Level 100: Bioforge Plus (English Version)

Some time ago I set out to find out as much as I can
about the fate of „BIOFORGE PLUS“
– the official add-on to the 1995 Origin Systems‘ action
title „BIOFORGE“ which, after a short and quite
chaotic development cycle, was unfortunately never released.
Two years and one quite convoluted information scavenger hunt
later I’m immensely proud to present to you the most
comprehensive analysis of „BIOFORGE PLUS“. Which
rightfully earned itself the honour to being the 100th main
episode of „Game Not Over“. And which
also is the very first episode here that I’ve double-recorded
in German as well as in English in order for our non-German
speaking friends all over the world to join the cool kids club
and be in the know about this very obscure piece of video game
history as well.

Commence enjoyment!


Heartfelt thanks to Bill
Armintrout, Bruce
Lemons, Jack
Herman, Eric
Hyman, Billy Joe
Cain, Jeff
Morris, Artie
Rogers, Brendan
Segraves, Joe
Garrity, Jörg
Neumann, Paul
Barnett, Richard
Garriott, Starr Long
and Ken Demarest for
answering my many questions.


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excerpt:


People like to say that I prefer to talk about retro games
that nobody has ever heard of. This might not be completely
wrong from time to time – but now I thought that I should
fully embrace this particular prejudice. Because is there a
better opportunity to focus on a game that hardly anyone has
ever heard of, simply because it has never been released,
than the 100th main episode of „Game Not Over“? Nah, don’t
think so. Therefore: Welcome to the big and very special
anniversary of „Game Not Over“. That’s all about „Bioforge
Plus”.


„Bioforge“… hm. I can’t seem to let go of it. I’ve played
through the game easily a dozen times since its release in
1995, and despite all its obvious flaws, it’s still one of my
favorite games of all time – I’d like to think that I know it
really well by now. Back in 2018, I did a dedicated podcast
episode about it, Level 21, for which I also talked to Ken
Demarest, the game’s lead developer, at the time. And I
really thought that was the end of the topic for me as well.
One of my last sentences in that episode was, translated to
English, „And that would be the conclusion of the „BioForge“
saga from my side.“


But now – I might be wrong. At some point that had to happen,
statistically speaking. At the beginning of 2021, I was in
the mood for „Bioforge“ once more, played through it again
over the course of a few days, got annoyed by the terribly
open ending like every time – and then started to seriously
wonder how the game and its storyline were supposed to
continue. Of course, I knew the broad strokes – it’s not a
particularly big secret that the work on „Bioforge 2“ had
started right after the completion of the original game.
Which then, after it became clear that „Bioforge“ wasn’t
going to be a big seller, was turned into the add-on
„Bioforge Plus“. Which in turn reached beta status after only
a couple of weeks of development, but was then canceled under
cloak and dagger and disappeared from the surface of this
world. For which the blame was of course put on Electronic
Arts, the parent company of Origin Systems…

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