Mipsco Systems, Inc.

Mipsco Systems Inc. Logo

Mipsco Systems, Inc., also known as Mipsco Inc., was an American video game company based in Foster City, California. Founded in 1992, Mipsco initially developed various FMV titles for home computers before partnering with EXPERITEC in 1995, at which point they pivoted to developing games for the EXPERIBOX. The company shut down in 1998 following disappointing sales on their most promising title Deeptower.

Early Games

Mipsco’s early catalogue included FMV titles such as: - Horror Week (1992) - The Shrieking (1992) - Noir Night (1993) - Lady in Yellow (1994)

Many of these games were made in a matter of months. None of them were commercially successful, but generated enough profit to keep the relatively small company afloat.

Starting February of 1995, Mipsco sought to separate itself from its pulp-inspired catalog and instead develop a fantasy RPG. According to Alex Leigh, the shift was “sudden” and “complete.” FMV titles in development were scrapped and personnel were reassigned to a new project, named “Dragonstower”. Shortly after this internal restructuring, Mipsco became partners with EXPERITEC Co., who provided additional funding and personnel to finish the project, renaming it to Deeptower.

Deeptower Development

Deeptower Logo

Development on Deeptower (originally named Dragonstower) was initially planned with over 2 years in mind. However, following the partnership with EXPERITEC, the timeline became much shorter. EXPERITEC wanted to release the EXPERIBOX, their home console in development, in November 1995 in anticipation of Christmas sales. This meant that Deeptower, whose development started in January of that year, had less than a year to be finished. Moreover, they would have to trust that the EXPERIBOX would be able to support their game as the console, even at launch, was mostly untested.

Plans for an FMV opening cutscene and overworld sections were cut from the game. During the month of October and early November, nearly a fourth of the Deeptower development team was fired or had left the company. Although most simply could not handle crunch time, Programmer James Collins was cut from the team because he reasonably asked if EXPERITEC could deliver a prototype version of the EXPERIBOX to Mipsco.

Due to the loss of key personnel, Deeptower was released in a virtually unplayable state. However, user sesni released an emulator and ROM for Deeptower that fixes many of its key issues.