world of Mutant League. And even though we did have a television show that just started, it didn’t matter, because the money that Mutant League was, the revenue it was generating was just nothing compared to EA Sports. I mean, it wasn’t even close. So it was an easy decision, and obviously the right decision, but it happened very quick, and then they’re just like, get Hockey out. And, you know, we had a nice schedule for Hockey, and they’re like, look, either it gets killed or you get this thing done in the next I don’t remember, it was somewhere between four to six months, and that was, I was working with a developer on that Abalone, which was a software developer, and we we got Mutant League Hockey out, and Mutant League Hockey is a fan favorite, but every time I see that product, all I see are the bugs and what we wanted to have that we couldn’t have. And it’s just very frustrating. But then that was it, and I was done with EA at that point. And then, you know, guys that stayed at EA were assigned to whatever other project teams EA still did other games that weren’t sports related. It’s just when it came to sports, it was just sports. You know, it wasn’t–
Speaker 1 36:43
So of the Mutant League projects that were killed, or do any hurt in particular?
Michael Mendheim 36:50
Well, I mean just having that thing’s head cut off, like when we were just there. I mean that’s like losing your mom, dad,brother, sister, all of them, and all your money, just like all on the same day. So it was pretty bad, but you know, that’s what the industry is, and that’s– whatever you do in life, whatever it is, whether, yeah, I mean, the Olympics are going on now, you have guys train their whole life, and they don’t meddle. I mean, it’s just, if you have passion and you believe in what you’re doing, and you work hard, you’re gonna get knocked down, but get back up. Because, you know, I firmly believe eventually you will succeed. And you know, I’m a big don’t give up kind of guy. So, you know, if that hurt, I mean, that was really one of the worst days of my life when they killed everything. But, you know, you rebound.
Frank Cifaldi 37:56
So, John, I’d like to kick it over to you, because you not only are sort of a subject matter expert on the Nintendo 64 you’re also a particular fan of Sarge’s Heroes. And so as I said at the top of the show, John has been looking at documents that Michael held onto from the creation of Sarge’s Heroes. You also held on to some stuff from BattleTanx, but I didn’t get around to scanning those for John.
John Rairdin 38:23
I got some BattleTanx stuff, probably an accident in with the Sarge’s Heroes stuff.
Frank Cifaldi 38:28
Cool. So, yeah, I’m gonna kick it over to you, John.
John Rairdin 38:31
Yeah, so let’s touch on BattleTanx, though, because, like you said, so that was the first console game that 3DO made, or the first– It wasn’t the first game they made after getting out of the systems, right?
Michael Mendheim 38:42
No, well, it was the first console game released, and that’s where 3DO was placing their chips.
John Rairdin 38:50
So that would have been, this was your first, your first N64 game, I guess your first 3D game. That must have been, I guess maybe Taz-Mania.
Michael Mendheim 39:00
Yeah, but, fair enough, yeah.
Michael Mendheim 39:03
Yeah. So let’s talk about that just a little bit, and then we can go on to Sarge’s Heroes. What was that like, shifting over to 3D from 2D? That must have been a big generational jump.
Michael Mendheim 39:16
Yeah, but it was cool. Like it was, I mean, you could actually now get, you know, depth of field in space. And it was just, you know, having these sprites, just like, sucked. So it was, like, super exciting. And again, I’ve never been Mister Technology Guy. I’m more like the artist kind of guy. But 3DO had really some amazing engineers, one of which was Rob Zdybel, who, when I first got to 3DO, when I first started, they had this project that I didn’t quite understand what it was, right? And they’d been working on it for some time, and it had some kind of interesting mechanics, but there was no, like, solid concept behind it, at least not that anybody could communicate in an effective way that would kind of get marketing excited, or, you know, I couldn’t understand what, what the game was, right? And I was asked, can I take this technology that these guys have worked in and come up with something behind it. And one of the things that was kind of cool was, like it was some kind of game in space, but you could move vehicles through space, and you could shoot so when I’m trying to think of a concept is kind of tough because you’re shoehorned in this box. So you just kind of got to figure out what is a cool idea that we can build to make this thing happen. And at that time, there’s like a million space kind of games, right? With flying and shooting, there’s just a million of them. And so I’m trying to do something that just kind of breaks through the clutter, like just, it’ll catch your eye because it’s different, which is kind of goes back to Taz, like it’s trying to just do something different. And there was this coin-op arcade game called Tokyo Wars, right? So that was like this tank battle in this Tokyo city. And then there was GoldenEye, which was such an awesome multiplayer game on the N64 and I was going, If we could do GoldenEye with tanks, like, there’s nothing like that. And that was something that, excuse my language, but immediately, you know, gave marketing like a hard on, because they could understand what the hell it was we’re trying to build. Everybody, like, got it. I mean, the dev team initially wasn’t happy with it, and they didn’t really trust me, but over time, like when the game started playing, and we had people play it, and they could hear the screaming and the laughing, like, that’s kind of when the dev team started to go, Hmm, you know, maybe we have something here.
