Post by zxspecticle on Aug 16, 2006 10:33:46 GMT -5
Thought some of you might be interested in this, just found it on some old zip disks:
Please find below an incomplete John Gibson interview I conducted for zxspecticle sometime in 2001. I was trying to get the interview completed and posted on zxspecticle before I left the country for a few years but simply ran out of time before all the questions were answered. It still offer some zxspectrum historical insights so it may be of interest to some of you.
Da(rr)en with 2r's
I dont have the EDGE magazine interview with John Gibson regarding Imagines Bandersnatch to hand but I do remember at the time that the article was very similar to this interview or maybe my memory is playing tricks with me?
(1) How did you get started in using computers, what was the first computer you ever saw and what was the first computer you ever owned?
The first computer I ever owned as well as programmed was a Sinclair ZX81 back in 1981. I had a bit of spare cash and a bit of spare time so I bought one and started playing around with it. I soon got bored programming it in Basic but when I eventually bought a book called 'How To Program Your ZX81 In Machine Code', I was hooked!
(2) How did you come to meet Imagine's Mark Butler and Dave Lawson and how did they persuade you a career in the software industry was worth pursuing?
I'd just finished a government training course intended to turn me into a mainframe programmer and I went for an interview for a 'straight' job. I didn't get that job but the guy who interviewed me said he could put me in touch with a new games company who were looking for machine code programmers. I duly went off to Imagine for an interview where Dave said, "Can you write 16K of machine code in a month?". I replied, "I don't know but I'll give it a whirl". Dave said: "OK. You've got the job". Many years later I found out from the guy who interviewed me for the 'straight' job that he'd taken one look at me and decided that he didn't want this long-haired hippy working for him which is why he packed me off to Mark and Dave. That guy was Ian Hetherington, millionaire founder of Psygnosis. And many years later, he did give me a job!
(3) Molar Maul was your first published Spectrum game - had you written anything previous to this on either the Spectrum or any other format that was not published?
I'd written a version of Space Invaders on the ZX81 and on the Commodore VIC20 but only for my own amusement. When I started work at Imagine, I'd never seen a Spectrum let alone programmed one.
(4) After cutting your teeth on the excellent Molar Maul, Zzoom and Stonkers you then began work on the infamous 'Megagame' Bandersnatch with Ian Weatherburn. Was the game all hype or did it have real potential to offer something different (for the time)?
Well, it wasn't quite all hype. There certainly was a game being developed and it certainly would have been something revolutionary for the time: a 176K Spectrum game courtesy of a 128K ROM add-on. At the time Imagine went bust the game was around half finished and we'd already used up all the ROM so a major design rethink would have been necessary to get it finished. Still that would probably have been academic as the projected cost of the game was £60. Would you have paid that much for a Spectrum game?
(5) How much of Bandersnatch was finished before the crash of Imagine, was there anything at all to see?
There was plenty to see. The game was essentially about exploring the environment and interacting with other characters. The environment was a futuristic domed city with each dome connected by a glass tunnel. There was also an underground, mine area. The city was populated by lots of chararcters, each of which had particular idiosynchrasies. You could talk to the characters via speech bubbles and they could interact with each other in the same way. The character that always springs to mind is The Fat Man. He used to pop up in the most unlikely places but was reluctant to get into a conversation with you simply because he had so much useful information. There was also a giant worm in the mines; a bit like those in 'Dune'. I'm sure there was a lot more but my memory isn't what it used to be!
(6) What did the hardware dongle that Bandersnatch was going to use consist of, was it just a case of adding more memory to the Spectrum or did it offer anything else?
See question (4). There was going to be more than just the ROM add-on. The game was to come in a BIG box containing lots of goodies like a T-shirt, character profiles, a map of the environment.
(7) While working on the Megagames, were you at all aware of the problems Imagine were having or were the programmers as shocked as the general public at the time?
I for one was completely shocked but I think there were others who were far more astute than me. I didn't even get suspicious when the last salary payment I recieved came in the form of an envelope full of tenners. I found out later that, in order to pay everybody, Dave had visited just about every cash machine in Liverpool. I think the person who got the biggest shock was Mark Butler. He was so busy motorbike racing that he had little to do with the running of the company and had no idea that it was going down the pan.
