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Text File | 2003-02-06 | 19.0 KB | 370 lines

<head> <title="...forever..."> <font=monaco10.fnt> <font=newy36.fnt> <font=time24.fnt> <image=back.raw w=256 h=256 t=-1> <buf=5580> <bgcolor=-1> <background=0> <link_color=000> <module=console.mod> <pal=back.pal> colors: 251 - black </head> <body> <frame x=0 y=0 w=640 h=5580 b=-1 c=-1> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- F A C E T O F A C E W I T H F A M O U S P E O P L E ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ::: ::::::: ::::::: :::::: ::::::: ::: ::: ::: :::::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::::::: ::::::: ::: ::: ::: :::::::: ::: : ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::: :::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::::: ::: ::: :::::: ::: :::::: ::: ::: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I V A N M A C K I N T O S H ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- creator of various smashin' hits on the 8-bit Atari became interviewed by Dracon / TAQUART ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- :::: Note :::: This interview consists of some mails that I wrote with Ivan Mackintosh in the past. Complete Polish version is available at: ---> http://atariarea.nostalgia.pl <--- As I don't have the inclination to write an exact English equivalent of my final version of the interview, here is some excerpts from it (in primary form!): Dracon: Hello Ivan! Firstly I must said you were really great Atari programmer! I remember your superb <link=g16.scr>games</l> like BLACK LAMP or CAVERNIA (is CAVERNIA your last game on XE?) Ivan: Glad you like the games. Cavernia wasn't my last game. I did another one for Atarisoft that was never released. Tube Baddies. A 2 player game where you have to shoot the baddies into a bucket and put patches on pipe work so that new baddies don't appear. This was another game done jointly with Richard Munns - so again, great music and graphics. Another game you don't mention is Rebound - this was my first game = written in 6502 assembly. My previous games (Crumbles, Crisis and Space Lobsters) = were all written in compiled basic. Probably why they are so slow. Dracon: Is it true there has been a huge delay between writing and publishing TAGALON ? Ivan: I guess so as I have never seen it for sale and have never seen the artwork for the cover! Dracon: Where did you take inspirations for your games from? Ivan: Tagalon was like a split screen 2 player version of Sabre Wulf (ZX Spectrum game). Tube Baddies was inspired by another spectrum game - Cookie. Black Lamp we were asked to write for Atarisoft. And the other games just happened (no direct inspiration). Dracon: Is your non-published game included in your games' archive? Ivan: All my games apart from Space Lobsters. I have the game on both tape and disk but it has copy protection that Red Rat software added. I haven't tried cracking it yet and don't have the master disk anymore. Dracon: Did you code your games on pure Atari system or ST (I mean developing games) ? Ivan: The first 2 games (Crumbles Crisis and Space Lobsters) were written in Atari Basic and then compiled. The required 2 x 1050 drive to speed up the compilation to about 1/2 hour. Rebound was the first Assembler game written using a software assembler (Synapse Synassembler). The other games were written using my Mac65 assembler cartridge. All games were coded on my trusty 800XL. Richard did all of the music in basic, hand coding all of the notes in DATA statements. He had a synthesiser to work out the tune first. Once this was done I recoded his music player into assembler and make it run on a VBI interrupt. Dracon: Can you tell me what's up with other superb Atari coders like Ian Copeland, A.Gilmore (musician).... ? I have a big respect for them and for you for your work for XL/XE... Ivan: I have never spoken to these people so I am afraid I can't help you with this question. Dracon: Did you know there are still some people in Poland that write great progs, esp. demos ??? I can write you a ftp address to check it! Ivan: About 3 years ago I was in communication one of the guys that did the the Joyride demo. That was the last time my 1050 drive worked! Dracon: Is it true BLACK LAMP was such a superb game because ATARI UK wanted to use this game in XE promotion in Europe? It's a pity there weren't more such done games... :( Is it true TAGALON awaited very long time until it was at last released ? Ivan: I only heard it rumoured that Black Lamp was released. Tube Baddies was never released and I don't think Tagalon was released,well not in this country anyway. So I have never seen the packaging for any of these games. Dracon: So it may seems you didn't earn much money on writing games for Atari... Am I right ? Ivan: I had advanced royalties of 1500GBP (9500PLZ?) for Black Lamp and 2000GBP (13000PLZ?) for Tube Baddies. Because they were never properly released we didn't get any royalties. These two games were the biggest earning ones too. So really when all the money was divided between Richard and myself we didn't have that much over the 5 - 6 years that we programmed the Atari XL. Certainly not enough to have done it for a full time job. Dracon: What has happened to Richard Munns and the firm HARLEQUIN (authors of e.g. PLASTRON) Ivan: