#general

That's good to know.

XXL1 is abandonware, right? If so, would anyone happen to have the zip?

Oh I didn't see that! Cheers mate!

Why did the bot send my video?

How uncomfortable

It posts videos of baku, you and someone else I believe

Nice

Good to know, its for my english lesson

Hi everyone, we're not quite there yet, but in two weeks time the XXL franchise will celebrate its *20th anniversary*! In the old Discord I have read some claims that there was once a public version of the *Next Generation Asterix* demo on ELB's website to download for free. Étranges Libellules started working on that in 2001 as an internal proof of concept for French publisher Atari (really just Infogrames with a new name, has little to do with the original Atari), who had tasked several developers with finding a vision for a new kind of Asterix game in the new century. The demo had all the major gameplay elements of what would later become Asterix & Obelix XXL already in place. In the video game industry a demo like this is referred to as a "vertical slice," as it is supposed to feel and play as if it had literally been sliced from the middle of the finished game—this allows developers to flesh out a game with content _after_ all the major systems (plus artstyle) have already been decided upon and finished, avoiding costly rewrites. But since we don't know for sure if or when this demo was released to the public, the actual birthday of the XXL series remains the *21st November 2003*, still rendering it older than some members of our community. In fact, the only reason why we know about the demo in the first place is thanks to fans like Marty, who is not a member of this server anymore, but whom I want to mention for heading the *original server* and thus carrying the XXL fandom for a significant while. They were able to get their hands on an internal presentation about the demo from ex-ELB employees on Facebook. .

After several releases of XXL, XXL2, and Olympic Games, it seemed like the franchise had died after just five years in 2008. Yet for some reason, this forgotten and ultimately mediocre children's licensed game got revived through publisher *Microïds* and developer OSome, whose contributions we all love to hate. But if we let our personal biases fade for a minute, we should still be able to find how unlikely and impactful it was to see this series getting a whole second life at all. I encourage all of us to *remember these 20 years* in our own ways, and maybe some of you will be able to share a bit on here. I for one recently replayed the first stages of XXL after not touching these games for almost two years. I did so on my Steam Deck on a plane (which has become my preferred way of gaming ever since I got one). And yes, it is the bloody Romaster version, but what can I say, in that moment it was the easiest to get my hands on. While I suspect the days of official releases might be over for sure this time, and while the community activity has also slowed down significantly, this tiny franchise has made its unlikely way into gaming history, and we were here to witness it—so let's *celebrate*! Looking towards the future, *Adrien*, our head of affairs, has provided us (and is still providing us) with incredible tools to preserve not just the history of XXL, but of ELB games as a whole, as his editor is now generally compatible with every ELB game from 2003's Asterix & Obelix XXL to 2010's Alice in Wonderland. *Baku* is heading the small remains of the speedrunning community over on the Asterix Speedrunners discord. And somewhere in Rome, I hear there are still ancient ruins waiting to maybe some day be excavated... As for me, I am thankful for 20 wild years in which XXL maybe periodically played too big of a role. Still, it is good to look back from time to time. Beta get started on our way to becoming the Romasters, lads! Be seeing you Epsilon

another one

thanks for another boost

Np, but I have to admit that I only got these 2 boosts bc they were free (I got 2 free weeks of nitro)

its fine

@rubinho146 thanks for server boost