Return to Blacktooth and Modern Releases

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Coming up on this week's show, Amiga fans get a teaser at the A twelve hundred Sega's AI use in the newew crazy Taxi, and we chat to Imagine an Ocean software legend Colin Porch The retetroHour podcast is brought to you every Friday with our good friends at Bitmap Books. Now if you love your fighting games, have you seen their brand new volume? Betal Fury, also known as Garo Densetsu in Japan, the ultimate history. Now this is a massive four hundred sixty page volume featuring rereconcept dot org from SNK's archives, exclusive interviews with the original developers and covers the entire series from right the beginning, Mia Geo Classics right through until the recent City of the Wols. you can get your copy right now and check out the rest of their retro gaming collection at bitmapBooks. com And with our good friends at Replay events, who very soon are bringing the UK's biggest retro gaming market back to London on Sunday the twenty first of June. That's gonna be taking place at the Royal National Hotel in Russell Square, a massive venue that's gonna be filled with nothing but video games, merchandise, retailers, thousands of gamers all eager to find a bargain, basically gaming Nirvana Tickets start from four pounds, and you can get yours right now at Londongamingmarket dot comot Hello and welcome to the retro O podcast episode number five thirty five, yourour weekly dose of retro gaming and technology news with me, Dan Wood M Bobby Abberotts and me Joe Fbs Ad everyone, welcome to this week's show the podcast every week, of course, let you know all the big stories from the world of retro gaming and technology and welcomes on Vveterans of the industry for an interview every single week. And actually our guess we've got on this week has been getting quite a lot of headlines here in the UK. Not only did I see him on the Metro, which is one of our daily newspapers here in the UK. It's also on ITV as well because the headline they've been seeing everywhere is compomuter programmer finally finishes a video game sequel after thirty seven years This week we're going to be talking to Colin Porch. Yeah, it's a really interesting interview actually because Collid you knows guy. huge legacy in programming, some great C sixty four titles as well as them all being imported to other systems. But there's stuff like Ocean there as well, which you know huge company. a lot of arcade conversions as well. Operation Wall. Tsalk about Dragon' lair as well There's some quite legendary stories, but this is actually head over heels and Had overver heels, Yeah, it was nineteen eighty seven. the first version was released. John Ritman game, wasn't it? Yeah, Joh Ritman. and he converted it and then nowadays it's interesting Collin's actually come back to the to the modern world and released a sequel in a you know, a changed landscape, but there's still a lot of attention for these retro titles and he was pretty amazed and a standard that people still kind of around this area and it's still big. He's doing an ammiga and an ST version as well, which we talk about and he's got a lot of the talent and a lot of people around him that are in the modern scene at the moment. Hoffmann's actually doing the sound on one of the versions. So it's really cool to see. and Really interesting story having like a legacy developer. uch a good developer as well returning back. Yeah, Cos. Now this was a game that he started back in nineteen eighty nine and John Ritman actually gave him some advice on this And it was a version for the AtariST that basically he was kind of doing in his own time um a sequel to He Over Heels called Return to Blacktooth And then unfortunately, obviously the industry was changing quite a lot back then. it ended up not finishing it and shelving it, but it kept the discs for a while And then there's a really interesting story that we'll get into with Colin. I mean, he went through some real highs and lows in that era, but then as you mentioned Ravi, started going to some of these retro shows and was on a few Ocean software reunion panels And he said that it was Gary Bracey, obviously was a former Edomotion software basically said to him You know, you should finally get that game finished And then turns out there was a quite a lot of interest every time we went to a show and a few other people mentioned it. He thought, whyy not I'm going to do this? So again it started in nineteen eighty nine finally got finished this month and has been released on there. Balamer software. Now it came out a couple of weeks ago. Bically I souped up Really good sequel to the leegendary head overver Heels with obviously it's an isometric Arcada adventure game and there is digital versions of it that you can get for the AtST and the Amiga. Colin wrote the ARST version on his original machine Yeah I think's really interesting. He basically got it repaired. He's working with a couple of people to get it up and running again. And I love that that he didn't sit down and do it, you know, using a PC and emulation. He actually sat down there in front of an original at RESTM programmed this game old school style. Well we talk about the way that it was programmed, off course, you know you've got all the memory saving techniques in there and that actually made it quite hard to do a sequel in this way, but when he originally originally converted it. John Ritman was on the phone under the line and they were just working together like that. But it's a really interesting interview as well because he talks about imagine software and the kind of you know, the heights of u where these companies got and of course, the commercial Baks documentary, which we're all very aware of, which was, you know the bankruptcy and the bailiff's actually coming in and he says the back of his head's featured in that documentary. So yeah, some really, really cool stories. Yeah, and it's great to see that he's, you know back again and getting a load of love for this. He mentionsed's a great story about how He went into his his local bridge club and they got a round of applause from all the locals after he was on TV. I tell it he's so passionate about it. I really loved loved doing this interview Yeah And there's going to be phical version of it landing as well very soon. So if you want to box copy, I think there's an Aiga and CD thirty two version as well ass coming out and a Hoffman has been working on the Amiga one. So And one great thing is he actually at the time we recorded this last week, he mentioned they've actually just put out a new update to it as well which obviously is beaut of digital delivery, isn't that they can keep know book fixing it and adding things to it at the moment too. So yeah, an incredible story. So Colin Porch Ocean software, imagine, all of that. we're going to hear the history and of course the new game as well that has been there. a good few decades in the making. He's going to be a special guest. If you're listening on the audio podcast, you get that in part two. If you're watching on YouTube, that will land as a separate video early next week But of course, first half of the show, that's when we have a chat about the big stories. The headlines in the world of retetro from over the last week. And I think it's fair to say one of the most anticipated products in retro right now would be Retro Gameser Limited, the A twelve hundred. Now for people that haven't been following the story, this is basically a an emulator Inside a box with a working keyboard that looks like And originalmeiga twelve hundred Arm based, isn't it? And I think they did the five hundred. This one's meant to be a lot more sped up. It does ten eightyP video. Also it has a workbench which is you know, the ammiga operating system which is A really hard thing to get in there because there's lots of legal problems and issues and they actually stated his release will be delayed because of that, but in the meantime, they've shown a prototype, a kind of a working version and what do you think Yeah, well, I'm not surprised by anything in this video really and which is quite interesting because there's a lot of comments on it. peopleeople actually getting a bit annoyed at what they showed. As we look at it, it's basically a L looks like an Amiga twelve hundred. it' all white though, isn't it? So it looks like there's no keyps or anything on there. But it boots into what you normally see on a retro games limited machine, that carousel menu ch That kind of g games launcher that they have on there. Yeah Yeah, which they had on the five hundred and they had on on other other systems. Yeah its on the spectrum, the Aari four hundred mini they did. And of course we already know the games that it comes pre looaded with Some great ones in the settlers too, which obviously is the one that makes us think it's going to be a which is weird because they didn't feature that. So they showed Defender of the Crown and they showed a lot of like the classic running ones. What I really wanted to see was the setettlers too because that's a really powerful game. It requires a lot of power to run RTG graphics and stuff. that would have given me more of an idea with the speed and you can see it on the menu there and I was a bit kindind of disappointed, likeick click it. Yeah, click it. Why didn' Wh whyy didn't you run it? I want to see how that runs how it loaded Um, yeah Yeah, I mean, I guess I've got to save some surprises, I don't know because there is still six months until the launch yet. A lot of the comments are' seeing though people saying that they were disappointed that it booted into that carousel menu and didn't just come up with the A mega disc insert screen or workbench Well, at the very end U the video it pops up and it says Do you want to run workbench? So there's obviously that option to launch into that from the launcher and they'll probably They'll probably have an option so you can set that as default Well, you could on the C sixty four mini, you can make that boot straight into basic instead of the menu I imagine they'll do that for the im. It'll probably just be a little thing that you're t in the settings and it just goes into that. But that's obviously the teaser there, but ye I would have liked to have seen more because didnn't differentiate it from the other machines also if it is running in ten eighty p and stuff I would have likeed to have just in settings on the output of pageDMI or something like that that just gave it a bit more of a An idea of the speed of it and technical stuff, but it is what it is. It's a tiny little little teaser, isn't it of a prototype Yeah, and I imagine it is still a work in progress. I imagine, you know, there is going to be more optimizations and stuff done before it work on it. Did they press anything on the cam? I didn't see that I didn' they were using a gameepad, weren't they? Did they plug any old controllers in or anything like? Iidn't see any of that. I mean, if it's anything like the other machines, I imagine it'll be USB only Maybe that PR needs a of a bit of a boost. Gess old zip sticks in there or something ye Well I think yeah, you can get converters, cann't you to run like old joysticks v USB So I imagine that would be a way to do it. but I doubt it's going to have DB nine Connectors on there. I think it will be USB only based on the other machines. So yeah, we'll keep an eye on that. Like I said, it is early day, still six months until release coming out on the fourth of December. I know a lot of people have been pre ordering, but it's nice to get a lot of glimpse at it as well, I think So one that we'll be keeping an eye on and other kind of news related to the Aiga, Commodore have made pre announcement as well Now, I'm going to play a bit of u Commodore's CEO Perry Fractic, of course, who put another little teaser has been kind of the week of teasers, saying that there is something coming in just over a week's time. Here's what I can say for now Firstly, there are many people who rightly say, as I did in those original videos, the Commodore can't