You mean someone from Imagine Publishing (or more likely a contract writer) interviewed him and they ran it in two titles. If it was a contract writer they would only have been paid once.
You mean someone from Imagine Publishing (or more likely a contract writer) interviewed him and they ran it in two titles. If it was a contract writer they would only have been paid once.
Two different pieces, cannot confirm if they were written by the same person.
Well I've mentioned this on other threads, but I wrote 'The Survivors' for the Spectrum in 1984, when I was 14 years old. I got ?400 for it, or the option of 12.5% royalties (it was a ?1.99 game, produced by Atlantis Software).
It was ported to a few other computers such as the MSX, C64, Amstrad464, Electron and a couple of others I think. I didn't do any of the ports though, or receive anything for them. The Electron version was very well received, probably because they didn't have much choice :-P
Well I've mentioned this on other threads, but I wrote 'The Survivors' for the Spectrum in 1984, when I was 14 years old. I got ?400 for it, or the option of 12.5% royalties (it was a ?1.99 game, produced by Atlantis Software).
It was ported to a few other computers such as the MSX, C64, Amstrad464, Electron and a couple of others I think. I didn't do any of the ports though, or receive anything for them. The Electron version was very well received, probably because they didn't have much choice :-P
Well I've mentioned this on other threads, but I wrote 'The Survivors' for the Spectrum in 1984, when I was 14 years old. I got ?400 for it, or the option of 12.5% royalties (it was a ?1.99 game, produced by Atlantis Software).
It was ported to a few other computers such as the MSX, C64, Amstrad464, Electron and a couple of others I think. I didn't do any of the ports though, or receive anything for them. The Electron version was very well received, probably because they didn't have much choice :-P
Interestingly I recently got hold of the chap that used to run Atlantis with the aim of doing an article on the budget software house everyone loved :razz:
Sadly, isn't keen as he doesn't think there's a story worth telling!
And of course Craig Davies, who wrote Custerds Quest for CRL's budget label was on here briefly following my blog posts about him a couple of years ago. I think his user name was Moonchild.
Yeah, I was well chuffed with that, was half expecting it to get destroyed but 70% ain't too bad. I think it got 7/10 in Sinclair User and generally 6's and 7's, although it got a 3 somewhere :(
Interestingly I recently got hold of the chap that used to run Atlantis with the aim of doing an article on the budget software house everyone loved :razz:
Sadly, isn't keen as he doesn't think there's a story worth telling!
Survivors was pretty decent iirc!
Was his name Mike Coleman, or Mike something? I had quite a lot of correspondence with him and he was pretty good. At one point, my tape-recorder was simply being idiotic (as they all tended to be) and I think I had to send the final tape in about 6 times. Each time Mike replied saying it didn't work, in fact, I'm fairly sure I still have all the old letters in a folder somewhere. After about 2 months, I had to go and borrow another tape recorder from someone and finally it worked and it got released.
I think the best moment of all was when the finished cassette arrived with the full artwork and stuff. Just the idea of someone painting a picture about my game was really cool... he made it look far more exciting than it really was :p
i wonder who did the cover art, like you say its pretty cool
Yeah I always wondered that. It was specific to the game, so they must've had artists who did that sort of thing on contract or something. Would be interesting to hear their stories.
Did you finish it in 1984, but it was released in 1986?
I was a bit confused about that myself, but looking through the correspondence from Atlantis, I first sent it to them in April '86 and it was finally completed (needed a few changes + lots of tape problems) in September. Since I was born in June 1970 and I was 14 when I started it, and it took me about a year, I can only assume I started sometime in early '85.
I was a bit confused about that myself, but looking through the correspondence from Atlantis, I first sent it to them in April '86 and it was finally completed (needed a few changes + lots of tape problems) in September. Since I was born in June 1970 and I was 14 when I started it, and it took me about a year, I can only assume I started sometime in early '85.
it was a good release for a 15 years old, and better than many other budget games anyway - how come you didn't make other games after survivors?
I was always fairly proud of it, even though it wasn't an amazing game (as somebody said above, having 3 droids instead of 1 guy (as in Boulderdash) made it playable, otherwise it's just a bad version of BD). Still, I was 15, it was written in pure assembler (which I learned as I did the game) so it was a decent accomplishment. And it's still great seeing it out there and knowing people played it. It's a major shame I didn't release any other games, it would be great to have released something that everybody remembers.
