Spectrum Page
Last edited 19th Nov 1998
I bought my first real computer way back in December of 1982. It had a rubber keyboard, effectively a 256x192 resolution monochrome display, 48k user ram and NO MOUSE. It was a great little machine, and there were some great games- long before everyone began doing Doom and Streetfighter clones. The little 8-bit Z80 processer ticked away at a mere 4mhz, yet seemed to run games a lot faster than some games do on my 200mhz pentium pro.
Of course, you had to load and save to audio cassettes which was a real pain. Luckily there are several emulators for the PC, Mac and Unix based systems and there are snapshots for almost every game produced.
I worked on several Spectrum games, from 1983 to 1990. Some were better than others, but all were fun to create. Of course, back then we didn't seem to need separate producers, designers, directors and other middlemen all organising things for you- yet the games still seemed to get done on time!
..SCREENSHOTS..
(Click on the screenshots to
download snapshots of these
games )
CURSED BE THE CITY The last game I worked on as programmer and artist. A text based adventure that came in 2 versions- one with some graphics and a text-only version ( with unreadable font but longer descriptions ). Unfortunately, I only have a snapshot of the text-only version. If anyone out there has the graphic version, please e-mail me. |
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RONNIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD This game was done with Mike Smith of 8th Day (another small operation that had much more success than I did). I did all the graphics as line vectors and fills which are around 5k for the whole game! I also worked on the graphic upgrade to the text-only Quann Tulla. Again, if anyone has a copy of that, please e-mail me. |
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PSYCHO SOLDIER (Athena 2) My first arcade game, I did all the graphics for the game in around 2 1/2 months at the same time as both Bushido Warrier (a Gauntlet clone, got a snapshot-please e-mail me) and Firetrap. We had an original arcade machine, which was fitted into a small suitcase- a great little game to play. Unfortunately, Ocean wanted it back when we finished the conversion... |
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FIRETRAP Another arcade machine in a suitcase, this game required 2 joysticks used in tandem to climb the buildings. The first game where I never seemed to have enough room for all my graphics. The Amstrad CPC version was 'hacked' even more- thanks 'Igor'. |
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SDI An arcade game that was actually in the arcades, and quite popular at that. Basically an upgrade of missile command, requiring a joystick to move your sprite and a trackball to control your crosshair. Not a very fun game to play with just keyboard or joystick... A group effort, I can't remember exactly what artwork I did on it...it was a long time ago! |
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SAMURAI WARRIOR (The battle of USAGI YOJIMBO) My favourite game. Based on the comic character of the same name, for once the Spectrum was grafically superior to both the Amstrad and C64 in rendering a style close to the original- black and white! The programmer, Dave Semmens allowed me huge (for the time) sprites and got it running at a reasonable speed. A year later, we approached Psygnosis with the idea of converting Beast to the Spectrum- Dave managed to upgrade the engine to display 9 or 10 layers of parallax in the background at the same speed as our original game. Coincidently enough, I hear Dave has just started working for Psygnosis. You are still my hero, Dave! |
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DESOLATOR A rather obscure arcade game. US Gold changed the name from the original Halls of Kyros to Desolator. Working on the forever delayed ST version, we called it Desolater-and-later-and-later... |
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P47-THUNDERBOLT Conversion of the Jaleco arcade game. I did the graphics for 6 or 7 formats (the Amstrad version got a review with 100% for graphics- obviously someone that didn't understand progress, or percentages for that matter). A pretty faithful conversion, considering all the graphics and maps were done from photos (you never got the original graphics in those days), although all the German insignias had to be removed... |
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SONIC BOOM Yet another arcade machine in a suitcase. A mindless blast-em-up, but fun. Another group effort- the main ship with dropshadow looks like my style, as does the 'top score'. I'm too old for all this! |