John Rairdin 42:48
Yeah, and you mentioned GoldenEye, which is, I know, from looking through your script, I guess, for Sarge’s Heroes was an inspiration for that, Army Men as, like, I guess, was sort of 3DO’s, like flagship franchise, or ultimately, sort of became that. So as far as I know, you didn’t work on the original, like, two PC Army Men games, correct?
Michael Mendheim 43:18
Yeah, when I got there, the Army Men game was in development, and it was on PC. It’s just one game. And so I saw, you know, I saw the product they had and what they were doing, and it seemed like they were trying to do a simulated war game with these green and tan soldiers. But I thought it like needed some heart, like it needed– because these are toys, and I played with army men. Man, I had all kinds of army men. I had GI Joes. Like, I was totally into those. So for me, if you’re gonna do, you know that concept, you gotta make people laugh, like, it’s gotta be like a nostalgia. It’s got to be like a toy and, you know, like Toy Story, like, when you see the army men come on the screen, they just kind of steal the show. And it’s hard to steal the show in Toy Story from like Buzz Lightyear, but those army men soldiers stole the show, and there’s a lot of heart and nostalgia around them. So I saw what they were doing on the Army Men after BattleTanx. BattleTanx was extremely successful for 3DO. After that, they said, Hey, here’s Army Men. We’re working on the PC and we’re working. On the PlayStation. Now they started to port it to PlayStation. Can you do this for Nintendo? And they wanted it for Christmas. We had very short development cycles, so I think we had a slightly over a year on Sarge’s Heroes would be–
John Rairdin 45:18
Yeah think that this first date I saw in your script was like, maybe March or April of ’98 and the game came out September ’99, which, from a modern perspective, is, like, insane. Like, that’s ridiculous.
Michael Mendheim 45:32
It was very tight. But Dan Geisler was the tech lead on that, and he’s amazing. But what I wanted to do was, you know, I know what Toy Story is doing. I know what the guys working on the PC Army Men game are doing, and they want to have kind of like a realistic kind of tactics, battle tactics. And then I just go back to my– well, first I wanted to make it a Christmas present. So if you got this in a box, you know, and you unwrapped it, and there’s Sarge’s Heroes, and you play the game, and there’s Christmas themes, I just wanted it to be a really cool toy for Christmas. So, that was number one, and then number two, it’s like, I wanted personality. Like I wanted all these guys to have clear, distinct personalities, and I wanted to make people laugh and have it be funny and stupid and outrageous and childish humor and adult humor. I just– it needed to have a soul. And so I, yeah, I used to love playing with the soldiers, and I was nuts. And then I loved reading like Sergeant Fury and the Howling Commandos, right? I just love that comic Jack Kirby did, illustrated that, Stan Lee. And I just go, What made Sergeant Fury so awesome was all these characters, and I just looked at the army men, and I’m like, Oh, the mind guy, right? Yeah, he’s Hoover, because it looks like he’s vacuuming, and we’re going to make him, like, what kind of guy– we made him a nerd, a geeky guy. And, you know, go back to, like, the Dirty Dozen. I wanted every character– Riff, who’s the bazooka guy. I just wanted him to be badass, like a Jim Brown type of guy, and, you know, going through, like, Dirty Dozen and Sergeant Fury and all, like the war movies that really had great characters. That’s what I wanted to do in the game, and that’s what the focus was. And I had planned that so it would actually tie into television and, you know, that type of thing. If the game was very successful, like, it’d be ready to package and go.
