Today, Bernie Drummond, the graphics designer of such brilliant games as Matchday 2, Batman and Head over Heels answers a few questions about what it was like working with/for Jon Ritman (just kidding, he answers all kinds of questions).
Q: How did you get into the game making business?
I'd been friends with Jon for a few years and he knew I had a talent for drawing. I used to sit drawing cartoons of people at parties. Jon had done a couple of games for a company called ARTIC in which he'd done his own graphics. While travelling to Manchester to negotiate with the company, he met a guy called Chris Clarke, the two of them collaborated on Matchday 1.
Then Ultimate released Knight Lore. On seeing that he knew the basic graphics he'd been doing wouldn't be exciting enough, so the next time we spoke he invited me round to see if I had what it took to produce some funky graphics. If you look at BATMAN on the Spectrum you'll see a main monster with spikey hair and black eyes, he was the first graphic I created.
Q: We know you mostly as the graphics designer on titles such as Matchday 2, Batman and Head over Heels, all collaborations with Jon Ritman, but what else were you involved in?
I mainly worked with Jon as his personal artist, but I did make a game with a guy called Paul Mashacek (don't trust that spelling) called Superhero, which was styled after Batman and came out on Codemasters.
Apart from graphics, my contribution was to implant in Jon a unique vision of how to confound the opposition in a game. You know the way the ball sticks to your foot when you get possession, well I beat Jon for the first time by refusing to accept sticky foot, every goal I scored (4-0) came from an unusual part of the player's body including the first time Jon had seen somebody play a 1-2 pass sequence using only the chest. When we came to work together on MD2, Jon consulted me closely on things like the stocky shape of the players (tightly fitting the collision box) and the power bar which at the lowest power allowed you to 'push and run' rather than holding the ball with 'sticky foot'. My favorite part of that was being able to hold the fire button down when the bar reached your chosen strength, enabling you to play 'first time touches'.
After some snooping around, I did find out that the correct spelling is Paul Machacek. Yeah, the power bar (kickometer) could be locked on for first-touch plays and devastating volleys or headers.
Q: What kind of tools were you using for the graphics? I know Jon Ritman wrote a tool to do graphics on the Spectrum but what else?
Jon's purpose made program was created in response to my complaints about Melbourne Draw which worked with a 'Graphpad' (a device which used a pen to write on a board). Zooming in and out was so distracting that it was impossible to remember what pixel you wanted to change. Jon's program had a large drawing window where the pixels were 2 or 3 millimetres in size right next to an actual size window, so I could see both versions at the same time. Later when designing games for the PC and Playstation, I used 3D Studio and made everything as 3D objects.
Q: Take us through the typical tasks of a graphic artist when working on a game? For example, Matchday 2 and Batman. I assume you had to do the sprites and the backgrounds, anything else?
When working with Jon we used to meet up a few weeks before starting and brainstorm ideas, then I would sit and draw anything that came to mind for a while. After I had a dozen or so graphics, I'd give them to Jon and he'd put some together and show me. Suddenly we would see a pattern. Then an overall game style would materialise. Occasionally a graphic would inspire a game feature, like the bunny rabbits in Head over Heels or the teleport pad in Batman.
Apart from sprites and background features I sometimes created a character set to use as a font.
Q: What did you think of the original Matchday?
The first time I played MatchDay 1 it beat me 14-nil, 3 games later I won 3-nil and never looked back. Jon used to love the way I broke the rules, he was quite shocked the first time I headed the ball over his player or chested it down.
Q: What were your final thoughts on MatchDay 2? Anything you didn't like?
I loved MatchDay 2 because Jon really took my football advice while programming. The stocking look of the players was mainly so the 'collision box' match the graphics. One of the things that really bugged me about other football games was the way the ball would bounce off a player without seeming to touch him.
Oh yeah, that makes sense, the blocky graphics for players.
Q: How come both Jon Ritman and John Darnell (the C64 programmer) have teams bearing their names but you don't?
Don't know who Mr. Darnell is (must be c64 programmer). If a team called Soccerama turns up that me. That was the name of my local amateur team, I was player/manager.
Indeed, the default 2 teams are Ritman United and Soccerama. Nice!
Q: How come there was no Matchday 3? A 16 bit version would have been nice on the Amiga, perhaps. I know that a pc version came out much later and under a different name (Super Match Soccer) but what about in between the release of Matchday 2 and the pc title?
MatchDay 3 was made for an arcade machine but never finished production. The greatest football game I've ever played without exception.
I don't doubt that as MatchDay 2 was already nearing perfection in terms of game play.
Well, there you have it. A big giant thanks to Bernie who took the time to answer questions from a total stranger (me).
Showing posts with label Commodore 64 Interviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Commodore 64 Interviews. Show all posts
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Jon Ritman interview
Jon Ritman, the brain behind the Matchday games, was kind enough to answer a few (burning) questions about game programming in general and, most importantly, Matchday 2. Jon was a Sinclair Spectrum guy but we won't hold it against him.
Q: How did you go about writing a game on the Spectrum? I mean, once you had the game play in your head, was there any tools that could be used to help the process? Was it all assembler? How long did it take?
No tools, all in assembly language including writing an art tool to do the pics, took about 10 months.
Q: How did you learn to code in assembly language?
Bought a Sinclair zx81, read the manual for a week (it was much better than the c64 one) and learned basic, went out and got a book on machine code and started hand coding that (this is one level lower than assembly, pure numbers). It was two months before I discovered that you could get assemblers to make the task easier and by that time I had mostly programmed my first game - it wasn't well programmed but it worked - so totally self taught from a really not very good book (the author was only slightly more experienced than me).