(8) It was reported in the press of the time that Bandersnatch and Eugene Evans went to Fireiron (a company founded by Dave Lawson and Ian Hetherington), was'nt you and the rest of the team tempted to complete Bandersnatch with them?
This is a very long story. Are you ready? Then I'll begin. When Imagine went pear-shaped, it split into two factions: one centred around Dave and Ian and the other around Mark and Bruce Everiss. Dave and Ian had managed to do a deal with Atari wherein they and the core development staff were to go off to the US to work for the aforementioned company. This new grouping was to be called FireIron. At the last minute though there was a change in senior managment at Atari and all new contracts were cancelled. There then began the acrimonious battle between Dave/Ian and Mark/Bruce to keep the Bandersnatch dream alive with myself and the rest of the team playing piggy-in-the-middle. Eventually, Dave and Ian won the day, mainly because Dave was so good at selling a dream. Off we all went then to Dave's house in Caldy, Wirral to write some Bandersnatch clones. (We couldn't finish Bandersnatch itself because as an intellectual property it belonged to the Official Receiver appointed to wind up Imagine Ltd). It didn't take long for some of us to realise that the whole thing was going nowhere and we soon left to do our own thing. Those left behind (including Eugene) went on to form a company called...Psygnosis. But that's another story.
(9) Did Fireiron do anything with the game design at all?
Well, as I've said, FireIron became Psygnosis and the first game they published was 'Bratticus' on the Commodore Amiga. Although this wasn't the same game as Bandersnatch, it clearly used the same game engine. Incidentally, that same game engine was used by Denton Designs for their first game: Gift From The Gods which was very much more of a Bandersnatch clone. This actually led to threats of court action by Psygnosis but ultimately it was all hot air and sour grapes.
(10) After the Imagine crash you went on to form Denton Designs with several key members of the Megagame team. How did this come about?
As I said earlier, we were all working at Dave's house on Bandersnatch clones and getting more and more disillusioned by the day. The first people to decide to call it a day were Ian Weatherburn and Steve Cain. It was they who decided to form Denton Designs. They invited myself, Kenny Everret, Ally Noble and Karen Davies to join them though not at first as partners. I think Ian had visions of creating his own Imagine so he didn't find the idea of a 6-way partnership very appealing. However, he did come round to the idea eventually and thus Dentons was born. Incidentally, in case you're wondering where the name came from, we bought an off-the-shelf limited company and 'Denton Designs' was the most appealing of the names offered to us.
(11) Ian Weatherburn was reported to be a part of the original Denton Design Team but never appeared in any of the early publicity shots or interviews. Did he leave soon after the team was set up?
Yes, he did leave pretty soon after the company was formed. You see, Ian loved the life at Imagine: fast cars, loadsa money, status. He was pretty shattered when it all came tumbling down and his idea was that Dentons would simply pick up where Imagine left off. The rest of us , however, didn't want to see Dentons go the same way as Imagine which meant no fast cars or luxury offices. There were also some differences of opinion over the final design of 'Shadowfire'. The original concept was Ian's and he didn't want it interfered with.
(12) What games did you personally work on during your Denton's peroid?
Gift From The Gods, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Cosmic Wartoad.
(13) How did you come to leave Denton Designs?, it seemed at the time to be a great success story.
Well, yes it was. It was a bit of a struggle at first. Despite generous funding from Ocean, we all had to take a big pay cut and work very long hours to get the company on its feet. Eventually, there was too much work for just the 5 of us so we started to take on employees. Later on, these employees asked for a share of the company which we all agreed was right and proper, given the contribution they had made to its success. The problem was, they wanted an equal share. Both Steve Cain and I resented this. The original 'Famous Five' had worked hard to build the company up in the early days and in recognition of this we felt they should have a greater share of the company than those who had joined it later. Eventually, I said I would leave if the company shares were going to be divided equally. And that's exactly what did happen, so I left.
(14) What did you do after leaving Denton Designs?
I went straight off to see David Ward at Ocean. He knew about the disagreements at Dentons and long before I left he had intimated that I need have no worry about finding work if I chose to go it alone. I spent the next 5 years working freelance doing conversions and original games for the likes of Ocean, Microsoft, Atari. In 1990 I joined Psygnosis and was there until 1998 when I became part of Warthog.
