Separated at Birth: Sierra's "ImagiNation Network" and "Mytopia"

A new online casual gaming network called "Mytopia" has cribbed heavily from the classic ImagiNation Network (née The Sierra Network), one of the first dial-in multiplayer graphical game spaces. The town interface, as Coding Horror points out, looks like a graphical refresh of the old VGA graphics front door of INN. Like INN, Mytopia allows players to play different types of card and parlor games.

But if you'd rather re-experience the original (without the per-minute access fees), the ImagiNation Revival project has recreated the server-side software. Rather than recreating the client software, however, you can just run the old software in DOSbox, the oh-so-lovely DOS emulator for Windows and OS X.

Al Lowe, probably best known at Sierra online for creating the Leisure Suit Larry games, also worked extensively on the original TSN/INN development, including one of the first avatar creation engines.

INN eventually landed in the hands of AOL, who quickly scuttled the whole operation.

It's clear that Mytopia is making an allusion to the ImagiNation Network on purpose, but I can't see the harm in it. If anything, they're acknowledging their roots, which is more than be said for most online gaming companies these days who act like putting pinochle on a computer is an idea that sprung forth sui generis from the fecund mind of a 22-year-old Ruby programmer.

The Sierra Network II [Coding Horror]

[#1 posted by Sxe , March 24, 2008 10:14 AM]

I'm pretty certain that "first avatar creation engine" is still used today to create characters in The Realm Online, one of the earliest MMOs which is still active. (It's now run by Norseman Games, not Sierra.) The level of customizability during character creation is surprisingly advanced for an 11-year-old game.

[#2 posted by Sketch , March 24, 2008 3:54 PM]

Not exactly on topic, but I'm pretty sure DOSbox was available for Linux long before it was ported to Windows or Mac OSX.

[#3 posted by Anonymous , March 24, 2008 4:28 PM]

It also looks like Apple's illustration for their first internet services.... eWorld

[#4 posted by Anonymous , March 24, 2008 4:34 PM]

No, you're probably thinking of DOSEMU, the Linux MS-DOS compatibility tool.

DosBox goes far beyond that, adding emulation for pretty much all of the major video card types of the era-- CGA, EGA, TGA, VGA, and I believe even Hercules, on top of a full set of sound card emulations-- multiple Sound Blaster revisions, AdLib, Creative Music System, Tandy 3-voice audio, and even Gravis UltraSound.

[#5 posted by jennfrank , March 24, 2008 5:55 PM]

Until INN/TSN was hacked for DOSbox, I was basically sitting around for one of the 'revival' efforts to 'take.' I guess I was essentially waiting for the existence of something like Mytopia (I keep accidentally typing 'myopia'). It isn't going to get me onto Facebook, but hell, it's something.

[#6 posted by Jaycatt , March 25, 2008 2:49 PM]

Nice, I haven't thought of TSN in years! I used to really love that pre-internet system.

[#7 posted by Sketch , March 25, 2008 3:45 PM]

#4: Doh, you're right.