Page 41 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #4

the Lynx, then we got the TS: Qix was developed in 2 and he actually did create his dream.
‘Double Dragon’ license. months. Complete. Why? It's now called EverQuest. Check the
We started a few other C'mon! It's QIX! Actually, it credits. John Smedley.
titles, including ‘The Guardi- helped that Knight Technolo-
ans:Storms over Doria,’ a gies had developed previous CGM: Are there any cheats to your
basketball game, and some versions of Qix and might Lynx games that perhaps have not sur-
other game which I don't have had a little 6502 code faced yet?
remember. We also had lying around ...
‘Raiden’ for a while, but the TS: Actually, no. There was one cheat
company went through some CGM: What happened to The in Qix that displayed the Knight Tech-
pretty turbulent times, and that got lost Guardians: Storms Over Doria? Is nologies logo and our names, but when
in the shuffle. there any chance a playable demo or the publisher found it, we were ordered
source code still exists somewhere? to remove it. If you entered KNIGHH as
CGM: What was it like working with Was this game ever demoed at a trade a password, it would happen. We got
Atari? Any good or bad anecdotes show? chewed out pretty bad for that, so we
you'd like to share? didn't try again.
TS: Wow! That was a game that de-
TS: Atari was pretty good to work with served to be finished. The game actu- CGM: What are you up to these days?
for the most part. I can't say, however, ally died because of the horrible Atari
that every moment was good. Towards marketing machine. Knight Technolo- TS: These days? Well, I'm still making
milestone dates, things got a little gies was purchased by Park Place Pro- games. I'm on my (counting ...) 11th
crazy, and some of the people I talked ductions and that was one of the published title now. It's a PlayStation
to at Atari were, shall we say, not the games that didn't make the cut. game called (tentatively) "Simpsons
brightest bulbs in the pack. I actually started that game just as I Wrestling." The company I'm with, Big
When I was working on Dirty Larry, I was finishing Qix. The original design Ape Productions, is full of pretty cool
remember a phone call I made to the called for a four-player dungeon crawl people. A lot of the guys here have
guy who had created the world editor with real-time connectivity. We spent a been around for a while, and it's quite a
we were using. I had gotten the editor bit of time trying to figure out how to switch from the old Knight Technolo-
into a state where if I added any more save the data for the characters so you gies days in some ways, but still kind of
sprites, it crashed. Well, while I was could adventure together when you like it.
talking to him, we traced through sev- had time. That ended up being some- Of course, hangin' with the family is
eral scenarios and talked about what thing of a flop, so we just turned it into also a big deal. It's funny, 'cuz my fam-
settings I had, how much RAM, etc. a simple Phantasy Star/Zelda style ily has kind of grown out of the video
Towards the end of the call, we were game. It did get pretty far along. We game career. I met my wife shortly be-
both pretty frustrated when suddenly had the main map running, and several fore I started working in the industry,
he asked, "Hey, do you think I should dungeons being devel- and I've never left it.
close the graphics files after I open oped. It played quite a Programming games is
them? I wonder if the OS doesn't close bit like Ultima VII at the a dream job for most
them automatically after I read them..." time, actually. In the programmers (except
The guy was opening something like town, you had houses those who have done it).
300 files without ever closing a single with roofs that disap-
file. That's like opening 300 windows peared when you CGM: Any chance we
on your desktop and wondering why it's walked in. will see a Lynx game
so hard to find anything. He changed As for demos, that's from you again in the
the program to open a file, read the an interesting story. We future?
data, then close it. The program ran did have some playable
much better (and faster) after that. stuff, but the publisher TS: Actually, yes there
I do remember getting yelled at decided not to show it is. I've learned quite a lot
quite a bit. Most of that happened while at the time. We did cre- in the last 10 years, and
I was simultaneously developing Dirty ate a 4-frame slide I know that I could cre-
Larry, Qix, and The Guardians games. show. It showed a few ate a game quite a bit
I'm only one guy! things but really just better than my previous
gave you the flavor. attempts. Dirty Larry was
CGM: Which Lynx game is your favor- (EGM reviewed the game as 80% com- an incredible learning experience.
ite, and why? plete based on that. They talked about Nowadays people focus on the technol-
all the cool explosions they saw, the ogy and the graphics and incredible
TS: That's easy. Todd’s Adventures in awesome enemy AI, etc. I've got that processor speeds we have on most
Slime World. It's just great fun. The somewhere.) platforms (the Dreamcast runs a
multi-player aspect (we hooked up 4 I talked to Telegames recently about 200MHz)... quite a switch from the
people to play at a time when we the game. They don't have anything 7MHz speed of the Sega Genesis, or
could) was incredible, and the controls from it at all. The chances are that it is the 16/4 MHz speed of the Atari Lynx,
were fun. The enemies were great. It all lost at this point. Most of the game or even the 1.023MHz speed of the old
was a good example of why the people exists on the PC of all things, and Apple ][.
at Epyx didn't deserve what they got. there's got to be an Amiga or two
They made great products and got around with the source code and com- CGM: Thanks for taking the time to
screwed. plete assets. Really, though, the game speak with us, Tom!
grew and evolved. It was a dream of
CGM: Which game was developed the the designer to create the game. He'd TS: No problem. Enjoy!
quickest? Why? thought about it for many years before,

Classic Gamer Magazine Summer 2000 41