Games written by women?
Just noticed Mrs Mopp was written by a Tina!
I was surprised, despite being a radical feminist!
Have any other games been written entirely by ladies? And searching for threads here with the word women shows that we are a truly modern and diversity-aware crew!
I was surprised, despite being a radical feminist!
Have any other games been written entirely by ladies? And searching for threads here with the word women shows that we are a truly modern and diversity-aware crew!
Post edited by rich_chandler on
Comments
The Secret of St Bride's was written by a couple(?) of women and they may have written others. I'm fairly sure there's a fair bit of info about them in the forums somewhere as the whole St Bride's set up was "interesting" to say the very least.
The only other woman I can think of is Dawn Drake but she was a graphics artist rather than a programmer. At least I'm fairly sure that's correct.
Also, is there any reason why this thread is under "Updates"? Maybe Lee (or mods) should be the only people able to post in this section otherwise it may lead to anarchy!!!! Seriously though, you're messing with my OCD! ;)
She also has a credit on Penetrator although the loading screen only mentions Mitchell.
Karen Trueman (another graphic artist) had a hand in Commando and Bomb Jack. I thought Helen Reidy of Microsphere was co-programmer of Skool Daze etc with her husband but she doesn't even get a credit in the archive, so perhaps she ran the business side of things. Can't find that Crash interview with them to confirm.
This is probably the one you mean...
http://www.crashonline.org.uk/25/msphere.htm
It sounds like they both worked on the design side but Dave did the coding on paper and Helen had the exciting job of typing it all in!
I still can't believe David Reidy wrote everything down on paper and then typed it into his Speccy in hex rather than using an assembler :-O
And another Dawn - Dawn Jones who has a credit on Imagine's Pedro and an unreleased Odin game called P.L.O.D. along with Bernie "Ping Pong" Duggs.
Speaking of which, Joffa's sister Christine has a credit on Pud Pud.
And Angela Sutherland is credited on all three of Sandy White's games.
Actually if you stick some womens' names in the search you'll find quite a few - for example just found a Karen Tyers who wrote a few adventures in the mid 90s.
Was she the one responsible for entering the code? I recall that Sandy White used to write it all out on paper back in the day...
Ally Noble was one of them I think? She was definitely with Imagine so problem went to DD.
According to DD's wiki page both her and Karen Davies were founders of the company, both art designers. Not sure what to believe on that page though considering it says the company was founded in September 1985 ;)
Yes she did, she ended up running DD when the rest of the founders left.
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
River Raid
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004154
was designed by Carol Shaw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Shaw_(video_game_designer)
Ah yes - quite right...
His close friend, Angela Sutherland, did a lot of the formatting of the structure for the final product; she was responsible for most of Antescher's design and also the characters who act out the adventure.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0000525
Karen Davies @ special fx (she did graphics)
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^Karen+Davies$
"toni baker" who wrote the book ?
karen truman worked did c64 gfx for 2 elite games , shes credited as "kaz" on loading screens
rita jay on atari did mr dig
kelly day , did gfx on a few US games.. but obv the spectrum styling borrowed from them.. bruce lee / dallas quest / goonies / pooyan / zorro
Your Sinclair. Issues:
20, August 1987
23, November 1987
26, February 1988
27, March 1988
28, April 1988
29, May 1988
30, June 1988
33, September 1988
Whoops sorry about that, my crap eyesight and all that.
No there are four things that point to it in the first revision of the ZX80/81 book, one by the publisher , one by the late Tim Hartnell and two by the author.
1) The male spelling of "Tony" on the book cover.
I think it's fair to say the publisher knew who they were writing the advance/royalty cheques for either that or they were sexist misogynists who didn't believe a mere girly could write such a book, but I very much doubt it.
2) Tim Hartnell says in his introduction in the first book revision that he met Tony at the zx users club so therefore knew him by sight as opposed to say phone conversation fax etc. and he refers to the author as HE not SHE and again I don't think that's a typing error somehow and the late Mr Hartnell wouldn't let that pass I'm sure.
The copyright for the book is listed under the publishers address as "(c) Tony Baker"
Whilst the above could be argued over what follows the authors own preface, dedication,call it what you will is very intriguing.
QUOTE "Nothing stays the same forever,here's to the changes" followed immediately by the gender symbol for female.
In the not too distant past a chap who goes by the name of Thurnor undertook to redo the book in PDF format and asked if anyone knew of any errors in the original and as I knew that the maths routines, amongst other things, touched upon in the book were somewhat screwed up I sent him corrections which after checking he included in his work and graciously gave me a mention at the beginning of the maths chapter.
After reading through his finished result I though nice one sir but reading it again about a year later I noticed that the final program listed in the book entitled a" A farewell program" differed in Thurnors work to the original book and it was this difference that finally convinced me that he Tony baker as was did become she Toni Baker as is.
In the original first revision the final program in the book consists of a short ML program and a tiny coordinates table and when the program is run it very crudely writes the authors first name "Tony" male spelling and at the bottom of the page to show how it should look when run is a facsimile of the authors signature "Tony" again male spelling.
When I checked Thurnors work the coordinates table was different I realised he had based his work on the third revision of the book and when that program is run it spells out "Toni" female spelling. In other words a deliberate change by the author and not some publishers error.
All three revisions of the book contain the same errors all that seems to have changed is the gender, on the front cover Tony becomes Toni, Tim Hartnell refers to SHE not HE, the nothing stays the same passage etc and the female gender symbol are gone and the final program deliberately changed from the masculine to the feminine.
As this site is known for recording things accurately IE correct game author accreditation, correct inlays instructions etc I honestly think there is a very strong case for acknowledging here,Toni Baker as possibly maybe the only transgender author who wrote for the Sinclair machines, who for what ever reason seems to have vanished completely from publishing public life etc maybe for a quieter existence and as nobody here seems to have met her perhaps we'll never know.
Sorry for the long winded epic but I think it's worthy of some discussion if only to ascertain historical accuracy.
Notice my explanation above is as good as yours. I suppose we will never know the truth...
One of the important Acorn guys changed gender as well. So that is at least two in the computing world.
Mark
Repair Guides. Spanish Hardware site.
WoS - can't download? Info here...
former Meulie Spectrum Archive but no longer available :-(
Spectranet: the TNFS directory thread
! Standby alert !
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!
Looking forward to summer in Somerset later in the year :)
Also Carol Brooksbank was a regular contributor to ZX Computing during the 80's and she was definitely female.