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History of Retrogames - Continued...

I didn’t only have an interest in playing games, but in writing them too. I completed several titles, each one rather poorly conceived, and I always enjoyed playing them more than anyone else did. I programmed mainly in compiled basic, but one of my best friends was an absolute genius at programming on the Spectrum. He managed to get the 48k machine to scroll graphics at fifty frames a second well before FTL’s Light Force came out. Amazingly, he also managed to ape the Commodore 64’s feature of having a mini game which you could play while the main game loaded. It was a simple version of Arkanoid, and the action hesitated while the blue and red lines scrolled at the edges, then speeded up once the main program was loading again. An incredible achievement, even now, but he never even tried to get involved with the games industry. He did build a machine code windows technique for me though, called exploding windows, it allowed me to display pages of text or graphics then disintegrate the window with a crunch.

Addictiveletter

LEFT: My rejection letter from Addictive Games. Unfortunately I seem to have lost the other rejections I got.
BELOW:  The instructions for Splash Du Cash, A homemade booklet printed out on a Spectrum printer. The face art on the cover was actually taken from the game loading screen and coloured in with pen, all artwork was by my younger brother.
 

In the summer holidays of 1986 I completed my third and most proficient game, Splash Du Cash. An alternative version of Mugsy, where you make your money through petty street crime, building up to becoming a full time bank robber. I’d previously had games rejected by Bug Byte and CCS, so this time tried one of my favourite companies, Addictive, the home of Kevin Toms, and yet again got rejected.

I guess I should wonder what would have happened if i’d ever got one of my games accepted. It would certainly be a relief to actually be part of the history of gaming, however tiny, rather than someone hanging onto its tailcoats, heralding other people’s hard work and ideas.

Splashducash02

While i’d defended the Spectrum against the Commodore 64 for many years, its growing popularity amongst my closest friends meant I got to play a lot of games on it. Back then, there weren’t many people who could afford both a C64 and a Spectrum, but I saved, and sold off games and items so that I could indeed have both machines. In reflection, it was the sound that made me desire the C64 so much.

After years of suffering the Spectrum’s internal speaker, the C64 sounded incredible. I became a soundtrack addict, buying anything with Rob Hubbard in the credits, and connecting my TV sound output to huge speakers so I could dance as I played. My favourite soundtrack is still Crazy Comets, never has music made such an average game so playable.

My game collection continued to grow, and with a part time job in Softly, the first Milton Keynes’ city centre games shop, it grew even further. I visited trade shows, upgraded my machines and worked my way through the formats. I was the first of my contemporaries to buy an Atari ST, and will always remember the disappointment of the first ST game I played, Paul Woakes Backlash. It’s worth remembering, that first step up from 8-bit to 16-bit took some time to prove worthwhile. While many of the early games had great concepts, the graphics weren’t leagues ahead of the Commodore 64.

C64
Amiga

Things changed with the Amiga, and I again was lucky enough to be an early adopter. Once i’d seen the machine running on a monitor, I saved for one of those too, and would have to say the Amiga era was one of the happiest gaming periods in my past. There was always a hobbiest feel to the Amiga, and swap meets became common place. In a short time I had a network of Amiga friends across the country, and even into Europe. In many respects, the public domain and demo creation side of the Amiga scene was more exciting than the games which were coming out. Along with two of my close friends we formed ASG, a demo crew which we hoped would rival our heros, Red Sector and Phenomena.

For those not in the know, people in demo crews had handles, a name which they were known by instead of their own. When I was deciding mine i’d just finished drawing a jar of pickle on deluxe paint 3, so thinking i’d have a ready made logo, I called myself Branston. Funnily enough, it was a name people remembered. I’ve even found a mention on the Amiga Music Preservation Website http://amp.dascene.net/detail.php?view=800

We (though Paul and Bobby would admit it was pretty much all me) put together several demos for distrubution. Ham and Eggs, Robocop 3 Demo, Dungeon Master 3 Demo and the infamous Kick off 3 Demo. Armed with a decent graphics program, an Amiga action replay and an interest in writing music, the job was done.

Not the best, but the most famous demo was Kick Off 3. Its creation basically consisted of ripping chunks out of Kick off 2, fiddling with the graphics, and creating a spoof running demo announcing features which would never make it into the game. Remarkably it managed to fool a proper magazine, GamesX , who put pictures from the demo on their first page as an exclusive. Our scam was made even sweeter by the fact that when contacted, Anco didn’t deny that Kick off 3 existed.

branston
Kickoff3

Eventually the guilt of receiving orders for ‘housewives nude’ from kids who’d got their Mum to write the cheque got too much to bear. There was also not enough profit, and mountains of discs to copy. The business was very short lived, and reluctantly I got a ‘proper job working in an accounts office.

Of course there is no money in writing funny demos, or playing games. In the heat of the Amiga public domain scene, I started my first business with another friend. Psychosoft was a company which solely sold public domain software and demos for a few pence profit per disc. We had grand ideas, and had several half page adverts in Ace magazine. It is easy to see now that the very name of the company was enough to put customers off. The only money we ever made was from young teenagers sending off for the few X-rated girly discs we had in our catalogue.

GamesX02

The next five years went well, I earned good money and increased my collection further. I always kept up with the latest consoles (still do of course) when they were released. Moved onto the Super Nintendo, still played my Atari Lynx, went through the Atari Jaguar, 3DO, if it was a gaming device, I had to have it. However, there was still the underlying need to turn my hobby into my career.

Psychosoft02

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