survive solely on nostalgia Now I've been building it on those two pillars that I originally set out and called retro and future. We call it retrofuturism. Now I know we can't please everyone. but we have to be a little brave here if Commodore is to endure. I always said we would release retro products and future products in turn, and so we are now walking towards the future We were promised, one in which technology is a tool for the masses Not a trap set by the classes, classes mining our data and stealing our attention So to me, that sounds like. I mean, originally when I saw the date was going to be june the sixteenth I was thinking Commodore sixteen minini or you know, like a basically the, um The Commodore sixty four ultimate but maybe a Commodore sixteen version of it, which I imagine wouldn't be too hard to do It doesn't sound like that's the planning, does it It's very vague. You're thinking of the past and I think Pfractic there is talking about the future. It could be anything. I don't know What do you speculate, Joe? I think it could be It could be like a a Commodore Let's get Joe's take on this. Yeah Codore ring or a smart ring or something. Al seems to see the Commodore storyies out we're getting him on this one. Oh Jesus. yeah, I usually sit these out. Well, obviously he's saying it's going to be something futuristic. like futureing what I think it's going to be an operating system becauseuse I think that'll be a really stupid idea Well well well I actually did a video on something they've inherited which is the Commodore OS, which is an operating system. so that could that could be a really good gless, actually. I think it's going to be a modern operating system. Hm. It'll be something silly like Commrodore boxer shorts. Well' modered what I always like. But genuinely, I think it'll be an operating system, I think. any I've got no I don't know enough about it or anything. It was just just listening to that clip there saying embracing. Futurism or whatever you called it, like I think it's going to be something modern the Commodore kind of like What's what I'm wor lookingking for? Like a Commodore skin over it, so Yeah like a theme, yeah. Yeah, ye whichich I do have already. I mean, yeah, they have a Linux distroict or Commodore OS. whichich is basically Debbian with like a nice kind of theme over it. They did just release a new version of it about a month ago though. So that kind of makes me think it would be that It could be something different or related to it. may be a shad though. Yeah, because originally we were talking, willill it be a tablet or a phone? but we know that they're really going down this route of like you know being disconnected from the internet and only going on when it's essential not having social media. so Dumb phone? I don't know I was just about to say a dogphone or something like You know, just a weird device for escaping technology or something or you know, with the legacy of Commodore OS, I think it was Commodore USA that they got a load of old stuff from Barry Altman. So they had all these old U They're kind of old now, but back then they were quite modern PCs. you've got one here. Yeah. Commodore sixty four. Yeah yeah you know, ran that Commodore OS or something. So maybe they've redone something so certain things are limited on it or there's timers or maybe it's a timer. That's it. I've seen these little work timers that people put on desks and They do little tasks and they say, right, I've got ten minutes to do this and they put it down and Maybe something like that. Wh knows? It's very vague. Those comeing off sixty four cases they already sell those on their website Commodore sixty four X with the Linux Commodore OS on there. So that is already something they do. I mean, it's interesting if they're going down this kind of digital detox thing, which I know they've been really big on And I know you're quite a proonent of that. I mean, I remember a couple of years ago, you've tried several times to kind of get away from apps and stuff. I mean you tried to get like an e ink phone, didn't you at one stage as well Yeah, yeah, my friend's got one and he survives very well with it. but I think I've got the iPhone but I have it in black and white. I'm still addicted to it. but yeah, yeah, I think I don't know, maybe. Kindle style device. be anything really it's so vague. but that is a big market actually now a lot of people doing I wouldn't say it's digital detox, it's like digital fatigue or something that's leading them to to want to escape stuff or have a bit of limitation of screen fatigue or something like that. C could be music, maybe a Commod or miniisplayer Commodore Commodore So I ye Yeah. Well a lot of people always say they'd like Apple to do an iPod again. Yeah. so As I we say, we're just guessing here, we've got no insider knowledge so we'll find out like everybody else next week. The announcement coming on We'll get to point there if we just name that many things that we'll get it right. No Commodore would just sitting there taking notes. Yeah. we haven't got it. We're blending Yeah so wanted to keep an eye on Now this one I've seen absolutely everywhere this week. A bit of a backlash actually, hasn't there been over this little teaser they put out. for we did mention a while ago that Sega are rebooting the legendary crazy taxi, but everyone's not too happy with what they've seen so far Yeah. so so the initial news, which is definitely being kind of like outshined by the AI part of it, but yeah, u Basically crazy Taxi, what's it called Crazy Taxi World? Is it or crazy World Tour Well t all, I said Um has been announced. And I think it looks pretty good. Yeah, they've done well, we already knew it was coming, but they've released the actual trailer of it now I think it looks great, yeah It looks great. They've got the batle looks of things, the original soundtrack, you know, because it's playing into the offspring the trailer is which which is a surprise, isn't it? Be ye They didn't have that before and then the trailer just comes in with the offspring. So it's like a bit satisfying, isn't it? Yeah. So I'm hoping that's in the game as well. And it looks as though there's some extra modes in there as well U there's like a pizza stacking mode, which looks pretty cool where like you your going say your guests, your customers, your passengers balancing pizzas and you've got to drive better to keep the pizzas slopppping everywhere. U and there's like a fishing mini game in there as well. I like the look of the game as well. I think the graphics look cool Um But at the end of the trailer I think it says something along the lines of like Um Not enhanced with AI, what does it say at the end of the trailer Gen AI so genererative AI concept. Yeah, you have to put a disclosure when you put something out on Steve nowadays if it's got AI and you need to disclose. And it looks like it was used for the background assets Right So it was just used to speed up creating The background assets basically. Something like that nowadays in the environment annys a lot of people. you know, AI is kind of a term that frustrates certain members of the public and It's understandable. I think, you know, they're not making the Cistian chapel here. It's just an arcade conversion. U, you know, that're kind of redoing. so um It's interesting that they've used that. I think it's a bit of silly move on there. their account of Oh yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So I've just read the statement. so you so you're right So it was used for backgrounds and background characters. So they've done a statement now Sega have because of the backlash of it was balmy U I'd click on the comments and it was just like everyvery single comment, people having a go at Sega I was like, that's a shame because of it was more headlines thanpring has come back for the soundtrack Yeah, which it should have been. ye. Yeah. so basically the creator Kenji Kano As explained, he's done an interview with with Gamer informer to basically explain what the AI is. So He's saying I don't think this is by saying is basically what you've just said, they've used it for background anets Basically, it was to create the asset and then the animators have drawn over it Yeah basically. So they're saying checked by human and Yeah. so So there's actual in the final product, in the final product there isn't any AI, however they used AI to create the initial backgrounds which they then animated over. Yeah B sounds of things. And so You you to h it out? I think personersonally If they'd not done that and they'd probably hired someone just to do that didn't do the disclosure, they probably would have sold more copies because I've seen people online saying, I'm not buying it now, this kind of stuff. And I think just by trying to quickly save a little job the way of probably for the sake of lost in profits. I imagine one person I don't know. I don't know how. They could have just hired an animator to do the backgrounds Yeahignore the part of the animators who have drawn over the backgrounds because they haveve just not got somebody to to draw them initially. And instead of having like, oh, Crazy tax se looks gray and there's a offspring soundtrack as the headline. you've got all these other ones and it It makes me think is this also going to happen with Jetset radio and group of titers they probably h More than likely. Yeah, it's a shame because I think I think we've been God, what three years maybe? We've been talking about how Sega had this huge like streets of Rad, crazy taxi Shinobi and Jetset radio are all coming back in different you know, kind of scales and stuff like that And we knew crazy taxi was the big kind of like triA game, if you will. We knew that was going to be the big one we got the two D Shinobi game that came out earlier this year last year U There's been a little bit of talk about the streets of R Jetet radio projects, but we finally got like, hereere's crazy taxi worldorld tour And like you say, it's been completely outshined by the fact that it's got generative AI in it. And it I can't help but think, sorry. that when they first made the decision to do those backgrounds of AI, it was probably before they realized they had to disclose that and I had to use it was l on down here. No one would have known. but yeah, I think it's also the audience as well because it's a very divisive thing AI is, but particularly with something where you've got like a an old classic thing and you're bringing it back to an audience that's very traditional as well. I could understand if it was a much grander scale, if they were building a huge wield on a game and they had, you know, Thousands of people working on it and they need to save a bit of time, but it does seem a little bit pointless in this to me, person they are that so many people like AI is the is that tough toxic topic at the moment. It everyone has an opinion. But all the game industry layoffs as well, you know forty five thousand people have been Yeah laid off the video game industry For for the sake of someone sitting there doing background art, I'm just like The negative pressist Maybe it'll make other game companies look and go, o, maybe we shouldn't or you know, just because it's going to cost us Annoying this group of people are Yeah which might not be a bad thing actually I mean, ye I understand AI is a tool, but yeah if it is kind of replacing a job that a human have done then I can understand why people are getting upset about it. And you know, AII, it just kind of, I mean, Some of it' good, but it does kind of have like a bit of a samey Uncanny Valley feel to me or it does feel very uniformed and stuff. But looking at the game itself. I thought that it looks really good I thought the I hope that there's an arcade mode because the one thing that was missing on the trader for me was You know, when you you do the drop off and there's those rings that you have to get in like it's like a green ring or a red one that you have to park in at the right time. I didn't see any of those rings in the trailer So I'm not sure how they're doing the off