What was Robotech Academy?
When Gametek first got the license for Robotech (nearly a year before I joined the company), the original game design they created was called “Robotech Academy”. The basic idea was that the entire game was going to take place before the Zentraedi show up at Earth… you would have played a Robotech Academy cadet, and all the combat would have occurred in “simulators”. The instant I joined Gametek, I threw out the entire design for Robotech Academy, and started from scratch. To me, it didn’t make a lot of sense for cadets to be training in simulators against Zentraedi craft before the Zens ever showed up. More importantly, though, Robotech Academy didn’t give me any sense of story or excitement… if all the combat takes place in simulators, where is the tension in the game? How would main characters like Rick Hunter and Minmei fit in to the game when they had not even met yet? It was a decent game design in most ways, but it was obviously put together by someone who only had a passing