John Rairdin 47:57
Yeah. You were saying, like, you made an IP out of an IP. Yeah. Was there any kick– I mean, like, you, like, there’s a pretty major tone shift between, like, Army Men and Army Men 3D on PS1 into Sarge’s Heroes. Like you said, like, those earlier games are very– they play it very straight. Like, they’re that concept of the fact that you’re playing as a toy barely enters into those games. Was there any pushback from the other people on the team as far as, like, the tonal shift that you were doing?
Michael Mendheim 48:33
No, I don’t.–Well, I mean, there’s always going to be competition, right, when they’re working on a product. But, I mean, this was before I became one of the creative directors at 3DO but for me, was there we have to differentiate these Army Men titles, right? So they can’t all– like they all have to have their kind of own unique thing and own unique play mechanics. So the PlayStation and PC version, when they started it, that was going to be more simulation. That’s where they had it. Mine was going to be like this nostalgic trip into the past with a lot of humor. And my whole thing was, I wanted them to be toys like I thought putting them on a battlefield would be boring, but putting them in a bathtub or on a kitchen counter or fighting underneath a Christmas tree like, now you know you’re playing with toys, and that’s what I wanted. And I think Trip really liked the idea. And I know Trip contributed a ton of ideas for Army Men, just little stuff like, he always takes notes, and then, you know, he’ll send you an email or hand you like, some notes. And then, you know, I always try to get them in, but that’s what we set out to do. And then I just wanted it to be an awesome Christmas present for kids.
John Rairdin 50:11
It is sort of like, like, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Sarge’s Heroes is sort of a Christmas game.
Frank Cifaldi 50:18
Yeah, so I’d like to jump in and ask you a question, John, because– so Michael mentioned Trip contributing ideas to the game, and Michael, you actually held on to some of those emails from Trip that I think had some things that made it in. Did you find that in your research?
John Rairdin 50:36
Yeah, I think, well, if I’m not mistaken, did he come up with the title?
Michael Mendheim 50:41
Oh, yes, absolutely. 100%.
John Rairden 50:43
That feels like one of the major things. Yeah, I know he like– I saw just some notes about like, different, like, weapons and mechanics. I feel like there was stuff about, like a microwave or a toaster or something, which I think does show up. I don’t remember if it’s in the first Sarge’s Heroes, but it definitely shows up in that series.
Michael Mendheim 51:04
And he always like, he always had different ideas. I mean, a lot of the people, you know, from team members to executive staff, I mean, I always like getting ideas. It’s kind of like my process in development, like with Mutant Football League, we put it into Steam Early Access, just so everybody that can deal with bugs in a game in development can actually, you know, jump in there and throw out ideas. And there’s some really good ideas. I mean, there’s some stuff that’s impossible. So that’s kind of how I always do development. It’s always open, whether you’re an engineer or doing music or whatever you do, like anybody can come up with a great idea, you know. So just pass the ideas and if they’re really good, or they make me laugh, I’ll do my damnedest to try and get them in the game.
John Rairdin 52:07
Yeah. Now this so obviously started as, this is a Nintendo 64 game. It comes out initially on N64 for like a month, but it does have it as a PS1 version, a PC version, eventually a Dreamcast version. Were you as directly involved in like, the PS1 version as well, or like– okay.
Michael Mendheim 52:32
So I give you know, I’d look at it. I’d give ideas, but that, I believe Keith Bowen was the director on the PlayStation and the PC version, and he kind of had a vision of what he wanted to do. And the games were successful. They were commercially successful, and people liked them. We just kind of took two different directions. But again, since we had these different Army Men games, I felt it was extremely important to have very distinct looks and feels and play mechanics with the product. Then Kudo Tsunoda did Air Attack, just completely different mechanics. And Kudo went with more of the, you know, the toy elements in Air Attack. So he took the characters from Sarge’s Heroes, and he infused them into Air Attack. And then I created, like his pilot character. I don’t even remember what the dude’s name was, but all that had to be approved by Kudo, because it was his project, and he drove his own projects. So, you know, whatever Kudo thought made sense for his project, he thought like there should be a character for the pilot and whatnot, so we helped him with that. But then he drove Air Attack, which was also very successful and a very fun game. But the problem was, was then, with the success of these early titles, they just wanted more and more, and I was always against it. And I was like, in our exec staff meetings, I was the one guy who’s be, like, Nope. And I was the one guy, you know, Trip would be like, Okay, everybody, let’s do Michael Mendheim therapy session now. Because I thought it was going to cannibalize the products, and that we were rushing them and we couldn’t do quality. And I just thought a much better strategy was one Army Men game a year. This one’s the simulation. Now comes the character story based game. Now comes Air Attack. And you know, you’ve got a enough of a cycle between Sarge’s Heroes 1 and 2, where it’s been a couple years now, you know, maybe they’re ready for a sequel, but that’s not what we did.