of the customer and that bit I always really enjoyed. but I hope there's like a really Really good arcade mode in there as well as a story story mode Yeah, well it's only our first look at it. so it's still a work in progress and I'm sure they'll be a little bit more careful about use of AI in any future glimpses that we see. so I're want to check out the announcement trailer for Crazy Taxi World Tour that is now on YouTube. You can now wishlist it on Xbox PlayStation Steam. I'll link it up in This week shadows. Now this might be something else and You might want to get your hands on. another massive franchise from the nineties. lookooks like we're getting some Some retro Toy story games from Aari Yeah, I think this is a good move from Atari. Obviously, Chooy story five comes out Next week I think. I'm sure I'll end up seeing it with my daughter Um, But yeah, Toy story, man. I mean greatreat films and some great games out of you know from the nineties and two thousands. so This is really cool, obviously at the right time as well to kind of like coincide with retro with a Toy Story five, but this is two separate games. I thought this was all on one bundle, but it is actually two separate things Um So who is it? No, it is work. N not too sure I think it is one I think's there's one bund or the retro roundup, which has all of the kind of her type. and then there's a complete edition of Toy Story for. Yes. Yeah. so that's what I was trying to figure out if it was on one game disc though. So Basically you get Toy Story retro round up which is all the old Toy story games which is great because of I loved be Sega Megarive, Toy Story O game which I think I completed once with my mate. as a kid becausecause it's solid So it's going to be cool to revisit that, but this retro roundup age which is coming out on all modern systems switch T Xbox PlayStation five going to be toy story. Toy Story two Bzzlightyear to the Rcue Toy Story to the game, which was a wicked game as well U Buzzlight herear star command and Toy story racer. as well as a bonus game book's life which quite interesting and interesting choice there Um and So basically the first game was a Segme drive and Sper Nintendo game. The rest of them were on Pierce one and N sixty four. U And it's going to have all the great features that me and Dan always need for d retro games rewind and retry into the nice Thank you. Thank you. Y. So I will be able to complete the original Sega game because there'll be a rewind future save and load any time customized gameplay experience with Rexus cheat codes There's going to be cheat codes in there as well. And then be practice mode modernized gameplay, modernized guides, I imagined, you know, kind of like for the controls and stuff like that and enhanced visuals as well as classic options. So you can play an upgraded high resolution brings the original look to life or you can switch to play original PlayStation one presentation It says I've never played them. I've never played any Toy story I love the Toy Story films, but I've never played the games. So this like as a complete collection appeals, but also Looking it has a virtual museum which has interviews and stuff. So it's got interviews with Pixar and TT games and like history of kind of toy story and that appeals to me a lot as well because you can get the complete And to be honest, I dismissed them a bit as like babies games Honestly, I know I've just mentioned it like three times, but that original Toy story game on Mega Dri and Snares is solid Like it is not a baby's game. It's such a tough game. Yeah I show you who's daddy. Yeah, exactly. So I'm definitely going to get this to play with my daughter But then as well as that there is the Toy story free Complete edition U So Toy Story threeree was a semi open world kind of like action platformer came out on Xbox three hundred and sixty in Pierce three. Um And I actually have it on Xbox three hundred sixty and played it. bunch with my daughter a couple of years ago U and it was a really fun game. you could play it on co op, you could play as like Woody, was like yeah and Jesie Um and you could go it was kind of like set in There was like a world map and you could go to like the Wild West world or you could go to like the space world or you could go to Andy's bedroom. it was a really, really fun game. little bit of jank control wise and stuff. so it's cool to see them remastering that as well U so Doesn't look as currend of like rewind features and stuff like that. becausecause obviously it's a sort of modern game. cameame out in make two thousand nine. Um, so it's just kind of like the features for this it seem like relelive the adventure, dynamic gameplay explore and create fun for all ages. So only difference here is that it's a four K sixty frames per second update to this game U But I think So this is where I'm trying to figure it out. So you've got the six in one retro roundup Th thenen you've got the complete edition. I think they come in one package by looks of things. Okay. So if you buy it on Switch two or PS five You get the double pack. so you get tooy story free. plus the other games but they're separate games if that makes sense and then I am. And there's also an Xbox version on PC by the look of it. Yeah. So but I'm guessing when you go to if you buy them on like the PlayStation marketplace You can probably buy them separately or as a bundle, I imagine U But yeah, I'm looking forward to this. I'm not sure when it's coming out October fifteenth is Cummingss. October fifteenth. o. Yeah. you would pre al as well like You would have thought it'd come out like Now because of the films coming out at that cinema like two weeks or a week or whatever it is. Maybe the film's got its own game and then they're going to drop this after Yeah, I' I've se that one first Yeah maybe. Yeah. I've not seen anything for a Toy Story five game, but Maybe mayaybe it's purposeful to keep the kind of like Disneyer thinking to get the hype to continue the hype because obviously by October probably be off cinema and it'll be a couple of months until it comes out on Disney pllus so it kind of gives that kind of middle ground for parents to go let's buy the game now so we can play it with my kids kind of thing. which is what I'll do Sire. want to keep an eye P on his velvea right now from Aari. com But more stories on the way. It is going to be a resident evil round upp with Joe and a massive reboot U a remake one of the best nineties games. We'll talk all about that in just a minute Before we do, let's take a second to give a massive thank you to our longest running sponsor, our wonderful mates at Bitmap Books. Now their latest volume, if you love the Fatal Fury games This is a must be. Do you fan a fatal fury, Joe? S seemems like it must be O your street? Yeah. I always enjoyed the Fightal Fury games Really enjoyed Street fighter versus SN K where it kind of brought, you know, both well Catcomversus us in case it brought street fire and fatal Fury together I've always enjoyed how they've had that crossover even though they're different companies. But yeah, man, been always been a fan of Fateful Fory Well this is the ultimate history of fatal Fury, also known as a Garo Densetsu in Japan, Huge book as well. I mean, if you've got any bitmap books, you'll know what they're like These are like the proper coffee table books, aren't? quality of them, just incredible. four hundred and sixty pages. this is definitely one of their bigger ones. And what I love about when they do anything with SNK, they often manage to get access to the archives, which Chair not many people get to look in So in this book, there is a rare concept art directly from the SNK arrchives, exclusive interview And there with several of the developers who've worked on the entire series from the early Neo Go games right through until the recent City of the Wolves as well. So if you love fighting games and Fatal Fury in particular, an absolute myery. can check it out and support our sponsors. reallyally helps out the podcast. It is available right now. You can order a copy on their website at bitmatBooks dot com Right then two big remakes that Joe's rather excited about We're start with some resident evil news Yeah, so I'll roll these into one story because there's not an awful lot to say at the moment but they've both been widely rumoud for a while now. So the first one is Resident evvil Code Veronica has been officially announced and had a a an actual trailer. released for it That was a Dreamcast game, yeah. It was the Dreamcast game, so I won't go into too much detail about it, but it was the The game that was it was a resident evil game, which was meant to be resident evil free ended up becoming a spin offff, but a lot of resident evil die hard see it as like a mainline game. So it was actually a spin off game it's the love and recognition of the main lland games, if that makes sense Um personersonally, Probably my least favorite kind of like mainline, if you want to call it the mainline resident evil game stillill You know, a solid solid solid solid like eight out of ten game for. I think it's one a lot of people associate with Ridident. like a lot of people know more about it than some of the later Ridentcy titles. Soes it'll be a big seller. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it was one of the one of it it wasn't the last, but it was one of the last games to have the tank controls and you know, kind of like fixed cameras still. although the camera did move a little bit with this one. But yes, the reason we're talking about it is CapCom this week have released the trailer for the remake that will be landing In twenty twenty seven made in the the RE engine as they call it, the re engine so with the Fantastic graphics and You know, so it's not a h I've always got to try and explain this to people at work. It's not a remaster It's a complete remake from the ground up, the same as they did with Resident Evil two, Resident Eil three and Resident Evil four Now they're doing this one. It's been heavily rumored for a long time that they were either remaking Cod Veronica or Resonident Evil Zero. I'm happy either way So this looks really, really good. graphically it looks stunning There's a little bit of kind of gameplay If you're just exploring your brother's apartment because you play as Clire Redfield The main character, the protagonist of Reson Eil two and theno Veronica. Um and then there ass a trailer, you know, showing zombies and stuff and You know As they say pooh hiting the fan later on in the game. setting trance on Rutford Island. and an umbrella facility as the class and it shows that it's still following the The story from the original games. super excited for that in twenty twenty seven from CapCom But yesterday we did get the teaser trailer for a game that will be landing this year in twenty twenty six, so they say Um, The Legend of Zelda, Ocarador of Tim remake as Nintendo call it reimagined they they've not said that's the name, but they in their in the comment, they've called it as a reimagined version of Ocaruna of Time, which is massive news. I think a lot of people regard Ocarina time as the greatest game of all time or one of the greatest games of all time. You love it, don't you? I love it, yeah, I love it game I grew up with So they haven't showed off any gameplay or anything like that s just that it's made in the unreal engine and they do a narrative, you know, kind of explaining It from the original game as well that link is a can never can never say it Karoka can never say what what race he is but he's the boy without a fairy, which was, you know, the kind of the plot of O Kara of T time and you see him in his bed waking up, which is how the original Nintendo sixty four game Yeah started in nineteen ninety eight. so Just says twenty twenty six release at the moment U, peoplee are saying it's going to come out in November Be that's when the original game came out. Aarently the original game came out in november nineteen ninety eight. so people are saying Maybe they're going to try and compete with GTA Um GTA six, I think