Please find below an incomplete John Gibson interview I conducted for zxspecticle sometime in 2001. I was trying to get the interview completed and posted on zxspecticle before I left the country for a few years but simply ran out of time before all the questions were answered. It still offer some zxspectrum historical insights so it may be of interest to some of you.
Da(rr)en with 2r's
I dont have the EDGE magazine interview with John Gibson regarding Imagines Bandersnatch to hand but I do remember at the time that the article was very similar to this interview or maybe my memory is playing tricks with me?
(1) How did you get started in using computers, what was the first computer you ever saw and what was the first computer you ever owned?
The first computer I ever owned as well as programmed was a Sinclair ZX81 back in 1981. I had a bit of spare cash and a bit of spare time so I bought one and started playing around with it. I soon got bored programming it in Basic but when I eventually bought a book called 'How To Program Your ZX81 In Machine Code', I was hooked!
(2) How did you come to meet Imagine's Mark Butler and Dave Lawson and how did they persuade you a career in the software industry was worth pursuing?
I'd just finished a government training course intended to turn me into a mainframe programmer and I went for an interview for a 'straight' job. I didn't get that job but the guy who interviewed me said he could put me in touch with a new games company who were looking for machine code programmers. I duly went off to Imagine for an interview where Dave said, "Can you write 16K of machine code in a month?". I replied, "I don't know but I'll give it a whirl". Dave said: "OK. You've got the job". Many years later I found out from the guy who interviewed me for the 'straight' job that he'd taken one look at me and decided that he didn't want this long-haired hippy working for him which is why he packed me off to Mark and Dave. That guy was Ian Hetherington, millionaire founder of Psygnosis. And many years later, he did give me a job!
(3) Molar Maul was your first published Spectrum game - had you written anything previous to this on either the Spectrum or any other format that was not published?
I'd written a version of Space Invaders on the ZX81 and on the Commodore VIC20 but only for my own amusement. When I started work at Imagine, I'd never seen a Spectrum let alone programmed one.
(4) After cutting your teeth on the excellent Molar Maul, Zzoom and Stonkers you then began work on the infamous 'Megagame' Bandersnatch with Ian Weatherburn. Was the game all hype or did it have real potential to offer something different (for the time)?
Well, it wasn't quite all hype. There certainly was a game being developed and it certainly would have been something revolutionary for the time: a 176K Spectrum game courtesy of a 128K ROM add-on. At the time Imagine went bust the game was around half finished and we'd already used up all the ROM so a major design rethink would have been necessary to get it finished. Still that would probably have been academic as the projected cost of the game was £60. Would you have paid that much for a Spectrum game?
(5) How much of Bandersnatch was finished before the crash of Imagine, was there anything at all to see?
There was plenty to see. The game was essentially about exploring the environment and interacting with other characters. The environment was a futuristic domed city with each dome connected by a glass tunnel. There was also an underground, mine area. The city was populated by lots of chararcters, each of which had particular idiosynchrasies. You could talk to the characters via speech bubbles and they could interact with each other in the same way. The character that always springs to mind is The Fat Man. He used to pop up in the most unlikely places but was reluctant to get into a conversation with you simply because he had so much useful information. There was also a giant worm in the mines; a bit like those in 'Dune'. I'm sure there was a lot more but my memory isn't what it used to be!
(6) What did the hardware dongle that Bandersnatch was going to use consist of, was it just a case of adding more memory to the Spectrum or did it offer anything else?
See question (4). There was going to be more than just the ROM add-on. The game was to come in a BIG box containing lots of goodies like a T-shirt, character profiles, a map of the environment.
(7) While working on the Megagames, were you at all aware of the problems Imagine were having or were the programmers as shocked as the general public at the time?
I for one was completely shocked but I think there were others who were far more astute than me. I didn't even get suspicious when the last salary payment I recieved came in the form of an envelope full of tenners. I found out later that, in order to pay everybody, Dave had visited just about every cash machine in Liverpool. I think the person who got the biggest shock was Mark Butler. He was so busy motorbike racing that he had little to do with the running of the company and had no idea that it was going down the pan.