John Rairdin 55:16
Yeah. Well, I think it is, it’s, I guess, important to highlight for anybody listening who isn’t super familiar with those games that, yeah, they were coming out, like all the games that we’ve mentioned so far, for Army Men came out in what, like a three, four year span? Like it was multiple games a year.
Michael Mendheim 55:34
Yeah every quarter.
John Rairdin 55:36
Yeah! Which is just–
Michael Mendheim 55:40
So what started out as kind of a beloved brand that people really liked and looked forward to became the joke of the industry, and that was, you know, that was painful.
John Rairdin 55:56
Yeah. Well, that– well, okay, I have one question about Sarge’s Heroes and I’m gonna move on a little bit, because I’ll make everybody feel old, but like I grew up with Sarge’s Heroes. I was a kid when this game came out. Why isn’t Vikki green?
Michael Mendheim 56:16
Well, that’s, that’s pretty easy, because if she was green, she wouldn’t be as sexy.
John Rairdin 56:23
That’s, you know, who wasn’t attracted to that super low poly N64 model.
Michael Mendheim 56:29
So, I had her– I mean, originally, when we did her, she was green, but then I was like, you know, I look at a Barbie doll. What if you could make her into a soldier? And that’s what I went with and I know, you know, 14-year-old boys would rather have a female with flesh toned skin than green skin.
Frank Cifaldi 56:59
But you’ve ruined little John’s immersion here.
John Rairdin 57:02
It’s, well– as a child, really, like, I was like, Okay, how did– my theory is, I’m like, she must be half tan. like that this is some sort of like, like, Grimm fell in love with a tan soldier at some point, and that’s how Vikki was born.
Michael Mendheim 57:16
No. Grimm probably married Barbie and they came up with Vikki.
John Rairdin 57:22
Probably. The height difference in that relationship must have been a lot.
Frank Cifaldi 57:27
Polly Pocket– well, Polly Pockets a little too small.
John Rairdin 57:29
That would be the opposite problem. Yeah. That would be, yeah. I could talk about Army Men for a long time, but try to keep the episode to reasonable length
Frank Cifaldi 57:39
Appreciate that, John.
John Rairdin 57:41
Yeah. I just wanted to kind of skip ahead a little bit. So your last Army Men game is Sarge’s War, correct?
Michael Mendheim 57:51
Yes.
John Rairdin 57:52
Yeah. You made some choices in that game.
Michael Mendheim 57:57
Yeah, I was pissed off.
John Rairdin 57:59
I could feel it. So we have these games that are very, you know, cartoony fun. We’re playing with toys, and we get to Sarge’s War, and you killed all of your characters.
Michael Mendheim 58:14
Everybody.
John Rairdin 58:15
Can you talk about that a little bit, or is that too painful of a memory?
Michael Mendheim 58:19
NO! It was classic. Trip goes, You’re not really killing everybody, are you? I love Sarge’s Heroes. It’s one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done. I love the characters. It’s just what happened to Army Men was very upsetting to me. And at that time, I was trying to get a project out the door that I thought could actually be a very successful product for 3DO which was a game called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which was a very gritty, M-rated, intense story taken from Revelation. That’s the product at that time, since every Army Men game we shipped just went straight from, like, the 3DO studio to the bargain bin, and we wanted to do Four Horsemen. And then I was asked to do another Army Men game. Now you got to remember the only real game where I was completely involved control freak was Sarge’s Heroes. Like Sarge’s Heroes 2 had different producers, different designers. So while I was still making sure that the characters and the branding was in sync from product to product, I didn’t actually like do all the design on those games and be super involved, like I was with Sarge’s Heroes, but they wanted a new Sarge’s Heroes game. I wanted to do Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. At that time, the company was like, we were doing layoffs, and it was just awful. And it wasn’t a product I wanted to do, but it was a product– I could have quit. Like a lot of people go, Well, why don’t you just quit? Well, I love 3DO, and I didn’t want to quit, and I love the people, and I thought somehow, some way, I’d be able to do Four Horsemen. But not the case. So while I was doing Sarge’s Heroes, I just felt so bad how this brand that could have really had some longevity to it, how it was kind of died there because it was just a too much of a good thing, too much greed at pumping these products out. So, yeah, I wanted to make a little statement, and I killed all the characters.
