2019-04-01_Retro_Gamer

» Mark K Jones, Shaun Ridings, Steve Lavache and

John Brandwood at work down in Ocean’s programming department.

» Musician Jonathan Dunn and C6 4 ar tist Steve Wahid play on the Operation Thunderbolt arcade coin-op.

going to cause any great shakes once

released, but I was chuffed when the

Crash review in issue 42 from July 1987

specifically mentioned: “...the brilliant

loading screen raises expectations”.

That was enough for me. Crash was

my favorite magazine and there, in it’s

pages, was my first piece of criticism,

and it was positive.

O

ne evening, while still staying

at a hotel, I was messing about

on Melbourne Houses’ Wham

The Music Box utility on my

Spectrum and set about converting

some music from the arcade version

of Arkanoid. I’d heard all three in-game

tunes playing almost every day at work

as the Spectrum and Commodore 64

conversions were being worked on

down the corridor

would pass and I’d not even realise.

Every couple of hours I’d get up and

have a little wander about to see

what everyone else was doing, then

I’d go back to my screen and there

I’d see something wrong glaring me

in the face. If I was having an issue

with an aspect of the illustration I’d

walk away, come back with fresh eyes

and I’d quickly find a solution. The

screen took me around three days

to complete. I was happy to realise

it was the best piece of Spectrum

work I’d done so far.

Afterwards, I started work on

the Amstrad CPC loading screen

for the same game. That caused

me a few problems at first as I’d

never used that machine before.

Not only that, but I had to learn

to use the Amstrad art package,

something that normally takes

a lot of practice. The Amstrad

loading screen for Mag Max took me

quite a bit longer than its Spectrum

equivalent, but it turned out okay.

It certainly wasn’t anything to be

embarrassed about considering it was

my very first work on the machine.

Thinking I was then done with Mag

Max, Gary then approached me to

change some of the graphics in both

versions of the game itself. The main

character was a little ill-defined. I had

a letter from the programmer, Gary

Knight, that listed the character sizes

required and started work on my very

first animation. I’d not really made

anything move before. I drew a robot

head, a ship and animated a set of

robot legs through three frames. The

finished graphics did look a bit better

than what had been there previously.

Gary was right to have requested them

to be redone. Mag Max wasn’t

» Music

ould pass and I’d not even realise. load

Me at my desk in the ‘dungeons’ of
Ocean in mid 1987.OOcceeaaann iinn

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