that's a bold move from Nintendo. I think remaking it is a bold move because of I think it's going to be a mixed reaction. There's going to be so many GTA it would just be delayed again and it will take all that. Yeah. And you're not wrong, is? You're not wrong. I'd be surprised if GTA six actually comes out this year. It's interesting. Yeahah, I think Ocarina Time would be a really good one to do. with that kind of vast feelld of it as well and you could probably expand on that a lot more and get much better draw distance. Yeah, yeah that's true Nowadays because we interviewed Takaya Imamura who did Mjora's mask. before. So you know, it it's interesting to see Ocarine of Tim getting some focus because I know I don't know, it it seemed a bit more popular to me Just a tiny bit both the games Gaines were absolutely huge Yeah, Majora's mask I think maybe feels more atmospheric, doesn't it? ye yeah Major has definitely got its die hard fans, but Occarua Time was the bigger game. but I think people who love Majora's masks like they love it like and then Ocaro T timee was just like a a vastly loved game U but yeah, I think if if any game was to ever try and release in november twenty twenty six and go up against UTA six It would be an operor a time remake. so I'm literally saving my money for a new console for GTI six. That's like the only game that makes me buy hardware. I know. Well I've put off buying a switch too because at the moment I'm like, well, the only game I'd really want is Mario Kart World Tour Maybe Donke Kong Bonza Um, but now I'm light off Kara a T time remake as well, but they're like four hundred quids still. so yeah. Yeah. I mean, it kind of makes sense because I don't think GTA six is going to come out on the switch too, is it? It hasn't been announced for it. So it makes sense that Nintendo wants something that's going to get attention on their platform. Yeah around the same time. So if they're not going to get GTA six, then you know, need to think of something equally as big U Yeah, I mean, what do you think of the the look of the the trailer though, there's only like a minute trailer butook. Yeah o Yeah, I think it looks good. It looks like a slightly different art direction to the last two eld games Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom I imagine The gameplay wise it will be very, very similar to them, if not the same to them you know, open world kind of going around doing the dungeons and Lots of side quests and stuff like that, but obviously it'll follow the story of Okaruna a time and they'll have to add a lot of content to it as they do for these massive open world kind of modern games U but graphically it does look a bit different. it looks I guess the only way I can describe it is it looks like what you would expect Oarina of Time to look like, but in modern graphics, like it's got a kind of like chibi kind of like look to it. I don't know if that's just because of you start as young Link as a child And obviously it's only shown him so far like in a bed, like you see a tapestry of the story and then you see him sleeping in bed Um So it's hard to get like a complete vibe of what it's going to look like, but U Yeah, I don't think it it'll be a million miles away from those from the last two Zelda games, which is fine because of people love them as well. so yeah. ye I don think if anything's going to go over. Yeah, I think iss going go up against GTA six probablyably good choice for Nintendo. Now a game that I want to like I just can't movee it's so hard. I get so frustrated at it. But actually you know, we' talking about this today, wn't we Joe that maybe this could be an easier way to play it although is just an early little teaser that we've got. someomeone's making Ped the Sega Master systemy? Well, it's not the cuphead we know R. So it's a cuphead mighty cuphead adventure, which is a new a new take on cuphead. So it's a cuphead characters, but in an eight bit Nz u styly master system it's getting released on. It's got that old kind of u eighties video game. I said to you know, previously I had the nineteen thirties cartoon. kind of feel with the game. Yeah this is a brand brand new take on it, which is that that really kind of prime nostalgic eighties vibe Yeah It's it looks really good. I can imagine it's going to be fast as well because I saying it's coded in assembly And it's also going to be released for the master system. as well as like modn modern consoles and modern PCs as well Yeah. so this isn't like oh somebody's making. This is official. this is the next cuphead game by the studio by Cuphead. R cuphead Yeah. so this is from Studio MD HR who cook cab basically U and they said, you know, in true cuphead fashion You know, the first game embraced that hand drawn nineteen thirties style This is going to be eight bit hand drawn nineteen eighty style Um So No matter what platform you buy the game on whether you play it on a original master system or if you play on, you know, the modern systems, it's going to be that eight bit style and I love that they've called it Mighty Cup pet adventure because of felt like Final fight comes to mind, My Final fight like when they used to make eight bit versions of a game that came out on a sixteen bit system, they'd always call it like something adventure or mighty final fight. like I feel like feels like a real Yeah, it's such a good like throwback But it looks very eighties cartoon as well, doesn't it? It's got that that that kind of vibe. Now One thing I find really interesting is obviously Cuphead you if we've visually done before The fact that they're going into old school consoles and actually coding it in assembly for a master system t wicked. I think Yeah, this is a really cool area for them to kind of jump into because I had Cuphead on my Wiu. It just got ported recently Yeah kind of it struggles You know,' to play the original I think it's an interesting choice to go for master systemstem rather than NES as well Yeah, because I was wondering if they were like Brazilian or something app they' a Cadian development st. Yeah. so Canadian. I don't know if the mass system was big in Canada. But Ive found that a really interesting choice Maybe it's easier to get the rights from SEGA to do math and system. than it is for Nintendo to do any yes. I don't know. becausecause obviously people release NES games on kickstarters and stuff, but Like this is a big game Cuphead's mass in like Yeah And Also, I do feel that the original one aesthetically There wasn't as much around like it. It was so original and unique. This does look a bit like other platformers, you know, I'm hoping that the assembly and like D different speed and a bit more. They do something innovative and cool which I can imagine they can do as a studio. but I remember seeing the first cp hadad the nineteen thirties one and just like blown away just like, yeah, this is insane. like so I think it's cool they're going that direction. I just hope that they's like Mega surprises though, you know, Yeah. One question I've got is if it is made for the master system, there is a little teaser trailer and time extension I have done a screenshot on the article that I put in the show notes. That doesn't look like a master system. To me, is that some weird variant of it I'm unaware of? Yeah, I don't know what it looks like a neeo Geo That's from the actual trailer of the game as well. Yeah. A lot of people in the comments are saying it's a massive system too, but it doesn't look like it No, unless that's what they look like in Canada, L don't I can't see it. Yeah. mayaybe somebody can help us put that one in the comments because of for me, the original master systemstem is the long one with the red You know where the power button and everything is Yeah. And then and then the master system too is the smaller compact It looks a bit like a mega dririve one Yeah, it show you one. I don't know what that is in there And I did think that as well. I saw it and I just thought that looks like an EoGo like doesnn't look like a But unless they've had to let you say, do like as a kind of mock up because maybe they don't actually have the rights to use picture of them as the system, but Yeah and do you think this is going to be the hardest master system game ever I'm hoping it's going to be easyes. Maybe it could be. I like that I like that level of toughness in the platforming. like, you know it's really, really hard to get it. but once you mastter the controls it's actually it's actually playable. You just need to spend some more time with it, Dan. I loved Cuphead. I completed it I even started on the M diffty. Yeah yeah. M me feel such a loobe, Joe I loved it. I really enjoyed Cad. I mean, I had to put a lot of time into it. I wasm sat here googling like Canadian masterist. I'd been doing the same. So yeah, God knows what that is, but yeah ye it will become apparent as the months go on. But yeah, very interesting. I think if someone commented there. That wouldn't be on my twenty twenty six bingo card. Yeah, definitely not mine either Yeah, so very interesting choice and one that we'll keeping an eye on. So you want to brad more about that, I'll put it in, of course, all the rest of the stories. You don't have to Google around. I sa you the job by putting them in the show notes on your podcast app or the YouTube video, or you can click directly through from our website at the retroHour. com That reminder we have a patron that supports this podcast as well. Lots of perks on there. You can not only get a ad free podcast that we put out every week. you also get a couple of extra new stories as well that we're doing in just a second for our wonderful patrons. We do a bonus podcast called The After Hours. We dropped a new episode of that recently, where we're talking about it was Games that we love on File conoles wasn't it? That was a fun one. Yeah, that was really good. Dan is a collector of failed consoles. Oh yes. I think we've all had our experiences over the time. and yeah, it was good failed consoles and kind of failed systems, but good games on them you know, they didn't have to be complete rubbish messups. There were a few, but yeah, it's very good because I think each of us have a different experience of that. So kind of coming together and discussing that on the after hours is good. and we're going to record another one soon as well. And we always really appreciate your support, you know Patreon is just fantastic. We've got such good community there and I'm doing my kickstart event and I think it's going to be a bit of a Patreon meet upp as well. We've got people coming from all over Yeah, we' definitely made some lifelong friends on there. So if you want to join us there is a hangout that we do every month as well, like a massive Zoom call. but all patrons are invited next one, we will be coming up on the twenty eighth Sunday, the twenty eighth of june at eight PM. So all the details to join are at the retrohour. com ell thank you for check out news this week and more for you next Friday. And next're inside the world of Ocean software, some tellells from Imagine, and of course the brand new head overver Heels reteturn to Blacktooth again that's been thirty seven years in the making. Our special guest Colin Porch is next on the retro O podcast Granger knows, when you're a procurement manager for an office park You're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners Light's about to fail, filters ready to clog, HVac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering, and twenty four seven support Call one eight hundred Granger, clickranger. com or just stop by Granger. For the ones who get it done When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant You keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns With Granger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done Call one eight hundred Ganger, click ranger. com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done You're with the Retro Oour podcast. It's time to welcome on this week's very special guest now today, going to be going inside of some of Britain's most famous gaming