John Rairdin 1:01:16
Yeah. It was– I will say, as a kid who was probably, like, 13 when Sarge’s War came out. You know, it was perfect with, like, how edgy I was feeling at the time. I was like, yep, grew up with Sarge’s Heroes, and now we’re getting into the dark, edgy Army Men game. So, you know, it worked for the target audience, I think.
Michael Mendheim 1:01:41
It didn’t work, I don’t think for any audience, because at that time, everybody was so sick of Army Men games that nobody–
John Rairdin 1:01:49
it was just me.
Michael Mendheim 1:01:52
Yeah, it was, it wasn’t a bad game. You know? I just, I knew the end was coming. And I just figured I loved all those characters and everything, and I knew it was like the end for me, it was the end for all these great people at 3DO and yeah, so yeah, I thought it was a fitting ending to 3DO’s last game.
John Rairdin 1:02:17
Yeah.
Frank Cifaldi 1:02:18
I don’t want anyone to actually think that I’m properly educated in classic literature with what I’m about to say, because I’m not, but I did take a class once, and I’m reminded of Cervantes with Don Quixote. I don’t know if you two are familiar with how that went down, but the first Don Quixote was a huge success. And then, you know, because there’s not like this hyper controlled book industry in the 1600s or whatever, people just started writing Don Quixote sequels, just unofficial Don Quixote sequels. No one’s controlling that. You know, there’s not like a publisher. And so Cervantes writes a sequel where he just kills Don Quixote, just to make sure that no one can use this character ever again, because he was, like reclaiming ownership. Not to compare Sarge’s Heroes to classic literature but–
John Rairdin 1:03:16
I think it’s a fair comparison. I don’t know what your problem is, Frank.
Frank Cifaldi 1:03:21
Okay, okay, okay.
Michael Mendheim 1:03:22
I’m staying out of this one.
Frank Cifaldi 1:03:27
Michael, I’d like to have you back to talk about Four Horsemen eventually, because I know how close that one was to your heart, and you know, I’m really thankful that we can house a lot of the surviving material that came from it. So I’d love to revisit that someday, but in the meantime, I’d like to discuss just briefly before we wrap up, you know, we went over to your place, I think it was in 2020 to pick up your donation of material. And I mentioned it briefly, but there’s a lot of I mean, as John saw, there’s a lot of your game scripts, but also there’s drafts, there’s handwritten notes, there’s feedback from your team. There’s some drawn maps, I think even, in some of these cases, and–
Michael Mendheim 1:04:19
There was 40 boxes of crap.
John Rairdin 1:04:24
Just the Army Men stuff is a lot.
Michael Mendheim 1:04:26
Well, that’s what you ended up leaving with.
Frank Cifaldi 1:04:31
But I guess my question is, and this is coming from a genuine place of, you know, game history fans, I want them to understand how and why things might survive, right? So my question to you, first of all is, why did you keep all of this material?
Michael Mendheim 1:04:51
So a lot of times I save my work because there’s a lot of good ideas that never got used in it and I always want to have a resource to come back to, right? So, like being able to look at all the Mutant League Football stuff and all the old notes and ideas which are long lost my memory, like I had four boxes of Mutant League stuff with the notes and, you know, in exec staff meetings or focus groups, just notes. So when I’m doing Mutant Football League, that stuff’s like a treasure trove for me. I can go back and I can look at it, and I can see kind of what my thinking was and what resonated, what didn’t, what did I want to do that didn’t get in. So I save all of that. And there are some games that, you know, have left their mark on the video game industry that just because, for whatever reason they have. And so those types of games I kept, you know, and then there’s a bunch of other games where I just, like, I have old art in boxes too, and old portfolios. So I saved the stuff that I think is important. I’m not a hoarder, but I did save a lot of stuff. I think you guys also got, like, some old computers or hard drives or stuff. Emulators out of all that, with old prototypes and stuff on in there.
