A Man Can Dream: Yet Another Collaborative Timeline About Indrema, Gaming, and Pop Culture
by KPyall (and others)
Introduction
“...When me and my buddies weren’t doing work, we were just avid gamers. We wanted to do something different; support independent developers’ ideas instead of neglecting them. We thought of the company as a dream machine for independent developers. [1]” - John Gildred, From A Dream To Reality: The History of Indrema (2016)
Oh, hello. KP here. This is the third Indrema Revolution thing I’ve posted. This is gonna be a collaborative timeline. I’ve retconned many things by this point. I’ll start from scratch, with an earlier Indrema getting some credibility and structure before joining the hardware business, leading up to a potential boom in indie gaming, and maybe Linux in general. Like the timelines before it, it’s focusing on Indrema, the video game industry, and pop culture as a whole. Let’s answer a couple of questions:
How can I contribute? Either the PM, or discuss it on either the official server or @Otakuninja2006’s Discord server.
Have we done this before? Yep. This is one of the many versions of the Indrema TL I’ve been working on, and this is the third public version. Third chimes the charm, eh?
What are the rules?
You can suggest anything as long as it fits the timeline. Guest posts are OK with me, too.
Respect every person, on this thread, and the real people in this TL.
Don't get ahead because it might confuse readers.
Don't get mad at me if I don't respond in time. I'll respond as soon as possible.
In New York City, there was a man who had an idea. His name was John Gildred. ITTL, Gildred is more of an avid gamer wanting to get into the game industry. He decided to move to California to work for Sega of America [1]. He played a role developing hardware and software for Sega’s consoles.
During his work at Sega, Gildred had plans to make his own company, with blackjack and hookers. One that cared about independent developers, that is. The big companies were too expensive, so what if there was a cheaper way for people to enter the gaming industry? That idea stuck with Gildred for a while.
Meanwhile, Nintendo and Disney partnered up to put Mario on the big screen. [2] It would be an animated film produced by Walt Disney Pictures, with Nintendo overseeing the production. It would serve as the origin story of the Mario Bros. on a mission to save Princess Toadstool from the evil King Bowser Koopa.
Overall, besides that, everything else is more-or-less the same as OTL.
In New York City, there was a man who had an idea. His name was John Gildred. ITTL, Gildred is more of an avid gamer wanting to get into the game industry. He decided to move to California to work for Sega of America [2]. He played a role developing hardware and software for Sega’s consoles. Later on, he pitched a little idea that was something like this.
After that, Gildred had plans to make his own company, with blackjack and hookers. One that actually cared about independent developers, that is. The big companies were too expensive, so what if there was a cheaper way for people to enter the gaming industry? That idea stuck with Gildred's group for a while after coding games and tinkering with hardware.
Meanwhile, Nintendo and Disney partnered up to put Mario on the big screen. [3] It would be an animated film produced by Walt Disney Pictures, with Nintendo overseeing the production. It would serve as the origin story of the Mario Bros. on a mission to save Princess Toadstool from the evil King Bowser Koopa.
Overall, besides that, everything else is more-or-less the same as OTL.
Released: May 28, 1993 (same as OTL’s live-action movie)
Produced by: Walt Disney Pictures, Nintendo Pictures
Distributed by: Buena Vista
Produced by: Shigeru Miyamoto
Music by: Alan Menken, Koji Kondo
Main Cast:
Danny DeVito as Mario
John Leguizamo as Luigi
Maurice LaMarche as Bowser
Frank Welker as Toad/assorted animals+creatures
Jodi Benson as Princess Toadstool
Genre: Comedy, action, fantasy
Rated G
Super Mario Bros. is a 1993 traditionally-animated film produced by Nintendo and Walt Disney Pictures, based on the video game franchise. Production started in the late ‘80s, when Disney and Nintendo partnered up to produce and distribute an animated Mario movie. Nintendo decided to do an animated film because it would capture the Mario world better than live-action. Unlike OTL’s 1993 Mario movie, Nintendo supervised the film’s production more closely to make it feel similar to the source material. Unlike other Disney films, the movie was outsourced to Nintendo’s then new animation studio, Ninimation, as Disney was busy on animating films like The Lion King, while the movie’s style looked similar to Yoichi Kotabe’s work on the video games, redesigning the characters slightly to be easier to animate. Kotabe also animated for the movie.
PLOT: Mario and Luigi are two ordinary Italian plumbers from Brooklyn. One day, Mario and Luigi encounter a Warp Zone during a job, taking them to the Mushroom Kingdom. They meet a short-tempered, yet kind mushroom retainer named Toad and Princess Toadstool, starting an unexpected journey to stop King Bowser Koopa from taking over the Mushroom Kingdom’s Super Star. [1]
RECEPTION: The film was a box office success, praised for the animation, voice acting, humor, and action, grossing $250 million worldwide over a $30 million budget. The success of the film inspired Nintendo and Disney to announce “The World of Nintendo”, [2] a theme park where guests could play Nintendo games and ride attractions based on the big N’s popular franchises, like Mario, Kirby, and Zelda, slated to open in 1996 at Tokyo Disneyland, with plans to open one in the west in the near future. Many Mario fans praise this film as being faithful to the spirit of the games.
Nintendo was also rumored to be developing a new Mario anime due to the success of the Mario movie, with a Zelda TV series also in the works, along with an entire trilogy of Mario films.
LEGACY: Due to the success of the film, many other companies (most notably Nintendo’s rival, SEGA) tried adapting their games into movies, to varying results. Some succeeded, some failed, but all of them could never overshadow the success that was Mario. Because of its success, the “video game movies suck” stigma is slightly less prominent than in OTL.