Richard is now into messing around with PCs although he isn't doing this professionally. No idea what happened to Harlequin. Richard had contacts there as he was doing music for them. As far as I remember he got ripped off with them not paying him and then he never heard anything else - maybe they went bust. Dracon: What is your job nowadays ? Ivan: I am a Senior Software Engineer writing C++/COM based foreign exchange software for Reuters. Dracon: Do you know if there is still exist the NEW ATARI USER MAGAZINE? I heard it was available only for subscription... Ivan: About 2 years ago I saw a copy of it at a computer show. It was the size of a sheet of A4 paper folded in half.Little more than a leaflet really. I guess it is no longer in print. Dracon: What do you think about coding demos? Does it make sense to write such programs (instead of good games) ? :) Ivan: I think some of the demos coming out of Poland are brilliant. It is just a shame it didn't all happen 10 years ago before the Atari scene was dead. Dracon: Do you switch your Atari on sometimes nowadays or do you emulate the 800XL on PC now ? Ivan: I don't do either. My hobby lies more with playing around with arcade machines now. I still have 3 Atari's at home though (400, 800XL, 130XE). Dracon: Why did you choose Atari instead C-64 (for creating games)? Ivan: We didn't really choose, It just happened. We both had Atari's for a couple of years before starting to program. It is a shame really that the C-64 took off (well in this country anyway) more than the Atari as the Atari was brilliant to code for. I guess if we had coded for C-64 we may have made more money. Dracon: Did you see and play any of polish game e.g. Mission Shark ?? How did you like it ? Ivan: I have never seen it. Dracon: BTW. what is your favourite Atari game ? Mine are BLACK LAMP and DRACONUS (eq equo). Both games have a special fantasy sprit and I am still very impressed by the masterpiece in them. Suitable graphics, music and the rest - I think these games used XL to its limit! Ivan: You probably noticed from some of our games (Rebound, Tagalon, Tube Baddies) that we really enjoyed 2 player games. One of our all time favourites was M.U.L.E. We also played a lot of International Karate, Drop Zone (we loved Archer Mclean games) and the Lucasfilm games were brilliant too (Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractulas, etc.). Dracon: How long did you create BLACK LAMP? The result is amazing and the game is just superb! I also played BLACK LAMP on Amiga but it was lame game (in that 16-bit version !!). Ivan: Atarisoft told us that wanted Blacklamp to be the same as the Atari ST version. But when we started asking for maps of the game and other details they couldn't provide them and then let us code what we wanted as long as it was similar. I can't remember exactly but I think it took about 9 months to write. (You have to remember this was all done at weekends and spare evenings) Atarisoft wanted to see what we had got so far about every 2 months so that they could change things if they weren't happy. Dracon: It's a pity there weren't such well-designed games like yours and Ian Copeland's. Maybe the 8-bit was only a single step in creating games, a kind of training... Nowadays it simpler to take advance of the machine (good and easy graphics cards) and to make nice games (almost not optimised algorithms, and games required more and more powerful hardware - it's a bad thing!). What do you think ? Ivan: No one seems to care anymore. There are not many games that push machines to their limits nowadays. Gran Turismo on the playstation was the last game I was really impressed with. I am looking forward to Gran Turismo 2. It seems like many developers feel that it is nice graphics alone that make a game great. I completely disagree. I believe that gameplay is the most important. I can back this up by the fact that I have bought an Arcade Cabinet with the 1982 game Mr.Do! It is brilliant. Dracon: BTW: What Atari-emulator do you use and recommend ??? Ivan: To be honest I haven't touched any Atari stuff for a few years now. I used to use XL-it by Markus Geitzen but probably about 3 or 4 years ago. That emulator was really good apart from some problems with the player/missile graphics and the inability to be able to overlap 2 players and get a 3rd colour on the overlapped bits. This unfortunately means that Richards sprites don't look that great. I haven't checked out any of the more recent ones. I am currently more into arcade games and emulators. I have a generic arcade cabinet and about 20 PCBs for it including a NeoGeo with 5 cartridges. Dracon: Do you know what happened to Andy Dickinson? And did you hear about English Software (8-bitter label as I remember) and Tiger Developments? Are they alive? Is there any clubs or associations for 8-bit Atari fans in the UK nowadays? Ivan: I am afraid I don't know what happened to Andy or English software and I have never heard of Tiger? The Atari 8 bit scene in the UK is as far as I can make out dead now. Dracon: What do you about ripping the Richard's hero from CAVERNIA and putting it in the DEIMOS game?? Is it right? Are you angry? Ivan: I really enjoyed playing Deimos. It reminded me very much of the sort of game that Richard and I would have written. It was a shame that all of the scenery was in grey and the colours of the hero were strange. I was tempted to make a modified version with different colours but I noticed that the disk image is compressed. I would need for it to be on a disk image in uncompressed format in order to modify it. Although having said that I haven't got any spare time to do it anyway. Dracon: What made you stop writing games for the XL/XE (pirates and / or no interests of many companies?)