companies of the nineteen eighties and beyond talking companies like Imagine, software projects, Ocean software. and Chan is someone who's actually been making the headlines in some of the mainstream press over here in Britain as well because it's a really interesting story about his new game, which actually has been there thirty seven years in the making. So we'll hear all about that with this week's guest Colin Porch, How' it going, Colin It's going very well, thank you. My health is not too great, I must confess, I'm I'm having a few hair features, but I'm getting on a bit. Yeah you know, in and out of hospital occasionally, but I'm I'm still here Yeah well glad you're still kicking around, Colin. and hopefully we can have a bit of fun over the next hour or so kind of talking about some of the old days. Yeah, which I'm interested. I mean, you know, just to kind of start right at the beginning. I mean, do you remember ' kind of the earliest video game memory you've got kind of what first got you into gaming or when you first saw a video game? Well, it's quite an involved story actually. you remember in the nineteen seventies There were consoles where you plugged a different cartridge into play space invaders or dungeons and dragons or whatever And I had what you might call a poor man's version of that made by a company called Radain and they had various cartridges very similar to the Aari models But in nineteen eighty, I think they introduced what they called a hobby module And they advertise it. If you buy one of these, you can put in your own games All right, so that sounded like a good idea, though the price at that time when we're talking early nineteen eighties, eightighty five pounds. That was a lot of money Yeah But I thought, yeah, well I'll give it a try. And so I bought one of these hobby modules And It was only when I got it that I found out that you had to actually program it in its process of language. U Synetics twenty six hundred fifty. I'll never forget the name of the chip. that's what it was. but U I knew nothing about Assembly language and the instruction book that they gave with it was Worse and useless, honestly. I' amaz that anybody got anything to do with it But I did get it working And I wrote a couple of games on it, but of course it had no commercial value. it were just games that I play a sort of reverse pacman type thing. inststead of collecting things, you were dropping a trail around a particular g of vlands or whatever And then there appeared in my local paper advertisement, you know, computer programmers wanted for Condodore sixty four in the spectrum and whatever. My company fairly close to me in Northampton And I responded to that and I said, well, I've written this game on this, but you know, I'm I'm thinking of getting another computer and I'm sure I can translate. Oh yeah he says so That was a company called AnIC Right. And uh, I'd bought a Commodore sixty four. And I taught myself to program that and I copied the game that I'd done on the hobby module onto the Commodore sixty four with rather primitive graphics by today's standards, but it was all my work. and that was the first game I ever produced And it took it away, I put it on the market and then promptly disappeared and never paid me a penny. Well. And a year or so after that, imagine advertising the national press computer programmers and I applied because I was out of work, although Liverpool was a long way away. And I think on the strength of the game that I had published Primitive there it was, they gave me a job What was the name of that first game? California Gld Rush, it was good. Yeah. Yeah. it's ye. by today's standards,'s very primitive. but it was my first effort and you know I was quite proud of it. And I went toagine went to Liverpool. I put a deposit down on a house and're flat anyway. and for you know, this is good life except of course the imagine lasted about three months after that. Y. The bailiffs moved in and I was now out of work and with a new mortgage that I hadn' No chance of paying And I have to mention that Barclers, who are the people that supplied me with the mortgage They were absolutely wonderful and and told them what had happened Hey, what you can, Mr. Porch, and we'll look at it periodically. They didn't chase me at all. Oh. Yeah. Vy different these days, I imagine. be different That's sure. Yeah I've had a few run ins with them over the years, but I've stayed with them because of that attitude at the time Well, I'm interesteding a bit more about kind of imagine because obviously as you mentioned, we We kind of we saw imaginine software goo bust on the famous TV show commercial B breaks they were filming at the time, weren't they? There was a TV creuise. I was actually in that program but they was the back of my head, I think. But as I understand it, I wasn't party to all the internal politics or whatever. My understanding was that they had signed a deal with a company called Marshall Cavendish, a magazine publisher that they would supply Marshall Cavvin Dish with a computer game every month that they company could give away with their magazine And I think they started off with the premise as it takes S guys one month O if you takeakes sort of six guys one month to produce a game one guy six months to do but again theyakred They could six guys could produce one and one a month. Yeah it doesn't work like that. I mean, you know, programmers are all trying to use the same memory and then fall over themselves if they can't work together. It's impossible And that's really what caused their downfall. You know, they'd signed this deal, they couldn't keep to it And, uh The baillift moved in Most of the big bosses were out of the country As we understood it, raising finance in the United States, but Whenever we didn't get paid that month I had some of my own equipment actually on the premises, which I had a hell of a job getting out of the premises. I was able to prove to the authorities that the equipment I wanted was mine, you know, but it was a bit of a job. When you joined, did you kind of think I've landed here because there was, you know, lots of people with glamorous cars and you know, it was a really big company for the time It was one it was one of the market leaders at the time. and Yeah, I thought I'd found Programming was something that I really enjoyed Um I wasn't too keen on the task that they put me on, which was some sort of infant education software Um, you know, the idea being to get, uh young children to recognize triangle as opposed to a circle, for example, and red one rather than a blue one and so on. But you know that's what they wanted me to do and that's what I was doing. albeit in the sort of limited time that I was there. But there was very much or I won't call it a class distinction, but there was a there was an us and them in so far the A team, John Gibson and Eugene Evans and so on um, who, uh In one part of the building and we were in a totally separate part of the building. and the two didn't mix. Yeah We had Bruce Everest on years ago and he was kind of talking about how he had to kind of be the go between a lot of the timees. Yeah ye ye Yes, indeed. you know, we heard stories about what they were doing. I will tell you an amusing fact Yeah to imagine At the time, I didn't play many computer games, but I did find too that really struck me One was Loadrunner by Bodabund and the other one was u Balash. Yeah. Both super games in my view. I didn't find I'd finish load rununning easily under all the versions but Boulderash I never managed to get through. But the thing was when I went to imagine Nobody there had ever seen any of them And they became a cult. with day or at least the floor I was on You know, how' you get through level twenty nine sort of thing, you know? And everybody was playing these two games in their spare time. So I took something useful with nothing else. I I mean, imagine where you know, I think today the best remembered for the kind of mega games they were working on at the end, you know Band of Snatch and cyclop. I did you have any memories? Yeah, Did you have any memories of that? We We knew they were in production, but that was part of the A teams as they would called them, a regime And we were simply outside of that. We were not involved in that anywhere at all A very small group, Dave Lawson, John Gibson Eugene Evans of others who I can't remember now. it so we had John Gibson on the show and he said, you know, when the bailiffs came in, they had to get their machines and stand on top of the toilets in the cubicles so that no one saw their feet and then they could have all the code for Bandersnatch and wrong for titles. Yeah Oh, I wasn't aware of that. I mean I know that at some point during the time I was there They presented Eugene Evans, who produced Arcadia on the Commodore sixty four with the car keys to a car that they hadn't bought, but which they had least I think you wrote it off very shortly after. Well, you mentioned about kind of imagine you know wrapping up obviously very unexpectedly. you'd only been there a few months. I mean luckily Barclays were understanding. But next you went on to software projects and. how did you make Yeah, how do you make that move? Soare Well software projects advertised for two programmers And of course, there about thirty of us from imagine that applied for this job. And in the event software projects took on four, including me, And I think again, the fact that I had had a game published You know, primitive there it was and I Totally understand that But it was out there A. I was taken on. I was in one of them While I was at Iagining instead me, I received there were some notes in the press about me having joined the company and I got a lot h messages, communications, We paid for California gold rush and we never got a penny I sent them tapes myself. I didn't get a penny for it It was you the guy disappeared It was a bit of a calm man, I thinkate. Well' you really out of pocket on that game, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, it wasn't so much I didn't earn any money from it, but know I had to pay for the tapes that I sent them but at least I felt I'd done my bit what I mean What were the first titles you were working on then Harvey Smith Show Jumper? I don't think that was the first one Th thinkink Dragon's Lab was possibly the first one. not sure U Harvey Smith showjumper, you may not be aware that my wife was also working on that project as a graphic artist. she wasn't a graphic artist, but give her a computer and a sprite editor and she could come up with something so all the horse animations were down to her U, And she did a good job of it, I think. they you hear the story about Harvey Smith Joe Jumper as well Well there's two stories Yeah, tell us a here. Well, first of all The week that it was released Harvey Smith walked off with somebody else's wife And we had the effect that you know, Walwus wouldn't stock us and Dor G Smith wouldn't stal it or whatever. simply because of the moral compass that they held, you know, got his name on it. I mean his name's mud, so we're not going to sell the game So how badly that affected sales? I don't know the second thing that happened was that Tommy Bartin, who was the big boss at software projects, called me and he says, We've got a problem with Harvey Smith in the United States. There's flicker at the top of the screen Now I don't know how technical minded you guys are. I should imagine you're fairly technical minded, but there's a difference in frame rate and that's what was causing the problem effect. NTSA ye. Exactly. They're running at sixty cycles and we're running at fifty and it means the flyback time is not is shorter U So, can you fix it? I said, Well, you know, give me an NTSE machine and I'll do my best. with the b got one. So for I I'm not sure how long it was, but it was quite a while. I was trying to fix It was like judging a booty competition over the telephone Yeah. Well I couldn't you know, I couldn't see the results. All I could do was try this, try this, try this. and Eventually I I came up with