FROM THE ARCHIVES MONOLITH
When you try to imagine how the developers behind Blood, one of the most gloriously gory games of the Nineties, first came together, the last thing that springs to mind is a games studio known for titles like Millie’s Math House. Perhaps the placid nature of educational games development caused a pressure-cooker of wild ambition among a few of its developers, because it was at Edmark that the seven founders of Monolith began planning their break into the games industry.
It all stemmed from a love of gaming. One of the founders, Toby Gladwell, recalls those early experiences. “We’d been playing Doom, we came together with a love of games and wanted to take a stab at building them,” he tells us. “Maybe it’s the arrogance of being in our early twenties, but at the time we thought we were the most creative group of our time.”
Naturally, several of the founders wanted to jump straight into game development, but Jason (Jace) Hall – a charismatic big-thinker who would procure many of Monolith’s most lucrative deals – had another idea: a MegaMedia CD.
The idea was quintessentially Nineties. An innovation called Redbook Audio meant that videos, game demos and music could all be stored on the same CD. Jace created some, among other things. In 1994 Jace left Edmark to become Monolith’s evangelist, using the Monolith CD as a gospel to attract the people that mattered.