The reason I didn't release more is because I left school shortly after and started working on my own business, which was a play-by-mail game called Soccer Star, which did amazingly well and is still running today, so I had no real need to make more games. I have always dabbled in programming though, as I still do, but haven't had anything else released. I did release an Amiga game called World Cup Soccer Star which was horribly bad and cost me a fortune, but luckily I could afford it. And I tried to release an Atari ST game called Outworld through Atlantis, but as Mike told me at the time, they weren't doing ST games as there was no money in it (I think they released a handful but not as many as the Speccy).
I do know it was released in Spain and on lots of other platforms. I remember walking into a shop in around 1987 and seeing the MSX version on the shelf, which was cool (Mike had told me they were doing other versions and asked me if I wanted to write any of them, but it wasn't really worth it for me so they got somebody else to do the ports). I didn't receive any more money as I'd basically sold the rights for the ?400.
The reason I didn't release more is because I left school shortly after and started working on my own business, which was a play-by-mail game called Soccer Star, which did amazingly well and is still running today
I might be confusing this with something else, but this sounds awfully familiar... I sent off for a play-by-mail soccer game back in the day, and it might well have been yours! I didn't stick at it for long though (no reflection on you, if it was yours!).
Very interesting post though. I'm glad Soccer Star was successful for you, and at least you have Survivors to look back on fondly. I remembering getting Survivors on a Crash cover tape and being pleased it was a decent game.
I was always fairly proud of it, even though it wasn't an amazing game (as somebody said above, having 3 droids instead of 1 guy (as in Boulderdash) made it playable, otherwise it's just a bad version of BD). Still, I was 15, it was written in pure assembler (which I learned as I did the game) so it was a decent accomplishment. And it's still great seeing it out there and knowing people played it. It's a major shame I didn't release any other games, it would be great to have released something that everybody remembers.
You can still release more games for the Speccy ;) nowadays there is a lot of tools to program and do the graphics, and a very vivid scene :)
I might be confusing this with something else, but this sounds awfully familiar... I sent off for a play-by-mail soccer game back in the day, and it might well have been yours! I didn't stick at it for long though (no reflection on you, if it was yours!).
Very interesting post though. I'm glad Soccer Star was successful for you, and at least you have Survivors to look back on fondly. I remembering getting Survivors on a Crash cover tape and being pleased it was a decent game.
Thanks, Soccer Star has paid my bills for 25 years or so, so I can't complain. And the money from Survivors helped me pay for the first Soccer Star advert (?750 in Shoot, so the ?400 from Survivors was hugely helpful) so it all worked out well for me really and as you say, it's something I can look back on fondly. The internet has kept it alive too, so that's really cool.
You can still release more games for the Speccy ;) nowadays there is a lot of tools to program and do the graphics, and a very vivid scene :)
That'd be interesting, but I'm a bit of a lazy programmer. I LOVE the start of making a game - getting stuff whizzing around on the screen, stuff blowing up etc, but I get really fed up in the later stages. I recall getting stuck on a bug for Survivors for TWO WEEKS as it was near completion and it was hugely frustrating. So frustrating, that nearly 30 years later, I can still remember the bug :lol:
But I write games for fun now in Construct 2 (next one is hopefully a game ABOUT the Spectrum, which is coming along nicely). It's so much easier to write games now and I reckon I'd crack long before I completed a Speccy game.
You can still release more games for the Speccy ;) nowadays there is a lot of tools to program and do the graphics, and a very vivid scene :)
True, there are plenty of us here writing new and updated games.
And the tools are so much better. Emulators with debuggers, much better hardware for fast download to target machines, better development kit. It used to take me 10 minutes to assemble my games on my TRS-80 with 15MB hard drive. Now the hard drives are 100,000 bigger and PCs are over 100,000 faster. Not only that, but the costs for storage are way lower. My 15MB hard disk cost me ?2,000, a 16GB memory card can now be easily bought for under ?7. That's better that a quarter of a millionth of the price!
So, why not write some new stuff? I'm having fun doing it myself.
Comments
You mean someone from Imagine Publishing (or more likely a contract writer) interviewed him and they ran it in two titles. If it was a contract writer they would only have been paid once.
joefish must be Nigel Alderton :-P, he displayed a scary amount of Chuckie Egg knowledge in the readers questions in that article!
...
..
.
That's down to a restraining order. :lol:
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
Two different pieces, cannot confirm if they were written by the same person.
Or indeed that they weren't. If I saw the two articles side by side I'd be able to tell if they were.
