Hi, and welcome to my portfolio of games projects I have worked on.
From around the age of 10, in the early 1980’s I realised I loved programming and I loved games, so even then it seemed obvious to me that a career as a games developer would be the perfect job for me.
I have been fortunate enough to realise that dream, as from the age of 16 to 18 I wrote games professionally, part-time, then from 18 to 31 I wrote games as my full-time job. When I moved out of the games industry at 31 I still spent the next 5 years doing it part-time.
Below is a list of the games I have worked on, some published, some not, with a little background on each.
Global Effect
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Millennium Interactive |
| Developer: | Myself |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Not Finished |
I was fortunate enough to know the programmer of the Amiga version of Global Effect, Toby Simpson, who I learned a lot from. He offered me the conversion of the game to PC which I started, but which I did not get very far with as it was just too overwhelming a project at the age I was at, so I never finished it.
Fun School: Merlin’s Maths
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Europress |
| Developer: | Intellectual Software Consultants |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion/Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was my first time working in-house with a team, and I had to write a few sub-games to an exact specification.
Fun School: Spelling Fair
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Europress |
| Developer: | Intellectual Software Consultants |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion/Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was a very similar experience to Merlin’s Maths, but with spelling-based sub-games.
James Pond II: Robocod
| Platform: | Konix Multi-System |
| Publisher: | Millennium Interactive |
| Developer: | Intellectual Software Consultants |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Not Published |
I was fortunate enough to be one of the first people at ISC to get to look at the KMS, and I managed to get a simple graphics engine up and running and just started on porting the game code from the Amiga when I was let go from my position.
Puggsy
| Platform: | Commodore Amiga |
| Publisher: | Psygnosis |
| Developer: | The Dome |
| Language(s): | 68000 assembly |
| Role: | Sole/Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion/Original |
| Status: | Published |
I do, and always will, consider this to be my first published game. Broadly speaking it was supposed to be a conversion of the Sega Megadrive version, but we never had completed source to work from, just a submission candidate cartridge. So, although there was some code that could be used, some of the more complex game code, such as the arm movement was absent, and had to be coded from scratch. I was forced to develop this using the Amiga’s dual playfield system, which I did not agree with, but went with anyway.
Euro Soccer Manager
| Platform: | Sega Megadrive |
| Publisher: | Codemasters |
| Developer: | The Dome |
| Language(s): | 68000 assembly |
| Role: | Sole/Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Not Published |
This was my first taste of developing for consoles and it was done using the non-official “Rachel” Megadrive development board from Codemasters. Although this was never actually published the game was 95% complete and had started QA testing. It was a football management game where you could watch the games play out like the original version of FIFA.
Euro Soccer Manager
| Platform: | Sega Game Gear |
| Publisher: | Codemasters |
| Developer: | The Dome |
| Language(s): | Z80 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Not Published |
As the Sega Megadrive version was the lead version, I oversaw the development of the Game Gear version ensuring each aspect ran like its Megadrive counterpart. This only got to about 60% complete.
Last Action Hero
| Platform: | Commodore Amiga |
| Publisher: | Psygnosis |
| Developer: | The Dome |
| Language(s): | 68000 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion/Original |
| Status: | Published |
This ill-fated game was a conversion from the Sega Mega CD, which was a poor game. The conversion was virtually spot on, and was technically good, but got panned as the gameplay was poor. I acted only as a support programmer diagnosing and fixing issues.
Bump ‘n’ Burn
| Platform: | Commodore CD32 |
| Publisher: | Grandslam |
| Developer: | The Dome |
| Language(s): | 68000 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
I only played a small part in development of this games, which was a conversion from the OCS Amiga version to AGA for the CD32. This was tricky, as the OCS version pushed the hardware quite hard, so we had to introduce a few tricks to pull this off.
Turbo Trax
| Platform: | Commodore Amiga |
| Publisher: | Arcane |
| Developer: | The Dome |
| Language(s): | 68000 assembly |
| Role: | Consultant |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This only came across my path for a very short while, possibly a month or so, as the publisher and developer were having issues at the time with certain aspects of the game. All I did was carry out some consultancy and give advice on what I would do, and then it was passed back to the developer.
Worms
| Platform: | Sega Megadrive |
| Publisher: | Team 17/Ocean |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 68000 assembly |
| Role: | Sole/Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion/Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was my first game for EPS, and I was moved onto it the day I started. At this point in time, unknown to me, it was already 9 months behind schedule, and all that was in place was a (superb) graphics engine, and most of the logic behind having a fully deformable landscape, which was unheard of on a character map-based system. It was supposed to be a conversion, but all we had to work from was 2 year old Blitz Basic source code and a set of master-candidate Amiga disks, so the “conversion” was done from playing the game and a few rules written in a Word document. Some features/weapons had to be dropped because of hardware limitations.
