Mad Otter Acquires Red Baron Franchise, Calls For Source Code

Developer Mad Otter Games has acquired the rights to Dynamix's classic World War I-era flight combat games Red Baron, Red Baron II, and Red Baron 3D -- but the company needs help tracking down the games' source code itself. According to a news post on its official website, the studio is offering a $1,500 reward to the first person to deliver the complete original C/C++ source code to any of the three games. The rights were almost certainly acquired from Sierra -- now effectively Activision -- which bought Dynamix in 1990. Earlier this year, Sierra released a poorly-received new game, Red Baron Arcade, to PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network. There was no indication given as to Mad Otter's plans for the series, but the studio noted that it now owns "all rights" to the original Red Baron games. Mad Otter was founded by Damon Slye, co-founder of Dynamix and designer of 1990's original Red Baron. The Mad Otter team includes numerous other former Dynamix staffers. Slye himself left game development in 1994, before the release of 1997's Red Baron II, but returned in 1997 to start up Mad Otter. The company has developed the game Ace of Aces for InstantAction, the web-based game platform created by GarageGames -- another company with considerable Dynamix heritage, including having been originally founded by Slye's fellow Dynamix co-founder Jeff Tunnell.