(8) It was reported in the press of the time that Bandersnatch and Eugene Evans went to Fireiron (a company founded by Dave Lawson and Ian Hetherington), was'nt you and the rest of the team tempted to complete Bandersnatch with them?
This is a very long story. Are you ready? Then I'll begin. When Imagine went pear-shaped, it split into two factions: one centred around Dave and Ian and the other around Mark and Bruce Everiss. Dave and Ian had managed to do a deal with Atari wherein they and the core development staff were to go off to the US to work for the aforementioned company. This new grouping was to be called FireIron. At the last minute though there was a change in senior managment at Atari and all new contracts were cancelled. There then began the acrimonious battle between Dave/Ian and Mark/Bruce to keep the Bandersnatch dream alive with myself and the rest of the team playing piggy-in-the-middle. Eventually, Dave and Ian won the day, mainly because Dave was so good at selling a dream. Off we all went then to Dave's house in Caldy, Wirral to write some Bandersnatch clones. (We couldn't finish Bandersnatch itself because as an intellectual property it belonged to the Official Receiver appointed to wind up Imagine Ltd). It didn't take long for some of us to realise that the whole thing was going nowhere and we soon left to do our own thing. Those left behind (including Eugene) went on to form a company called...Psygnosis. But that's another story.
(9) Did Fireiron do anything with the game design at all?
Well, as I've said, FireIron became Psygnosis and the first game they published was 'Bratticus' on the Commodore Amiga. Although this wasn't the same game as Bandersnatch, it clearly used the same game engine. Incidentally, that same game engine was used by Denton Designs for their first game: Gift From The Gods which was very much more of a Bandersnatch clone. This actually led to threats of court action by Psygnosis but ultimately it was all hot air and sour grapes.
(10) After the Imagine crash you went on to form Denton Designs with several key members of the Megagame team. How did this come about?
As I said earlier, we were all working at Dave's house on Bandersnatch clones and getting more and more disillusioned by the day. The first people to decide to call it a day were Ian Weatherburn and Steve Cain. It was they who decided to form Denton Designs. They invited myself, Kenny Everret, Ally Noble and Karen Davies to join them though not at first as partners. I think Ian had visions of creating his own Imagine so he didn't find the idea of a 6-way partnership very appealing. However, he did come round to the idea eventually and thus Dentons was born. Incidentally, in case you're wondering where the name came from, we bought an off-the-shelf limited company and 'Denton Designs' was the most appealing of the names offered to us.
(11) Ian Weatherburn was reported to be a part of the original Denton Design Team but never appeared in any of the early publicity shots or interviews. Did he leave soon after the team was set up?
Yes, he did leave pretty soon after the company was formed. You see, Ian loved the life at Imagine: fast cars, loadsa money, status. He was pretty shattered when it all came tumbling down and his idea was that Dentons would simply pick up where Imagine left off. The rest of us , however, didn't want to see Dentons go the same way as Imagine which meant no fast cars or luxury offices. There were also some differences of opinion over the final design of 'Shadowfire'. The original concept was Ian's and he didn't want it interfered with.
(12) What games did you personally work on during your Denton's peroid?
Gift From The Gods, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Cosmic Wartoad.
(13) How did you come to leave Denton Designs?, it seemed at the time to be a great success story.
Well, yes it was. It was a bit of a struggle at first. Despite generous funding from Ocean, we all had to take a big pay cut and work very long hours to get the company on its feet. Eventually, there was too much work for just the 5 of us so we started to take on employees. Later on, these employees asked for a share of the company which we all agreed was right and proper, given the contribution they had made to its success. The problem was, they wanted an equal share. Both Steve Cain and I resented this. The original 'Famous Five' had worked hard to build the company up in the early days and in recognition of this we felt they should have a greater share of the company than those who had joined it later. Eventually, I said I would leave if the company shares were going to be divided equally. And that's exactly what did happen, so I left.
(14) What did you do after leaving Denton Designs?
I went straight off to see David Ward at Ocean. He knew about the disagreements at Dentons and long before I left he had intimated that I need have no worry about finding work if I chose to go it alone. I spent the next 5 years working freelance doing conversions and original games for the likes of Ocean, Microsoft, Atari. In 1990 I joined Psygnosis and was there until 1998 when I became part of Warthog.