[1] The film mostly takes cues from the DiC cartoons and both the 1993 and 2023 movies from OTL.
[2] Similar to Universal’s Super Nintendo World IOTL.
[3] The cast contains some actors who were (or were originally supposed to be) in the OTL 1993 movie, and some who weren’t.
Released: May 28, 1993 (same as OTL’s live-action movie)
Produced by: Walt Disney Pictures, Nintendo Pictures
Distributed by: Buena Vista
Produced by: Shigeru Miyamoto
Music by: Alan Menken, Koji Kondo
Main Cast:
Danny DeVito as Mario
John Leguizamo as Luigi
Maurice LaMarche as Bowser
Frank Welker as Toad/assorted animals+creatures
Jodi Benson as Princess Toadstool
Genre: Comedy, action, fantasy
Rated G
Super Mario Bros. is a 1993 traditionally-animated film produced by Nintendo and Walt Disney Pictures, based on the video game franchise. Production started in the late ‘80s, when Disney and Nintendo partnered up to produce and distribute an animated Mario movie. Nintendo decided to do an animated film because it would capture the Mario world better than live-action. Unlike OTL’s 1993 Mario movie, Nintendo supervised the film’s production more closely to make it feel similar to the source material. Unlike other Disney films, the movie was outsourced to Nintendo’s then new animation studio, Ninimation, as Disney was busy on animating films like The Lion King, while the movie’s style looked similar to Yoichi Kotabe’s work on the video games, redesigning the characters slightly to be easier to animate. Kotabe also animated for the movie.
PLOT: Mario and Luigi are two ordinary Italian plumbers from Brooklyn. One day, Mario and Luigi encounter a Warp Zone during a job, taking them to the Mushroom Kingdom. They meet a short-tempered, yet kind mushroom retainer named Toad and Princess Toadstool, starting an unexpected journey to stop King Bowser Koopa from taking over the Mushroom Kingdom’s Super Star. [1]
RECEPTION: The film was a box office success, praised for the animation, voice acting, humor, and action, grossing $250 million worldwide over a $30 million budget. The success of the film inspired Nintendo and Disney to announce “The World of Nintendo”, [2] a theme park where guests could play Nintendo games and ride attractions based on the big N’s popular franchises, like Mario, Kirby, and Zelda, slated to open in 1996 at Tokyo Disneyland, with plans to open one in the west in the near future. Many Mario fans praise this film as being faithful to the spirit of the games.
Nintendo was also rumored to be developing a new Mario anime due to the success of the Mario movie, with a Zelda TV series also in the works, along with an entire trilogy of Mario films.
LEGACY: Due to the success of the film, many other companies (most notably Nintendo’s rival, SEGA) tried adapting their games into movies, to varying results. Some succeeded, some failed, but all of them could never overshadow the success that was Mario. Because of its success, the “video game movies suck” stigma is slightly less prominent than in OTL.
[1] The film mostly takes cues from the DiC cartoons and both the 1993 and 2023 movies from OTL.
[2] Similar to Universal’s Super Nintendo World IOTL.
[3] The cast contains some actors who were (or were originally supposed to be) in the OTL 1993 movie, and some who weren’t.
I’m imagining that Nintendo - as well as Disney - both fresh off of the successes of both Aladdin and the Super Mario Bros. movie - might give the newborn Ninimation animation lot a bigger budget to make Super Mario Bros. 2 (or whatever it’ll be called) a EVEN better sequel than it’s precursor. And I can smell Sega from faraway planning up an animated Sonic movie as a counterattack against Mario’s Hollywood success.
I’m imagining that Nintendo - as well as Disney - both fresh off of the successes of both Aladdin and the Super Mario Bros. movie - might give the newborn Ninimation animation lot a bigger budget to make Super Mario Bros. 2 (or whatever it’ll be called) a EVEN better sequel than it’s precursor. And I can smell Sega from faraway planning up an animated Sonic movie as a counterattack against Mario’s Hollywood success.
Ironically Paramount only got the sonic movie as Sony passed over it and sold the rights to paramount as paramount wanted something to pad their schedule, so depends
Ironically Paramount only got the sonic movie as Sony passed over it and sold the rights to paramount as paramount wanted something to pad their schedule, so depends
During Gildred’s role at Sega, he founded Indrema Corporation in early 1993 [1], initially as a side hustle in Alameda, California. They would make CD-ROMs of shareware games for Windows, Macintosh, and later Linux. Unlike other publishers, Indrema was looking for games from developers around the world that were high quality.
One of those was a little company known as Stargate Entertainment, founded in 1990 in Santa Monica, CA, who was working on a platformer known as Snark! at the time.
“The evil blob, Humblegump, has taken over the Snark Kingdom! Now it’s up to Snark to rescue his world! Explore different worlds, and rescue King Snark!” - Snark blurb, 1993
Indrema published the game on PC, starting a long-running relationship with Stargate.
Indrema started becoming well known for their use of quality control and being a platform for indie games. Indrema distributed their CD-ROMs, known as “Treasures” at stores, at low prices. These mainly got positive reviews - praised for the quality of the games, but the company was criticized for its overabundance. Although some people found “Treasures” annoying back in the day, many people and Indrema fans are nostalgic for it, representing a weird period of Indrema’s history where it was making Windows and Macintosh games instead of exclusively Linux-based hardware and software.
[1] officially founded in 2000 IOTL, with the L600 being its major priority
[2] Same as OTL.
We meet the fastest thing alive.
After 1993, I might fast forward it to a few years. Don't know if there's anything interesting during that time period.
