Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 6th December 2023, 12:44 PMIn the 80's I wrote and sold 2 games for The ZX Spectrum.
A company in Hull bought them, Artic I think.
The first was compiled basic and it was a horse racing game
I then learned assembly language and wrote a Disco game (that could get rude)
I wanted music in the second game so I decompiled Matthew Smith's Manic Miner to see how he did it.
That was the end of my game writing - I was up against a genius.
Cool to have made a contribution to the industry and the games might still be getting played by nostalgia enthusiasts. I can't think of a better job than being a programmer for a games company where the focus is on making the staff feel relaxed to allow the creative juices to flow. I love how one of the animators in the Making Of Oblivion video has a fish tank on her desk next to the monitor. I don't think it's impossible to get that kind of job without a degree and you can get lucky by getting a foot in the door such as getting a job in administration and applying for internal jobs in other departments but it must be very competitive especially these days when game design is more software toolset based than command line scripting so more people can train to do it.
DMA Design stood out to me during the Amiga days because they broke the mould and the games were full of surprises and crucially their games gave the recognition in-game music deserved. Not rushed or amateur sounding like so many games settled for. They went on to become Rockstar North so the music part of gaming has been a hallmark since the early days.