Q: You wrote (among others) Matchday, Batman and Head Over Heels. How did the ideas for the games come about? Personal interests or game market tendencies?
Matchday was due to the wild success of international soccer by Andrew Spencer on the c64, all the distributors were asking for a soccer game. Batman was because I saw Knight Lore and just wanted to make something using same technique (Batman was chosen just in search for a hook in). Head over Heels was a natural follow up to Batman.
Q: Matchday 2 is a superb game. People often complain about the slowness of the game. I think it gives you more time to think about tactics but that's just me. Was it intentional? What's your take on the final product? What things would you have seen changed?
Speed was just as fast as we could make it but I didn't program it on c64. The guy who programmed it did a line for line translation of the assembly code for the z80.
Q: I played Matchday 1 once, Matchday 2 thousands of times. To me, Matchday 2 and Matchday 1 are completely different games, at least on the C64. How was Matchday 2 developed compared to the original Matchday?
The matchday 1 c64 version was farmed out by OCEAN. I was VERY unhappy with the result - I even phoned them and asked if they understood how collisions worked and was told they didn't care, they were just doing a job. MatchDay 2 was done by an independent working directly with me, it even had the same bugs during development.
Q: Matchday 2 had a few glitches (ball and power bar disappearing when playing 2 vs cpu) on the C64 version. Do you know why or was it a C64 only problem?
C64 only so don't know, probably because of a limit of the number of sprites on a given horizontal line.
Q: How did you figure out the AI for Matchday 2? Trial and error?
Lo, now that was funny - on MatchDay 1 I kept putting it off, scared of it. Then one day there was nothing else to do so I started, first asked the question, has man got ball, if the answer was no then he had to run towards it, if the answer was yes he had to kick it up the pitch. This was a whole 10 lines of assembler - I started playing and it scored against me within 10 seconds, I was weeping with relief. It got much more complex of course but that was the very start.
Q: Emlyn Hughes International Soccer and Matchday 2 are often viewed as the best football sims on the C64? What do you think about the game endorsed by the Liverpool legend?
Is that the Andrew Spencer game, if not I haven't played it.
Nope, it's not. Andrew Spencer's game is called International Soccer.
Q: Do you still develop games? If not, what are you involved with these days?
I am developing an iphone game.
Q: Do you still play Spectrum or C64 games? If yes, which ones are your faves?
No.
I hope those were relatively good questions. Anyways, thanks to Jon for being good sports and answering everything I asked. Hmm, I wonder if he would be ok for endorsing my Matchday 2 online venture.
Q: How did you go about writing a game on the Spectrum? I mean, once you had the game play in your head, was there any tools that could be used to help the process? Was it all assembler? How long did it take?
No tools, all in assembly language including writing an art tool to do the pics, took about 10 months.
Q: How did you learn to code in assembly language?
Bought a Sinclair zx81, read the manual for a week (it was much better than the c64 one) and learned basic, went out and got a book on machine code and started hand coding that (this is one level lower than assembly, pure numbers). It was two months before I discovered that you could get assemblers to make the task easier and by that time I had mostly programmed my first game - it wasn't well programmed but it worked - so totally self taught from a really not very good book (the author was only slightly more experienced than me).
Q: You wrote (among others) Matchday, Batman and Head Over Heels. How did the ideas for the games come about? Personal interests or game market tendencies?
Matchday was due to the wild success of international soccer by Andrew Spencer on the c64, all the distributors were asking for a soccer game. Batman was because I saw Knight Lore and just wanted to make something using same technique (Batman was chosen just in search for a hook in). Head over Heels was a natural follow up to Batman.
Q: Matchday 2 is a superb game. People often complain about the slowness of the game. I think it gives you more time to think about tactics but that's just me. Was it intentional? What's your take on the final product? What things would you have seen changed?
Speed was just as fast as we could make it but I didn't program it on c64. The guy who programmed it did a line for line translation of the assembly code for the z80.
Q: I played Matchday 1 once, Matchday 2 thousands of times. To me, Matchday 2 and Matchday 1 are completely different games, at least on the C64. How was Matchday 2 developed compared to the original Matchday?
The matchday 1 c64 version was farmed out by OCEAN. I was VERY unhappy with the result - I even phoned them and asked if they understood how collisions worked and was told they didn't care, they were just doing a job. MatchDay 2 was done by an independent working directly with me, it even had the same bugs during development.
Q: Matchday 2 had a few glitches (ball and power bar disappearing when playing 2 vs cpu) on the C64 version. Do you know why or was it a C64 only problem?
C64 only so don't know, probably because of a limit of the number of sprites on a given horizontal line.
Q: How did you figure out the AI for Matchday 2? Trial and error?
Lo, now that was funny - on MatchDay 1 I kept putting it off, scared of it. Then one day there was nothing else to do so I started, first asked the question, has man got ball, if the answer was no then he had to run towards it, if the answer was yes he had to kick it up the pitch. This was a whole 10 lines of assembler - I started playing and it scored against me within 10 seconds, I was weeping with relief. It got much more complex of course but that was the very start.
Q: Emlyn Hughes International Soccer and Matchday 2 are often viewed as the best football sims on the C64? What do you think about the game endorsed by the Liverpool legend?
Is that the Andrew Spencer game, if not I haven't played it.
Nope, it's not. Andrew Spencer's game is called International Soccer.
Q: Do you still develop games? If not, what are you involved with these days?
I am developing an iphone game.
Q: Do you still play Spectrum or C64 games? If yes, which ones are your faves?
No.
I hope those were relatively good questions. Anyways, thanks to Jon for being good sports and answering everything I asked. Hmm, I wonder if he would be ok for endorsing my Matchday 2 online venture.
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