Frank Cifaldi 1:06:38
Yeah. There’s an Xbox debug that has the E3 demo for Horsemen on it, which is really cool. And I think there’s some hard drive stuff from the Vogster era of Four Horsemen as well that we haven’t quite gotten to yet.
Michael Mendheim 1:06:59
So anyways, I have all this stuff. My wife is just like, Get this [expletive] out of here. I’m done, you know. I met you at Game Developers Conference, I took your card, and then I’m like, Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to just throw this stuff out. And I figured maybe it could be of use to other people that are interested either in those particular games or just interested in, you know, the evolution of video games, or how, like, the first scripts ever in video game history were created, and what they look like because, I mean, we’re going back to, like, the dawn of video games, so yeah, I figured they’d be of some use to somebody.
Frank Cifaldi 1:07:51
Yeah, and just speaking from the foundation’s perspective, you know, what we’re trying to document is how games were made and played in their time. And so to be able to take a snapshot of, for example, Sarge’s Heroes, and kind of give a demonstration through documentation and not just memories, which, frankly are flawed, of how things actually worked at the time, I think, really helps fill that in. And something that comes to mind, as we’re talking about Sarge’s Heroes, is that I don’t know that there are other, at least in archives like ours, surviving documents of Nintendo feedback, right? Because there were documents in the Sarge’s Heroes files of Nintendo’s feedback, I think in like, two or three different submissions for the game.
John Rairdin 1:08:45
Yeah, there’s a couple different revisions of it. Yeah, I commented to Frank when I saw those. I’m like, I don’t know if anybody else will find this interesting, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Nintendo feedback form for an N64 game. Like, it’s a thing that you probably wouldn’t even think of as being kind of historically neat. But then you see and go, oh yeah, yeah, I haven’t seen that before.
Michael Mendheim 1:09:06
I think it was called the Nintendo Fun Club, or it had some kind of–
Frank Cifaldi 1:09:11
Mario Club.
John Rairdin 1:09:12
Super Mario Club.
Michael Mendheim 1:09:12
Yeah, and actually, the feedback was really good. At least, I remember–
Frank Cifaldi 1:09:17
I thought so too!
John Rairdin 1:09:18
They’re super interesting to read through, yeah,
Frank Cifaldi 1:09:20
Yeah, but, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that we don’t tend to have access to, that, you know, isn’t hypersensitive even, it’s just stuff that people didn’t think to hang on to, unless they–
Michael Mendheim 1:09:32
Yeah and the statute of limitations has run out on all that stuff. You know, at one time, it was confidential, but you know, decades later, it’s really, it’s– and I like, I didn’t know half the stuff that I was in there as you were opening up boxes. I was like, Oh, cool.
Frank Cifaldi 1:09:52
Yeah. This is your life, yeah. Well, great. I think we’ll wrap it up there other than, Michael, I’d like you to tell our audience about Mutant Football League, because I actually think there’s a really interesting, you know, not only am I giving you the spotlight to fit your product, but I actually think to your point earlier there’s a really interesting kind of continuity here with the documentation that you kept and what you were able to do with it.
Michael Mendheim 1:10:22
Yeah, well, I mean, out of all the products, I mean, Mutant League was always one of my favorites. I just– it was kind of like the game I like to play. Sarge’s Heroes is up there too. So 20 years later, right after they just completely decapitated Mutant League, everything just– I went on to other products and Army Men, and then that, all of that, I hooked up with some guys that I worked with at Vogster, and we said, Hey, you know, I think we could try and build a spiritual successor to Mutant League Football, which ends up being Mutant Football League. So we actually did that game, and we got it out on Nintendo and Xbox and PlayStation, and we shipped that product, I think 2019, and, you know, we’re an indie studio. We got like 10 guys, but that product was very successful for us, and we got really awesome reviews for that game. And now we’re working on a sequel, and like we do with all of our products, when it’s early in development, I put them in Steam. I mean, in the end of the day, they’re console products. But I like the Steam players. I like the feedback we get on Steam. They’re ruthless, like I just I get so much help from our community. So we’ve got Mutant Football League 2 right now. We put it on Steam around Memorial Day, and it’s there. It’s obviously not done. We’re working on the game. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to ship it this year. I don’t think it’s probably ready, but for sure next year. I mean, we’re getting close, that’s for sure. It plays, it’s fun, but that’s kind of how we develop games. We let the community have it, and they share ideas and their wants and make sure that it’s properly tuned to their liking. And we do spend a lot of time on this. And we don’t have any publishers or anything. We fund our own games. You know, we put out a game and make some money, then we use that money and we build the next game, so. But it’s been tough because, like, our development was in Ukraine, right? So then with the war, it just, we should have had the product out, but the war has just, you know, it’s been a struggle. So some members of our team made it out. Some members of our team are still in Kyiv, and, you know, they have their power cut, and then there’s bombs. So they’re unbelievable, these guys. But it’s been hard.