? Didn't you think about publishing e.g. Tube Baddies in Poland (here was a large market for the XL/XE in the first half of 90s), Germany or anywhere else ? Ivan: I went to University and therefore didn't have much time spare and the companies in the UK were offering less and less money for the games. I didn't realise that there was a market for the games outside of the UK and didn't speak any of the languages anyway. Dracon: You said that the idea is the most important thing in every game... So what about some mega-hits from 8-bit (Blinky's Scary School, World Soccer, Black Lamp etc.) which were converted and rebuilt in 16-bit machines? They surely weren't noticed as very popular or good games... The idea was the same and graphics was much better, so what can you say about that sad fact?? Ivan: I guess when people get new machines they want new games that take more advantage of the machine, rather than some old game that has simply had new graphics. Oh well, with the world of emulation it doesn't matter so much now. Do you get Gameboy Color's in Poland (a little hand held machine). As I noticed that Dropzone is soon to be released for it! Dracon: Have you seen some games in which Richard Munns took place (Plastron, Zero War)? How do you like them ? Ivan: I saw Plastron during development as Andy Dickenson was a friend who lived in the next town. I didn't like his games very much though. He also did one called Countdown. Plastron graphics and sound was good though. Dracon: Why there are neither music nor end-sequence in CAVERNIA? Was it too little memory for them? (anyhow, the hero's animation is superb!!) Ivan: We didn't get much money for the game - no incentive to add the finishing touches. Dracon: Will you buy new Playstation console? Ivan: Probably not as I don't use my Playstation much now anyway. I am thinking of buying a Neo Geo Pocket Color console though. Dracon: As for writing games, why didn't you write a "sport" (soccer) game or another type of games (simulation, logical etc.). Was it too complex or would it take too many time?? It seems you mainly wrote arcade games... Ivan: Our (mine and Richard's) favourite games were arcade adventure games. We were brought up with the spectrum games like Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Alien 8 etc. Rebound was our attempt at a sport type game. I am currently more into arcade games and emulators. I have a generic arcade cabinet and about 20 PCBs for it including a NeoGeo with 5 cartridges. Dracon: So this mean Atari 2600, psx and similar? Ivan: The graphics and game quality is nearer to the psx than the Atari 2600. I have never been to Poland so I don't know about your holiday resorts but the ones here in England usually have lots of Amusement Arcades full of very large cabinets containing the game on a circuit board, monitor, joystick etc. And you put money in to play the game. This is the type of machine that I have in my back room. Dracon: You wrote SPACE LOBSTERS is good only at graphics.... Yes, it is, but why it is so difficult game? Why haven't you put any cheat in any of your game(s) /like Frank Cohen or Chris Murray/ ??? Ivan: You mean you haven't found the cheats yet! There aren't any in Crumbles Crisis or Space Lobsters. However in Crumbles Crisis you can rename the files so you can play later levels earlier. In Black Lamp if I remember correctly you can type "forest" and you will get infinite lives. In Cavernia you can type "tamsin" (my wife's name) to go to level 16 and "stevie nicks" (Richards favourite pop music artist) to go forward 1 level. I think stevie nicks also works in Tube Baddies! Dracon: Besides, I'm curious what happens when the player completes SPACE LOBSTERS or CRUMBLE CRISIS - is there any "end-sequence" ??? Somebody told me these games are similar (the same hero). Space Lobsters may have been a continuation of CRUMBLES... Is it really ?:) Ivan: I can't remember for Crumbles Crisis but there isn't one for Space Lobsters - we thought the game was so bad we couldn't be bothered to do one as nobody would ever play it that far. What happens is it starts again but harder. I think you have to collect more codes or something. Richard actually played it once to get that far! Dracon: Can you remember it and still can you code it?? :)) Ivan: I have an Atari 130XE (also a 800 and an 800XL) so I still remember it. I guess I could still code for it. I would be quite slow though as I can only remember what it can do and not how to do it so I would have to look it all up in "Mapping the Atari". I would quite like to program it again but I just don't have the time. Dracon: Thank You for all answers Ivan! -- --- --- --- -- --- --------------------------------------------------------- CHOSNECK magazine contact us: we're listenin' 2 da voice of da scene! greymsb@poczta.fm ---------------------------------------------------- ---- ----- ------- ---- -- </frame> </body>