Like many others I was always in awe of what you gents managed to do with the Spectrum.
The Starstrike games were fantastic. 3D Starstrike is still one that I show to folk these days. Once they're bored with Manic Miner I get them on to the real stuff. (I keep Starstrike 2 as my own special game. normally I just blast it out on the real machine but sometimes like to play it on emulator so I can save progress).
As for Starglider and Carrier Command.what more can be said? Those two were (to my mind) the height of all things Spectrum.
unfortunately I'd moved on to college and girls by the time Battle Command was released but I'm really happy to have this opportunity to say thank you for such amazing games.
A mate approached us, said he wanted to write and game and had some good ideas, so we put a contract together and he started work. Sadly, he put more energy into banging the pretty female graphic artist he'd hired and the game fell by the wayside.
Still, on the bright side your friend got laid, so it was pretty productive all in all I'd say.
I was a big fan of Carrier Command on the Amiga but i have never played it on the Speccy,but it sounds classy so i will have to see if i can find a copy of it from somewhere.
Is the enemy carrier a rotten dirty cheat on the speccy version too?
I was a big fan of Carrier Command on the Amiga but i have never played it on the Speccy,but it sounds classy so i will have to see if i can find a copy of it from somewhere.
Is the enemy carrier a rotten dirty cheat on the speccy version too?
IIRC a mate showed me how to play it properly using the Speccy version which I carried on to a certain extent on the ST. A few things were fixed such as stopping the enemy carrier going through islands and wasn't there a time quickener so you could get to islands faster? To be honest I never really got into the resource management stuff, I was quite happy to get to an island and attack it with the Mantras and Walrus's - great fun!
On the Amiga i destroyed the enemy carrier fighting within the first 7 islands and now have the wonderfull job of capturing all the remaining islands unhindered. :-/
All my mantas and wulrus are already fuled and armed inbetween islands and as i was leaving one island when it became under atttack so as my carrier was turning around i launched a wulrus with missiles to close range of the island and lifted a manta to the deck,as the 1st manta launches i lift a 2nd up to the deck ready.I caught the enemy with its hand in the cookie jar at the side of the island and i just let rip with the manta weapon on the rear end of the enemy if you expend all missiles then kamikaze!..launch 2nd manta,bring 3rd manta to the deck and repeat.When he was damaged he tried to flee but my wulrus was close and i just launched guided missiles and the enemy carrier exploded into a hundred polygons and is defeated by a lowly wulrus.
I am excited about playing the Speccy one now.lol
All my mantas and wulrus are already fuled and armed inbetween islands and as i was leaving one island when it became under atttack so as my carrier was turning around i launched a wulrus with missiles to close range of the island and lifted a manta to the deck,as the 1st manta launches i lift a 2nd up to the deck ready.I caught the enemy with its hand in the cookie jar at the side of the island and i just let rip with the manta weapon on the rear end of the enemy if you expend all missiles then kamikaze!..launch 2nd manta,bring 3rd manta to the deck and repeat.When he was damaged he tried to flee but my wulrus was close and i just launched guided missiles and the enemy carrier exploded into a hundred polygons and is defeated by a lowly wulrus.
Ah - it's good to see posts from classic programmers. I was never a big 3D fiend back then, but I remember being gobsmacked when I first saw Starstrike II. It was fantastic to play too.
Please let us all know when a speccy version of Starstrike III has been completed & is available in the archive. Ta..! :-P
Basically if you have ownership of some of these games still please talk to Elite ! Theyre re-releasing lots of Speccy games on the iphone/ipad. Worth getting some money from these games and from a selfish point of view i would LOVE to have Starstrike on my ipod !!
Great to see you here on WoS. You've doubtless forgotten, but I telephoned you at work back in 1997 and we had a chat about your games and the Speccy and I published an interview with you on my now defunct website (the interviews are now hosted on WoS). :smile:
It is a shame that your 50fps vertical shump never came to anything. I remember even now your comments about Starstrike II and views on consoles, etc. You were working with Sega back then.
At the time, I was working hard as part of the Sega Dreamcast launch team. My role was to deliver all the development hardware and debug/emulation tools, which wasn't easy as modern programmers are a fussy bunch and point blank refuse to type assembler into REM statements. :-)
With the demise of the Dreamcast <sniff> my team was acquired by Imagination Technologies so I'm still on the edge of the games industry as our technology is used in lots of smartphones etc.
I do fancy writing something for the iPhone, but my day job keeps me "somewhat busy", and I'm also trying to finish a sci fi novel I started writing a year or so back, so I can't see it happening any time soon.
Great to hear ! I've got that app and love it. Starstrike , what a game ! Think that converted manyyyyy people to get a Speccy back then as Star Wars was a huge arcade hit.
At the time, I was working hard as part of the Sega Dreamcast launch team. My role was to deliver all the development hardware and debug/emulation tools, which wasn't easy as modern programmers are a fussy bunch and point blank refuse to type assembler into REM statements. :-)
With the demise of the Dreamcast <sniff> my team was acquired by Imagination Technologies so I'm still on the edge of the games industry as our technology is used in lots of smartphones etc.
I know it's non-Speccy, but... has any of your Dreamcast history been documented? I've been a bit fascinated with the lil white wonder for a while now: aside from the quirky (but powerful) hardware, there's also the role it held as Sega's last gasp and the amazing amount of wierd and wonderful games which were pushed out onto it - and still are, since the DRM proved to be so easily crackable.
Oh, and it had a keyboard, which made it into a fine Spectrum emulator ;)
I know it's non-Speccy, but... has any of your Dreamcast history been documented?
Now that would be an interesting project for someone (not me!)