John Rairdin 1:13:25
Yeah.
Frank Cifaldi 1:13:27
Well, great. Everyone interested go check out Mutant Football League. We will link to the game in the show notes.
Michael Mendheim 1:13:35
But Frank, we can’t end on such a downer,
Frank Cifaldi 1:13:38
Okay, all right, all right. Where do you want to go from here?
Michael Mendheim 1:13:40
We just can’t end on such a downer. So I don’t know, next time we do this podcast, we should probably have some drinks going, because it’ll probably be even more fun. That would be an idea.
Frank Cifaldi 1:13:51
There’s no downer when it comes to Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, it just has–
John Rairdin 1:13:55
A positive title.
Michael Mendheim 1:13:55
Well, yeah, we’re definitely going to need some drinks for that. But no, I mean, through all the ups and downs, it’s been awesome. No regrets. The fact that I I’m working still in this industry, with all the awesome people, it’s just been an absolute gift. And I want to thank you, Frank, for actually archiving some of this stuff. Because if once I pass away, my wife and my kid are just gonna be, All right, get it out, you know, just get it out. Then come with Hefty bags and they don’t even know what they’re throwing out. So at least, you know, hopefully some of it is saved somewhere, and hopefully it’ll help somebody.
Frank Cifaldi 1:14:40
Well, you know, Mike, what I’ve often said when people ask me about my job and what’s in the archive and what we actually managed to rescue, I just say, like, it’s the Midwest man, like, the Midwest has addicts. Midwest has basements. Yeah, okay, the Bay Area is the development hub, but we don’t have any room to put anything. So, you know, everything gets tossed here, like, if you lived here, you wouldn’t have had that stuff.
Michael Mendheim 1:15:05
Yeah, nobody’s working on paper now, anyways.
Frank Cifaldi 1:15:08
That’s true. That’s true. And that’s a terrifying thing for us, but we’re trying to end on a happy note. So, everyone look forward to digging through this archive. We are working diligently to get through it. We are launching our digital library fairly soon, maybe even by the time you guys hear this recording, like I said, we will link toMutant Football League in the show notes, as well as both of your social media presences. But for those listening too lazy to look at the show notes, where can people find you on the internet? Let’s start with you, Michael,
Michael Mendheim 1:15:45
Well, if you’re interested in Mutant Football League, I mean, just go to our website, where we have all of the social media, and it’s just mutantfootballleague.com. My personal Twitter is @mmendheim and between those two sources, you should be able to get a hold of me.
Frank Cifaldi 1:16:04
John, where can we find you?
John Rairdin 1:16:07
You can find most of my stuff, all Nintendo-related, at nintendoworldreport.com. Most of the time I’m talking about Star Fox, but now and then I branch out to other things. And then you can find me on most social media platforms, at JTSKnight92 but it’s probably easier to just search Rairdin, my last name because it’s a weird name, so I’m easy to find.
Frank Cifaldi 1:16:33
Alright. Thank you both. This was fun.
Michael Mendheim 1:16:34
Take care.
John Rairdin 1:16:35
Thank you.
Frank Cifaldi 1:16:36
Thank you so so much for listening to the Video Game History Hour brought to you by the Video Game History Foundation. If you have questions or comments for the show, you can email us at podcast@gamehistory.org. The Video Game History Foundation is a 501(c)(3), non-profit, and all of your contributions are tax-deductible. You can support us right now by going to gamehistory.org/donate, or by joining our patreon patreon.com/gamehistoryorg, one word. This episode of the Video Game History Hour was produced by Robin Kunimune and edited by Michael Carrell. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
–Transcript edited by Jeremy Seith