what I called internally a rustter chasing routine was actually updating the screen. fraction of a second after the ras gone point on the point that you're updating, you know. So it was ready for the next screen before it had finished this one so to speak But it solved the problem, but it took me quite a while I I say, I had these visions of you kind of mailing cassette tapes over the Atlantic for someone to try it out on a machine every day try this. tryry this tryry this. It's brilliant. It took forever. NTSC machine, which they could have got, I'm sure Yeah. it was, you know, it would have been a lot easier if I could have seen what was happening as it happened Yeah, this works, this doesn't Was that one of the only titles that had that problem or were there That was the only one I was made aware of uh, I I think the second edition of Dragons Lay, we did have an NTS. I didn't I wasn't there to see it finished. Um I had a bit of a disagreement with Tommy Barton, which I'll tell you about as well, if you like Yeah. We were given a bonus Christmas bonus, which was quite substantial And and we were very grateful for it. The company had had a good year And the following Christmas aluring the lead up to the Christmas I had been invited along with my wife to spend Christmas with friends in Gettering which is just my hometown, but is, I've got a lot of friends here And now I was not getting paid anything like as much as I was getting paid I'd imagine. And I went to Mr Barton and I said, I know, we have had such a good year. but U you know, can you confirm whether or not we're going to get a bonus this year? Be if we are, I shall go with you know, I' and spend Christmas with this friend and pay my way. but if we're not, we'll stay at home Oh yeah of course you will, he says. On the basis of that, we arranged to pay to go And then we didn't get the bonus So now I'm in somebody else's house and can't pay for the what I'd ag read that I would pay for, you know, and it was Very embarrassing and very awkward And u didn't go d downn well with me, you know, he'd given his commitment and hadn't kept her in. Yeah. a good way to treat your employees, Yeah, absolutely. Well shortly after that maybe March, I think, something like that. But I got a telephone call from Colllin Snokes who I'd known briefly at'd Imagin, who was now working for Ocean. And he said, We're looking for a Commodore successful program. If you're not interested, I'll just put the phone down. I said, I carry on talking. So I said, you know, you carry on talking, so ye It made me an offer I couldn't afford to turn down. you know, not only a much bigger salary, but they were in Manchester. I was in Liverpool. They were happy to pay my tralling expenses to and from Manchester every day And so I said, yes. And just wrapping up the software projects herea, because I do want to find a bit more about Dragononss Lir because obviously that was a laser disc game in the arcade. It was we had the laser disc game in the office. but We didn't do it justice, I don't ag Well, it was a very ambitious trying to port that to an eight bit micro, I thought. I mean, how did you even go about doing that? Well it wasn't just me. there was another guy called John Darnell, who was also a very accomplished sixty four progr E, you know, there's if you if you ever see a video of the C sixty four version There's an episode where He's falling down a shaft on a disc and And the movement is so awful, really. and there's just no animation there is he's moving there he's not moving and it's that it's it I was embarrassed but it wasn't my graphics, so it wasn't part of the game that I worked on And I got I got credited with some of the music and I even got credit. and Harvey Sift showjumper The introductory music, I was credited with writing that It was actually written by a guy called Mozart And it was the famous Pto number four. Yeah. And I didn't claim to have written it at all, I wrote the driver but I did it, you know, but I didnt I didn't write the music. That' pretty. Yeah, that's you know the one. Yeah. That's wonder song used to say. Got a credit next to Mozell. That's not bad. Well, Mark excited I didn't find his name on there, but I did Yeah. And I was working on the sequel to that return to Singe's Castle when I got this invitation s goatuations or I gave in my notice. And then the trouble started because software projects would not pay me the holiday money that they owed me. R right And I went home and I took the disc that I was working on with me told them, you know, I'm not stealing it You owe me money, you'll get it back when you pay me. They called in the police and called accused me of theft And I ran Cin stakes and said, what do I do? He says, giveive them the disc back, we'll pay the holiday money. Wow. And that's what they did.. And software projects took my name off the credits, although I'd done quite a lot of the work on it. to be fair, that's quite a smart move actually keeping the disc and stuff because we've had so many guests on the podcast have talked about, you know, not being paid for certain projects. and some of these games, you know, they were selling thousands and getting huge amounts of money and it al seems like the kind of programmers or some of the developers have got quite a a harsh a harsh hand back then Well, I'm going forward a few years now, but there was certainly an instant at ocean where one of the I'll call them a junior program because they were all junior to me. I was in my forties, they were in theirateens and twenties But one of those decided, you know, I'm only going to finish this game if you pay me an extra two grand or whatever they kicked him out It doesn't always work. No, well, you know, but you know, C his bluff, ye. Yeah. Well, you know, the thing was ocean For me, anyway, they were super firm to work with You know, I got on with the crowd. they called me, you know, the rest of the guys, they called me fossil. Okay, well, you know, I was and granddad, but you know, it was me they came to if they wanted a problem solving, you know Um But anyway, go back to software projects. I I gave them the disc back. Ocean paid me the ho of your money that software projects wouldn't pay me. And M, many years after that, I got a Facebook request from Alan Mayon, who is the other guy at of Rare Projects and invited me to be his friend Well Did you have to hover over that button for a few minutes? ye I'm afraid I just didn't respond. Right. Yeah, I think understandably so. I mean, well obviously you went to Ocean, which huge company. And what were you initially working on there, then wasas it Double takeake the first project that you take was the first one Yeah. What do you remember about that then? I didn't like it. I didn't think the game had any lasting appeal or playability. The thing was they gave you the brief, you know, the specifications, what they wanted you to do. So I did what they wanted me to do. I didn't think it would sell well. I didn't think the public would play it for very long if they played it at all And I think I was probably right in that estimation, but wasas it a bit too surreal do you think? or? Well, there wasn't enough for the player to do. I mean this was based on the idea of two universes interconnected, you know And the eff swayed between one and the other and you had to partartle physics and exxactly Yeah It didn't appeal to me at all I haaving said that, I mean, I'm I'm absolutely no good at all at reflex games, shootem ups, you know, Fortnite not a chance for me. And my grandson who does play Fortnite His father plays it my son in law, but you know the son in law gets ono and my grandson get through this level for me, you know, because I can't. The kids can do it. I can't And they never appealed to me the shooter Ms. Having said that when I was writing Operation Wolf And I got an enormous lot of correspondence about that, but we'll talk about that in a minute. I would go to the office and speak to Lee Cowley because we had we had an operation Wolf machine in the office You know, one of the arcade machines with the machine gun allse. I go to him you, canan you get me up to level three, please Lave? Because if I tryed, I should be there all morning I wanted to look at it how was time. Yeahah.'s always handy. having the arcade machine there, I imagine as well. Oh ye remmemberory ye. if you saw what you were trying to copy and will tell you why I got so much communication from it The Commodore sixty four, which is the machine I was working on It has a scrolling capability, and it can scroll horizontally or vertically or a combination of both It has to scroll the whole screen You can't scroll part of the screen And yet the whole point about Operation Wolf is that you had two thirds of the screen which was strolling and one third of the screen which was stationary showing the status of your ammunition and what lives you got left and things like that and That was the display that we put on the Commodore sixty four. twowo thirds of the screen were scrolling and the other third was not. And I God, how on earth have you managed to interrupt the Commodore sixty four scrolling routines? whichich is a hardware thing, haven't know And I told them how I'd done it. But I ke even now I still get questions about Operation Wolfam scrolling. This is you know thirty odd years later so Yeah, definitely got it right. Yeah. It was a technical trick. I was actually scrolling characters at the same time as I was scrolling the screen. But I couldn't play the game. Sorry A. Well head over heels as well we've had John Britman on the podcast and you know, he talkks about how fantastic it was to kind of get involved with that. What was it like when it headed your away and were kind of excited about it? Gary Bracy, who was my immediate boss Yes in the dungeon, so to speak, he called me in and said, you know Can you do this on the Commodore sixty four? And my heart sort of dropped because you know I said to be honest, Gary, I don't know. I could spend quite a lot of time on it and then not be able to do it. But do you want me to give it a try? And he said, ye, now I didn't know then, but what I did know now is that several other Commodore sixty four programmers external to Ocean had been asked if they could do it and they'd said no.ight. So I didn't know that. Gary didn't tell me that. And I have say, John Ritman was super He was always on the end of the phone. he gave me a very well commented programm listing of the Z eighty code. You know what I had to do effectively was make the Commodore sixty four follow the same routines in a different language and that's easier said than done, you know, because they're using different size registers and they're in pairs and that . That close connection really helps though, because we've had many guests on that have talked about how they've just been sent a video of the game. I know Yeah. I had that subsequently with Parasol stars, you must have heard about that. Yeah, we'll get into that later definitely we'll get getting back to that, John Ritman was great. if I had a problem I can ring him and he explain it to him E explained to me, well this is what it's doing. and you know, it says you're only updating the screen that's actually changing. you know, where the movement is you have a window around that and you update that bit the rest of it stays as easy. very complicated. High level mathematics to produce the three D image from two D pictures effective that's what you're doing. And even when I was producing what became Return to Blacktooth, I took it down and showed John And he gave me a couple of ideas. I' thought about doing this at this Well one of them was so way out I thought Yeah maybe for the future. But yeah. And he actually wrote a scenario for us to use him in the new game as well. So I I pass that on to Andy. I think he used parts of it That's amazing. Well mean you know when the sixty four port came out, I mean, that was one of the best review games ever in Zep sixty four. ninety eight percent that got. I was very proud of it. Just from a technical point of view that I'd managed