I worked with both the US-based team working on the 3dfx based solution and the Japanese side with NEC/POWERVR, which made life interesting! When the Japanese solution won, my team was integrated into SoJ and I ended up reporting directly to Shoichiro Irimajiri. I also had a one-to-one lunch with Hideki Sato, who took over as President, in his office on the day that the canning of the Dreamcast was announced. Neither of us cried, but we were close.
Sega was an interesting company to work for, and I did enjoy getting the know the Japanese people and some of the language. However, things are altogether more sane at Imagination Technologies, and I have no regrets.
>Starstrike 1 and 2 were both coded on the spectrum itself, with assembler typed
>into rem statements
O_O
dare i say that this needs some sort of super-powers? i just can't believe that something like SS2 was done in that way!
Maybe they were Masochists... or they typed the assembler compiler from Marshal Cavendish's 'Input' magazine which also use to read machine code that were inputted into REM statements... That was horrendously slow at assembling code put into REM statements, and use to annoy the hell out of me when it come up with some error after taking hours to assemble a few lines of code :evil:
Maybe somebody can refresh my memory and tell me the page number and issue that particular routine was printed in. Maybe BattleBunny knows the answer to that question :)
Comments
Like many others I was always in awe of what you gents managed to do with the Spectrum.
The Starstrike games were fantastic. 3D Starstrike is still one that I show to folk these days. Once they're bored with Manic Miner I get them on to the real stuff. (I keep Starstrike 2 as my own special game. normally I just blast it out on the real machine but sometimes like to play it on emulator so I can save progress).
As for Starglider and Carrier Command.what more can be said? Those two were (to my mind) the height of all things Spectrum.
unfortunately I'd moved on to college and girls by the time Battle Command was released but I'm really happy to have this opportunity to say thank you for such amazing games.
What are the three of you up to these days?
Is the enemy carrier a rotten dirty cheat on the speccy version too?
IIRC a mate showed me how to play it properly using the Speccy version which I carried on to a certain extent on the ST. A few things were fixed such as stopping the enemy carrier going through islands and wasn't there a time quickener so you could get to islands faster? To be honest I never really got into the resource management stuff, I was quite happy to get to an island and attack it with the Mantras and Walrus's - great fun!
All my mantas and wulrus are already fuled and armed inbetween islands and as i was leaving one island when it became under atttack so as my carrier was turning around i launched a wulrus with missiles to close range of the island and lifted a manta to the deck,as the 1st manta launches i lift a 2nd up to the deck ready.I caught the enemy with its hand in the cookie jar at the side of the island and i just let rip with the manta weapon on the rear end of the enemy if you expend all missiles then kamikaze!..launch 2nd manta,bring 3rd manta to the deck and repeat.When he was damaged he tried to flee but my wulrus was close and i just launched guided missiles and the enemy carrier exploded into a hundred polygons and is defeated by a lowly wulrus.
I am excited about playing the Speccy one now.lol
and that's what I did on my holidays :p
Oh how I wish I hadn't read that in the middle of an office whilst drinking coffee... new keyboard please!
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
Before it can be late you have to commit to a release date and then fail to ship it. Right now it's just a work in progress.
Please let us all know when a speccy version of Starstrike III has been completed & is available in the archive. Ta..! :-P
(runs away & hides)
Basically if you have ownership of some of these games still please talk to Elite ! Theyre re-releasing lots of Speccy games on the iphone/ipad. Worth getting some money from these games and from a selfish point of view i would LOVE to have Starstrike on my ipod !!
Ian
Great to see you here on WoS. You've doubtless forgotten, but I telephoned you at work back in 1997 and we had a chat about your games and the Speccy and I published an interview with you on my now defunct website (the interviews are now hosted on WoS). :smile:
It is a shame that your 50fps vertical shump never came to anything. I remember even now your comments about Starstrike II and views on consoles, etc. You were working with Sega back then.
Phil
At the time, I was working hard as part of the Sega Dreamcast launch team. My role was to deliver all the development hardware and debug/emulation tools, which wasn't easy as modern programmers are a fussy bunch and point blank refuse to type assembler into REM statements. :-)
With the demise of the Dreamcast <sniff> my team was acquired by Imagination Technologies so I'm still on the edge of the games industry as our technology is used in lots of smartphones etc.
I do fancy writing something for the iPhone, but my day job keeps me "somewhat busy", and I'm also trying to finish a sci fi novel I started writing a year or so back, so I can't see it happening any time soon.
Ian
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spectaculator/id421662150?mt=8&ls=1
Various other Realtime creations will probably be along as an add-on pack some time soon.
Enjoy!
Ian
Great to play it again on my ipod, thanks again
Oh, and it had a keyboard, which made it into a fine Spectrum emulator ;)
where is this?
http://www.rzxarchive.co.uk/index.php
Now that would be an interesting project for someone (not me!)
I worked with both the US-based team working on the 3dfx based solution and the Japanese side with NEC/POWERVR, which made life interesting! When the Japanese solution won, my team was integrated into SoJ and I ended up reporting directly to Shoichiro Irimajiri. I also had a one-to-one lunch with Hideki Sato, who took over as President, in his office on the day that the canning of the Dreamcast was announced. Neither of us cried, but we were close.
Sega was an interesting company to work for, and I did enjoy getting the know the Japanese people and some of the language. However, things are altogether more sane at Imagination Technologies, and I have no regrets.
Maybe they were Masochists... or they typed the assembler compiler from Marshal Cavendish's 'Input' magazine which also use to read machine code that were inputted into REM statements... That was horrendously slow at assembling code put into REM statements, and use to annoy the hell out of me when it come up with some error after taking hours to assemble a few lines of code :evil:
Maybe somebody can refresh my memory and tell me the page number and issue that particular routine was printed in. Maybe BattleBunny knows the answer to that question :)