Worms
| Platform: | SNES |
| Publisher: | Team 17/Ocean |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 65816 assembly |
| Role: | Sole/Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion/Original |
| Status: | Published |
Once I had finished the Megadrive version I was moved across to the SNES version which again only had a basic graphics engine in place, but no code for deformable landscapes. I chose to convert from the Megadrive code, as I knew that inside out, obviously. Apparently this was Team 17/Ocean’s first published Nintendo game.
Speed Demons
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Dinamic Multimedia |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Co-Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
A Spanish company, Efecto Caos, approached EPS with a partially complete game in a bid to help find a publisher. A colleague and I worked with the Spanish team remotely in the UK and for a 2 week stretch in Zaragoza to help complete the game.
Spirou
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Infogrames |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
This was the first conversion on the Infogrames “Heroes” range of games, from SNES to PC. This was the last game started, but the first completed.
Tintin: Temple Of The Sun
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Infogrames |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
After Spirou I moved straight onto this game, which was completed inside 3 months.
Tintin In Tibet
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Infogrames |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
As the previous conversions I was in sole charge of had been completed quickly and accurately I was tasked with helping ensure the remaining games in the series were finished as soon as was possible.
Asterix & Obelix
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Infogrames |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
As the previous conversions I was in sole charge of had been completed quickly and accurately I was tasked with helping ensure the remaining games in the series were finished as soon as was possible.
Lucky Luke
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Infogrames |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
As the previous conversions I was in sole charge of had been completed quickly and accurately I was tasked with helping ensure the remaining games in the series were finished as soon as was possible.
The Smurfs
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Infogrames |
| Developer: | East Point Software |
| Language(s): | 80×86 assembly |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
As the previous conversions I was in sole charge of had been completed quickly and accurately I was tasked with helping ensure the remaining games in the series were finished as soon as was possible.
Crime Killer
| Platform: | Sony PlayStation |
| Publisher: | Interplay |
| Developer: | Pixelogic |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Consultant/Support |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This game was substantially complete, but the company writing it for Interplay, Pixelogic, were having a few issues and as we had been working for Interplay I was asked if I could help them out, which I did remotely and then for a couple of weeks at Pixelogic’s offices in Sheffield.
VR Sports Powerboat Racing
| Platform: | Sony PlayStation |
| Publisher: | Interplay |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Co-Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was a difficult game to write, tyring to simulate water dynamics and the handling characteristics of monohull and catamaran boats. It was also my first real 3D game that I had worked on.
VR Sports Powerboat Racing
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Interplay |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was a conversion of the Playstation version and was the first time I had worked with a proper shared code base, and Playstation and PC versions were developed simultaneously.
Renegade Racers
| Platform: | Sony PlayStation |
| Publisher: | Interplay |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Co-Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
To try and capitalise on the kart racing games around at the time we were asked by Interplay do write one on water due to our work on VR Sports Powerboat Racing.
Renegade Racers
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Interplay |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This, like VR Sports Powerboat Racing, was developed alongside the Playstation version.
Cubes
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Infogrames |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Co-Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Not Published |
This was a game with, I think, huge single player and multi-player potential. It was a simple premise. You controlled a cube character, all of which had slightly different attributes, and you had to race to the end of a level with various traps and so forth along the way. The levels all climbed as you went, and the cubes could climb by “laying” up to 7 cubes underneath them. These could form bridges etc., but as soon as an 8th was laid, the first would disappear. You could also use them to trap opponents. It was Inforgrames’ idea, but they dropped it with no explanation.
Aqua GT
| Platform: | Sega Dreamcast |
| Publisher: | Take 2 |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Co-Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
Due to our work on previous water-based racing games Take 2 approached us to write a 3rd, concentrating on the Sega Dreamcast. It was a rushed affair, but quite well executed considering the time constraints.
Aqua GT
| Platform: | Sony PlayStation |
| Publisher: | Take 2 |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C |
| Role: | Co-Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
The PC version was developed alongside the Dreamcast version, but primarily by another team, using our source code as lead.