It was ported to a few other computers such as the MSX, C64, Amstrad464, Electron and a couple of others I think. I didn't do any of the ports though, or receive anything for them. The Electron version was very well received, probably because they didn't have much choice :-P
You got a 70% in Crash's review, well done. :)
Interestingly I recently got hold of the chap that used to run Atlantis with the aim of doing an article on the budget software house everyone loved :razz:
Sadly, isn't keen as he doesn't think there's a story worth telling!
Survivors was pretty decent iirc!
here's his softography.
Yeah, I was well chuffed with that, was half expecting it to get destroyed but 70% ain't too bad. I think it got 7/10 in Sinclair User and generally 6's and 7's, although it got a 3 somewhere :(
Was his name Mike Coleman, or Mike something? I had quite a lot of correspondence with him and he was pretty good. At one point, my tape-recorder was simply being idiotic (as they all tended to be) and I think I had to send the final tape in about 6 times. Each time Mike replied saying it didn't work, in fact, I'm fairly sure I still have all the old letters in a folder somewhere. After about 2 months, I had to go and borrow another tape recorder from someone and finally it worked and it got released.
I think the best moment of all was when the finished cassette arrived with the full artwork and stuff. Just the idea of someone painting a picture about my game was really cool... he made it look far more exciting than it really was :p
Seems a nice guy
Yeah I always wondered that. It was specific to the game, so they must've had artists who did that sort of thing on contract or something. Would be interesting to hear their stories.
I was a bit confused about that myself, but looking through the correspondence from Atlantis, I first sent it to them in April '86 and it was finally completed (needed a few changes + lots of tape problems) in September. Since I was born in June 1970 and I was 14 when I started it, and it took me about a year, I can only assume I started sometime in early '85.
it was a good release for a 15 years old, and better than many other budget games anyway - how come you didn't make other games after survivors?
And I would add something, did you know that your game was even released in Spain? Did you get any extra money for that?
The reason I didn't release more is because I left school shortly after and started working on my own business, which was a play-by-mail game called Soccer Star, which did amazingly well and is still running today, so I had no real need to make more games. I have always dabbled in programming though, as I still do, but haven't had anything else released. I did release an Amiga game called World Cup Soccer Star which was horribly bad and cost me a fortune, but luckily I could afford it. And I tried to release an Atari ST game called Outworld through Atlantis, but as Mike told me at the time, they weren't doing ST games as there was no money in it (I think they released a handful but not as many as the Speccy).
I do know it was released in Spain and on lots of other platforms. I remember walking into a shop in around 1987 and seeing the MSX version on the shelf, which was cool (Mike had told me they were doing other versions and asked me if I wanted to write any of them, but it wasn't really worth it for me so they got somebody else to do the ports). I didn't receive any more money as I'd basically sold the rights for the ?400.
Very interesting post though. I'm glad Soccer Star was successful for you, and at least you have Survivors to look back on fondly. I remembering getting Survivors on a Crash cover tape and being pleased it was a decent game.
You can still release more games for the Speccy ;) nowadays there is a lot of tools to program and do the graphics, and a very vivid scene :)
Thanks, Soccer Star has paid my bills for 25 years or so, so I can't complain. And the money from Survivors helped me pay for the first Soccer Star advert (?750 in Shoot, so the ?400 from Survivors was hugely helpful) so it all worked out well for me really and as you say, it's something I can look back on fondly. The internet has kept it alive too, so that's really cool.
That'd be interesting, but I'm a bit of a lazy programmer. I LOVE the start of making a game - getting stuff whizzing around on the screen, stuff blowing up etc, but I get really fed up in the later stages. I recall getting stuck on a bug for Survivors for TWO WEEKS as it was near completion and it was hugely frustrating. So frustrating, that nearly 30 years later, I can still remember the bug :lol:
But I write games for fun now in Construct 2 (next one is hopefully a game ABOUT the Spectrum, which is coming along nicely). It's so much easier to write games now and I reckon I'd crack long before I completed a Speccy game.
And the tools are so much better. Emulators with debuggers, much better hardware for fast download to target machines, better development kit. It used to take me 10 minutes to assemble my games on my TRS-80 with 15MB hard drive. Now the hard drives are 100,000 bigger and PCs are over 100,000 faster. Not only that, but the costs for storage are way lower. My 15MB hard disk cost me ?2,000, a 16GB memory card can now be easily bought for under ?7. That's better that a quarter of a millionth of the price!
So, why not write some new stuff? I'm having fun doing it myself.