to Again, I didn't know at the time that John Whitman had changed his definition of some of the rooms in the expectation that the Commodore wouldn't be able to handle the movement involved in those rooms. And he was probably right, but know he could have told me.ious all the versions I did after that on the ST and the Amiga, they were all based on what I'd done on the Commodore Well I'm interested in the ST version because I mean, obviously the eight bit machines are looking a bit long in the toothpie now. I mean, do you remember when you first kind of got your hands on an ST or an Amiga and how did you start basically doing the ST version of it. I bought an ST myself. Primarily because I'd heard that the sixty eight thousand was such a wonderful chip to work with and that seemed to be the way things were going. sixty bit Pcessors Robin rather of an eight bit process. and translating the Commodore version onto the Atari was something I did in my spare time teach myself how to program a machine Now I didn't quite realize at the time that now I' got sixteen colors to work with Somebody you got to translate those graphics from two cols into sixteen cols That somebody was me. So effectively, I wrote all the code so the game worked. I don't know how to program sound into a computer. no idea. So I took what I had done to Ocean and said, Look, you know, I've done this on the ST. know do you want it? Of course I did, you know. And having done that, they put they put the sound in and the music in. Keith Tinman, I think sort wrote music that was in it. and it was a comparatively easy job to copy it onto the Amiga because the code was the same. but the keyboard and the screen and the sound are different obviously. but the program code, the bit that does all the work, that's identical. That's how it came to be written. and when that did well. That was when I started writing a sequel that's just been released. Well, we'll get into that story, because it is amazing and fantastic that you managed to do that. But kind of touch on a couple of other things you were working on ocean back then, I mean you also worked on a Greysor as well. I mean Yeah, what memories have you got of that then? We had a problem inso far as the joiststickics we used in those days They had four directions and a fire bt. And if you were lucky, you had an auto fire that would keep pressing the fire button, but that was it. In Cryiser, we needed Something else And we finished up using the space bar for the extra function that we needed And it wasn't ideal you know, we needed to make them jump somehow. you can't have a button that makes them farire or jump I he' k do one or the other u I that that I dragged it down a bit. I don't think people liked having to use a keyboard. to. The equipment that there was, you know, a joystick was a joystick pluged in and it had those four directions up down left, right, fire. That was it. You didn't have anything else if you wanted something else And technically too Greisel had sprite limitations. there was so much going on at the screen And the Commodore's got eight sprites and that's as many as it could show in any particular one horizontal level. You can reuse them further down the screen use a spite mixer c it white you like. We spent a lot of time on such things inter r spite routines. But if you wanted to produce the multiple ammunition that was on the original arcade machine, it just couldn't be done. There was just too much of it. So you were limited in what you could do. We did the best that we could I enjoyed it. I couldn't play it sort of testing things like that. I mean I knew what the controls would do. and yeah it was okay. I was quite pleased with the final result. I think I think I copied the arcade machine fairly fairly well, you know with what that was available on the corridor. But using the space bar didn't go down well, people complained about it. I don't know what they think I could have done differently. No You're limited with that one button joystick, aren't you? Yeah?actly Exactly. Well someome of the joysticks and have two buttons on it, but they were good. They did the same thing, you know, becausecause when I worked on Operation Wolf, I was given a a young guy to work with me And it was it Very nice he was chld. Oh. Well, you know I know he's a good friend now and I'm in contact with him. His name was David Blake One of the problems one of the problems we had as programmers was we were always up against memory limitations H You got sixty four K to play with. That's it, you know And your rose up against time You know, the frame updates fifty times a second, you got to be ready for it And that means that you don't want to waste any processing time that you can possibly help. Now Ocean had produced their own assembler, which was a veector V cartridge plugged into the back of an SD and that linked to your target machine Commandor sixty, whatever it was. And it was an excellent system, it was tokenized. The added instruction in particular, this is just one example, but the added instruction had two versions. It was as either add or add with carry. you've only got the ad with carry on the Crodore, it's up to you to make sure the carry is either set or cleared depending on what you want it to do. If you don't know, then you've got to clear it And David would constantly use the instruction that would translate as Car Cry then add And I pointed out to them if you know the carriry is clear before you get to that routine, you don't need to clear it again. Yeah. That's another four cycles gone west, you know? Yeah. And the code was riddled with it But so we had a few disagreements about things like that But he did a good job, yeah. Well, interestingly, you mentioned Parasel stars earlier Rbo Island too. It sounds like a very interesting kind of development history with you know, you saying you just had like a video of it, but also there were all sorts of kind of rumors about what happened to the discs and I told Ocean the truth. I told them exactly what had happened I mean, I had been on loan to software projects to Pool Finneagans, especially fixed And now but don't. for quite a long time while they were working on a a gameboy project, I think which is the same code. but anyway, I've been loan to them And when that came to an end Ocean decided they didn't want me anymore No, uh in our hs I was going to be out of work Okay So there was no animosity. I hadn't done anything wrong with them. I think they were just recognizing that the home market for home computers was going. There were dedicated consoles coming in and so on. But anyway, so I was no longer working for Ocean And I think maybe a week later I had a telephone call from Gary Bracey wouldould you like to take on a another game I on a freelance basis So I said what is it? He said, it's called Parasol stars If you come in, you can have a video of it. So I went went to Manchester and they showed me the video, Can it be done? I said don't know. Again, we got this sprite problem and ed to I was going to have to use a technique I've used before a combination of bitmap graphics and sprites to try and get r. all takes time. So anyway, so I said all right,'ll give it I'll give it a try. And they paid me quite a handsome advance And I went home and I started work on it. And a couple of months later, I went to Ocean with a disk on the work that I've done so far. this is how it's looking so far. Graphics are primitent because they were my graphics, just you know, this is a blob that's moving around. It's going to be a trumpet, but you know, this is what it is at the moment. I said say, yeah, yeah, yeah, carry on, carry on. So I said okay, so I went back home. and Maybe Six weeks, two months, something like that after that My wife walked out no indication that she was going to. She was an alcoholic. things hadn't been going well between us anyway. But before she went She left In the front room of the building we were in, the flat we were in All the discks that she could find onn the floor, And on top of them was a heavy duty vacuum cleaner. which was turned on.. Now, we had had an incident sometim earlier were some discs that were not important were in a box next to the vacuum cleaner and they got corrupted And we had decided it was a magnetic field from the vacuum cleaner's motor that had messed them about. You see what I mean? Yeah yeah. So that had happened accidentally. what she had done before she went. It was not an accident at all. It was something she had done deliberately. And to be fair to her, she's dead now anyway, but to be fair to her, she was two different people depending on whether she'd been drinking whether dr. Yeah. You know. So you haven't lived if you haven't lived with an alcoholic and the problems are insurmountable. anyway That included all the discs. I had and I kept back of this religiously, but they were all in my little office. same box ye. bedroom that I use as an office. and they were all corrupted. not one of them would work. what I still had was the disk that had been in my briefcase and I shown into ocean two months earlier So I went back to ocean and I explained to them exactly what had happened. and that this disc was all I'd got and it was probably going to take me another month at least to catch up to where I'd got to. And they decided they couldn't afford to wait that time But sry I stopped work on it. They didn't ask for the money back, but it was they that put out the story about a burglary at my house, which wasn't true. And I didn't even know they'd put that story out until years later No But that's what happened. She left She damaged all the discs and that's what I told Ocean. I got no reason to tell them any different. Yeah of course. I was wondering like maybe if they started that rumor, there might have been people like, I've got the copy of Paracel stars. Oh wow, maybe I mean, it was it was donkey years later when Frank Guskin approached me and He says,, I think I think maybe I think you must be talalking about parasel stars. I' you got anything on it, I suppose. I'm fairly sure that I don't have any of that work anymore. Um, While I still lived in Shambury. in nineteen ninety two, this was after Parasll Stars U I was no longer ed by Ocean, I hadn't got any work from them. I tried desperately to get a job with another company, but my age was against me. I was, you know really getting on a bit. And I met a lady at a bridge event in Brighton And we hit it off and eventually Four months after we met, I left Liverpool put my house on the market and moved down to be with her. And I took with me, you know, Commodore sixty four, two of them a D one twenty eight, several discharge monitors. D. Matrix printer, whatever and In the event, I tried to give those away because we didn't have the space Nobody wanted them. They all went to the tip. It' awful to think couldn't even give them away at the time, yeah. I tried. I put a local village post office was down the road and I put a notice in there in the newspaper shop, you know, I put a notice in there. free to a good home, you know, whoever wants all this equipment Okay, all working perfectly Nobbody nobody wanted it Yeah. We didn't have the space and we were in a tiny little cottage And I kept the ST but everything. and even that and the monitor and the drives, when I moved up here to when I restarted work on it, they wouldn't work. The ST worked after a fashion, but the drives wouldn't work and the monitor wouldn't work. I got the help of David East, you know, David East from Bug Bite. He effectively gave me a different ST and took mine away and I'll get this one fixed And I've still got the one he gave me albeit with I don't know how much memory has been added to it to accommodate everything I need it to do. Well let's get into this story then, because it' obviously this new game that I mentioned at the start has been quite a few years in the making. the set headver heels called Return to Blacktooth, available now from M Thalamus Digital for the ItREST and the Amiga. So I mean kind of going back, what's the roots of this game then? Is this something that