in a venture to develop microtransaction-based arcade games for the Internet. According to Dornbrook, outside infusions of capital allowed Rocket Science to remain in business. The publisher signed Boffo for several more titles, and a deal was reached to increase The Space Bars budget, which fully funded creation of its engine. The Space Bar was announced in mid-February 1996, alongside Rocket Science's games Obsidian and Rocket Jockey. According to Bill Davis, the titles represented a push toward greater interactivity in the publisher's catalog; this broke with its earlier reliance on full-motion video. The Space Bar was set for release between July and September, with an eye toward capitalizing on the holiday shopping season. The Space Bar was the largest production of Meretzky's career at the time, with a team size and budget bigger than any of his previous games. He noted during development, "I've never worked this hard on a game before, or put so much of myself into it." Its development lasted roughly 18 months and its cost surpassed that of Hodj 'n' Podj—originally his most expensive project—more than twofold. However, Meretzky later remarked that The Space Bar still cost less than many of the era's other adventure games, and that "Boffo was a pretty lean operation". Budget limitations led to a number of excised features and cost-cutting measures, and became "extremely stressful" for the team. "[I]n terms of what we wanted to do versus what we could afford to do, it was actually my most financially tight project", Meretzky said. He gave the example that an on-screen character for the PDA interface was removed to save money. Additions to The Space Bars script were made throughout development, including a significant portion in the beta test phase, for which the team was unable to record new voice-over. Ultimately, Boffo included the beta-era dialogue as silent text. Switch to SegaSoft and release As 1996 progressed, The Space Bar was pushed back to an October release in the United States, and translation efforts got underway for its international versions. Steve Meretzky said that Rocket Science Games' European partner company would be "marketing heavily in Europe." Rocket Science demonstrated The Space Bar alongside Obsidian at the mid-1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3); Peter Smith of Computer Games Strategy Plus wrote that the two titles "made a big splash" at the show. However, Meretzky later told Gamasutra, "With typical Boffo luck, they [Rocket Science]