Fortress: Twerps
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | Majesco |
| Developer: | Promethean Designs (EPS) |
| Language(s): | C/C++ |
| Role: | Co-Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Not Published |
This was another game idea with real promise, where you built a fortress Tetris-style, and the better you built it, the better you were rewarded, with “Twerps” who were people who could mend your castle, and weaponry. Whilst building, and opponent, AI or human, was also building, and the idea was to take out the opponents’ castle. There was a full campaign/story mode designed, with different types of levels. It never got released, but the IP was used by Majesco (who we were working for) to create a version for the Gameboy Advance.
Zoocube
| Platform: | Nintendo Gameboy Advance |
| Publisher: | Acclaim |
| Developer: | Graphic State |
| Language(s): | C/ARM & THUMB assembly |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
When I joined Graphic State this game was about 60% complete, but due to the way it had been written there was no way it could be completed, so I had to strip it back to about 20% and start again. It was a quirky little game, and quite a technical achievement.
Crazy Taxi: Catch A Ride
| Platform: | Nintendo Gameboy Advance |
| Publisher: | THQ |
| Developer: | Graphic State |
| Language(s): | C/ARM & THUMB assembly |
| Role: | Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion/Original |
| Status: | Published |
One of the hardest projects I ever worked on. This was a conversion from the Dreamcast to the GBA. A vast difference in performance obviously. We had no source code to work from, or graphics, so it was in effect an original, as we used online maps to build the worlds, and playing the Dreamcast version to try and get the car handling right. Other members of my team took care of the 3D engine, and I wrote everything else and tied it all together.
Urban Reflex
| Platform: | Nintendo Gameboy Advance |
| Publisher: | N/A |
| Developer: | Graphic State |
| Language(s): | C/ARM & THUMB assembly |
| Role: | Lead Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Not Published |
This was meant as a “follow up” to Dark Arena, and although substantially complete it never found a publisher as far as I am aware.
Jezzball
| Platform: | J2ME Mobiles |
| Publisher: | N/A |
| Developer: | Coyote/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | Java |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Not Published |
I was asked to convert the original version (written in Pascal if I remember correctly) to mobile phones. To the best of my knowledge it was never released as the original programmer was never happy, even though it was a near perfect conversion.
Zoocube
| Platform: | J2ME Mobiles |
| Publisher: | Various |
| Developer: | Coyote/Puzzlekings/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | Java |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Conversion |
| Status: | Published |
This was my first released project for J2ME mobile phones, which at the time was a mess of a platform. I successfully converted the GBA version to about a dozen different phones that were popular at the time.
The Mummy (Movie License)
| Platform: | J2ME Mobiles |
| Publisher: | Various |
| Developer: | Coyote/Puzzlekings/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | Java |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
The was mobile phone puzzle game based on The Mummy movie.
Poker Blocks
| Platform: | J2ME Mobiles |
| Publisher: | Various |
| Developer: | Coyote/Puzzlekings/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | Java |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was another mobile phone game which was designed by Nalin Sharma of PuzzleKings, who is also the designer of Zoocube.
Combotron
| Platform: | J2ME Mobiles |
| Publisher: | Various |
| Developer: | Coyote/Puzzlekings/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | Java |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was another mobile phone game which was designed by Nalin Sharma of PuzzleKings, who is also the designer of Zoocube.
Chicken Run (Movie License)
| Platform: | J2ME Mobiles |
| Publisher: | Various |
| Developer: | Coyote/Puzzlekings/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | Java |
| Role: | Sole Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This was another film tie-in game, which started life as “Wydid The Chicken”. It is primarily a Frogger-like game where the player must get to the end of each level. Every level had variations for each of the four seasons, which was only a change in graphics, but looked effective.
International Pool Championship
| Platform: | Sony PlayStation 2 |
| Publisher: | Play It |
| Developer: | Graphic State/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | C/C++ |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
This game was 90% complete when I got moved onto it and I just had to make tweaks, changes and ensure it got through Q.A. and mastering, which I did.
Extreme Pool
| Platform: | PC |
| Publisher: | N/A |
| Developer: | Graphic State/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | C/C++ |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Not Published |
This used the same engine and core code as International Pool Championship and was developed alongside it. My role was the same; to fix, tweak and tie it all together. I did this, but to the best of my knowledge a publisher was never found.
Me. Bean’s Wacky World Of Wii
| Platform: | Nintendo Wii |
| Publisher: | Blast |
| Developer: | Beyond Reality/Self-Employed |
| Language(s): | C/C++ |
| Role: | Support Programmer |
| Type: | Original |
| Status: | Published |
I was asked by a colleague I used to work with (we worked together at every company above, and on virtually every project to some degree) whether I wanted to write one of the sub-game systems for this game. I ended up writing the jigsaw puzzle sub-games.