you started working on Back at when you were at Ocean, what was kind of the history of it? Yes, it was. I had just produced the ST version Um of the original head overver Heels in my spare time and I took it to ocean and they grabbed it. And I thought, well, there's There's an awful lot of ideas you can add to this game, you know, and I already had the engine now U No, I see what I can do. So I started on a sequel. And I drooted down ideas where we can have keys, you know, youve got to find keys to get you through various rooms and force fields. and So which you can turn off. and John Ritman provided the idea about items that are in the room when you go in and then they disappear in front of your eyes, but they're still there You just got to remember where they are and whether they'll kill you or not, so to speak. you know That was that was one of John's ideas And I thought, yeah, what a super idea that was. So that was incorporated as well nineteen eighty nine I started working on that. but again, in my spare time, I was still working for Eespecially effX at that time And that went through to nineteen ninety two U when Ocean decided need me anymore And I thought, well, you know, maybe Maybe I'll just know I think I kept working on it for a little while, but I couldn't see a future for it now. So eventually I just packed it away and I had all the disks and everything I'd been working on, but I just stopped And then I can't remember exactly what year it was, but I went to a reunion in Manchester of ocean staff. And John Woods was there. David wasn't there John Gary Bracey was there. A lot of the programmers were there. And we had a drink and an nata and whatever. And in the course of that reunion, Gary Bracey asked me, what happened to the sequel you started calling I said, Well,, I abandoned it. said poor need to finish it he said, Big demand for retro games now. I said reallyally? I didn't believe him to be honest.. I thought, okay, now it' when I found out that the equipment worked properly anymore. So it was a real job to actually it get it working Have you come across Sophie in the Coventry area She is suuperb with electronics And if I had something going wrong with one machine and it was so far I would go to And I need a lot more memory. so I got the memory and most of it wouldn't work properly. So I went to say She says, Yeahah, you've got a mixed sort of memory. you need to change this, this and this. And so she got it working. She does it anymore. I think she's in the caring profession now. and or a carer or something like that. So I'd rather lost touch with her, but she was she was excellent at what she did. and you know, that's that was I started on it And when it was after a fashion I started going to retro shows And I was amazed at the interests that people had They all seem to be sold out, you know I mean, I went to a retro show, I call it retro show. with Mr. Wilkins Crash and Zap and whatever. Chris Wilkins. And this was only a few weeks ago and he had the show itself was on Saturday All day Saturday, all right And I was invited I could go and show off whatever he was or return to Blacktooth, whatever. But he also asked, he says, I'm Putting on a question and answer session, just for ocean people On the Friday night, W you be available to come for that? I said. Yeah, oK. I don't mind They paid my hotel fee. I imagine they paid the others as well. But the hall was packed with people who had paid a substantial amount of money just to be here to hear eight of us talking about ocean days. Yeah. I find that incredible, you know I think it's amazing like you've chose exactly the right time to do it You know, releasing with Falamus as well, looking at the ecosystem around it, just looking at the credits of the people that you have there. you know you've got Will Overton doing the cover art. you've got Hoffman doing the music as well and Virgil like these are all really high end talented people, Steve Pickford as well, Andy Roberts Bill Bill Tr sorry Bernie Drummond and John Ritman as well. So you've got like all these people and they're all still into retro gaming. you've got the ability to package it as well and stuff I don't think Berurnne is with us anymore, is he? I don't think so John ask but I don't think Bernie is anymore for the original game concepts that Yeah, ye yeah. ye, yeah, yeah it you know John is you know, I don't see him very often and he lives a long way away from him She's been a very good friend M you're trying to get a hold of him can be a bit of a job sometimes. You put a message on Facebook, you might get an answer, you might not. Are you amazed that it can come out and it can all look packaged and you know, there's new retro systems that it can come out for as well. Oh Um P or we have we have, you know The guy that did the Amiga version, Ian, I can't remember his s so name. he com from Salisbury area. Ian Ford. Ford That's it. Yes. I mean, Ian Ford. He's clearly very clever at what he does, you. and We have another guy at the moment, I think And Briania. doing a Jaguar version Nice. And I don't know the details, but I suspect that there is movement about to get a spectrum next version and possibly Andy is very keen to have a Commodore sixty four version, I said, Welly You've got problems there, Andy Well he says, I said, Well, you know. I says, main problem is the graphics. And he says, Oh, we'll get around that. I says, Well, I says, This has got colored keys in. and if you've got a monochrome picture, are you going to show a yellow? You need to think about that. He says, All right, okay I don't think' programm the Commodore sixty four. I was gonna say you did it first time, raand, didn't you, say? Well, yeah, that was it was monochrome. I mean, it's the only thing we could work it with I mean admittedly, the new Commodore is probably working at faster speed and I don't think memory would be a problem these days the colour limitations. if you're going to put the sort of things in that we've got in at the moment because The beauty about the ET and the amiga is you've got You don't need ed you' got all the speed you need We've got to slow things down to make it make it playable. Well, if you the speed we could go at. you know processing speed is not a problem, but graphics is So the actual code in there, then is it basically a continuation of that the original code that you started back in the eighties and? is it? The code that I have in the eighties that that had the core engine, the three D projection, if you like I have added all the extra code. for the keys and the force fields and the disappearing objects and and things like that It was amazing how much more variety that gave you with the puzzles that you were trying to depise U A We've just I've just seen a u a video of somebody that's actually played it all the way through And U I'm amazed some of the some of the things he managed to do that didn't occur to me I And that's far too easy if you do it like that. or whatever. you know, but clearly a very talented player. he knew exactly what he was doing. Yeah. But yees, I started off with the original code and added to it. Now the problems that I have had In the old days, I'd have the ST as my development machine and a target machine, which could be anything, depending on what you were working on. But now I've only got the ST. So the ST has to hold My assemblly and my debugger the code I'm actually writing and the executable code that it is going to produce, if you see what I mean. Yeah It's all got to fit into the memory And then when you assemble it that's got to fit in there as well. So And I got to a point where The code I was generating was starting to overwre code that I was actually working on Right So I had to start removing comments out of the code to le to make sure it wasn't going to interfere with it. Do you know what the concept of bit streaming is to either of you? Yeah, exxplain it to our audience though, yeah. O. well ye Gerally speaking, the rooms are made up with a lot of variables know. All rooms have there's a size of the room that can be different possibilities. There's a palette that you color palette that's eight different possibilities. The floor is eight different possibilities in its design or whether it's there or not or whether it's deadly. The walls, there are eight different possibilities. This number eight takes up three bits of memory. Now generally speaking, if you didn't have memory as a problem, You'd have one bite, it's this door, and it's one bite, it's this wall and so on And then you've got all the objects that are in that room. And they'll have an identification number followed by an XYZ coord inate, which again would be this bit streaming what effectively The data was arranged because of space limitations. The first three bits would define the size of the room The next three bits in that bide Define which color palette you're using And the last two bits plus the next bit from the next bitte That would define something else and then the next three bits after it. So it compressed all the space. You weren't using one byte per variable you're using one byte for at least two variables and a bit. if you see one? It's a continuous sequence hereah. Exactly Yeah ye. So you had to have a routine that would decode this, but it makes changing the definition of a room very difficult if you start off with that. So My program actually uses the bitstream but has within it the definition of all the rooms until I'm happy with how they are Every time I assemble the code It takes all the room data and bit streams it Mw program then uses And then eventually I save all that bitstream code as one separate file and that's what I load into the game. So that saves on space an enormous amount of Oh there a factor of maybe one third of the space, maybe less than that all compressed, effective, very effective. that's what John Ritton used in the original, which is why I added in the Cbodore and the SD to start with. And it was just so much easier to carry on using that It simply meant I had to use it I had to produce a routine. that would bit stream the data I was working with. then the program could use that And eventually I get rid of the bit streame routine and just use the bit streed I guess it's easier to go one way like compressing than other way. Exactly, yeses. And there must be other ways of compressing it, but this was already part of the engine. Why not carry around using it And that means that people that are writing or did write the Ameiga version will be writing the Jagar versions, so they will be using the same technique because they're using my code effectively. It must have been an amazing day when you finally finished it. Do you remember how that felt? Oh well mean afterfter I'd finished it U at least I thought it was finished. I passed it over to Andy and Andy started testing it and we tried to get other people to test it. and some people took it on and then sort of lost out of and Andy said, Well, what are we going to do? We're going to put it out as a digital download for the Amiga. and then if there are any bugs or anything that we need to change We can do that before we release a disc version. And so even now, this morning, I have been modifying a couple of rooms because I found something that I don't like. and I'm going to have to convince Andy that this needs to change. There's actually quite a lot of things in particular There are areas within the game that are specific to head and other areas specific to heels at other areas where the two join together to We shouldn't have a situation where head can get into Hill's territory or vice versa. but it has proved possible. I guess that's the luxury of now working with, you know, digitalact downloads. you can pump updates out you know you can get them. Exactly and anybody that's already purchased the game when we it's going to probably be going to be the end of June by the time we release anything new U But yeah, they can simply say, Well, I'd like the update, please and that's easy done It doesn't get hstice. It whereas if we put it that on disc and then we try and change it