Post by Mark Jones Junior on Apr 3, 2005 14:26:44 GMT -5
Seeing as it's been and gone here's the 'Directors Cut! 
What was your occupation at Ocean and how long were you there for?
I was a computer game graphic designer, I started in January 1987 when I was 16. I worked there for 2 years full time then I worked for another company who were contracted to Ocean for a few months called 'Active Minds', that was a total nightmare but I got to see all my Ocean pals so there was some recompense.
Was there much pressure working on Wizball after the C64 version had been so well received?
No none at all because 'Wizball' on the Spectrum was more or less produced side by side with the 64 version. The 2 lads from 'Sensible Software' would come in every couple of weeks with a slightly updated version then we would sit down and have a good look at what was new and what had changed since last time then get working on any updates and try to incorporate it in to our version. But then I finished all my graphics and the 64 version was finished but the Spectrum programmer took another 3 months to finish the code. So in that period lots of the stuff I'd done was chucked out. Some of the previews and reviews of the game featured screens that didn't match up to what you got if you purchased the finished game. There was a feature in 'Your Sinclair', and all the screen shots were entirely made up of mock-ups I'd produced. The 'Sinclair User' review (where it received a 'Classic') used the same mock-ups. These screens showed what it SHOULD have looked like. So all these kids would have seen these screen shots, got the game home, and then saw it was a weedy imitation of what it should have looked like. It got a 'Crash Smash' though so I was proud of that. When I was at school 'Crash' magazine was like the bible if you owned a Spectrum so anything that got a Smash was a must get. And owning on original copy of game 'Crash' had Smashed was a great status symbol in the playground! Oh those were the days!!
What was the reason for giving the characters in Gryzor a more arcadey* look (compared to the arcade game).
Ermmm, Pass, I didn't know I had! It was an arcade game, how could the graphics be any more arcadey? I really don't know. I just played the arcade game to death (all on free play I hasten to add as were all the arcade games in 'Arcade Alley') and tried my best at interpreting the arcade machines graphics on the Spectrum. The arcade version was very colourfull and, of course, on the Spectrum with in game graphics you didn't get to use much colour. All I had to think about was where I was going to put each black dot to make up a representation of what was on the arcade version. Again, lots of frames were discarded and graphics chucked after I'd sweated blood and tears getting them to look good.
(*This question was meant to read 'a more cartoony look'. It's done now though so hey ho!)
How long did it take you to put a loading screen together?
That was what I enjoyed the most. I loved doing those loading screens. I suppose it was because you had more freedom in what you produced, you didn't have some programmer leaning over saying 'I can't scroll something THAT big!' or 'There's WAY too many frames is that animation!' And I was quite good at doing them! The loading screens are the things I'm most proud of when I look back. They normally took 3 or 4 days to produce then you'd spend another day or so tweaking bits. They were the most fun to do!
How did you find the transition between the 8-bit and 16-bit computers?
Me personally at first found it really hard. Having only worked on the Spectrum I hadn't had any experience of using colours. Anti-aliasing was alien to me. I got used to it, sort of. I got a lot of help from Simon Butler who sort of took me under his wing. When ever I was stuck or pissed off Simon would come to the rescue. He still does! I'm still in touch with him. Got on great with him and still do. Top bloke! Everything took a lot longer to produce though and that was boring. You could spend days tweeking some coloured pixels because something didn't look right. Yawn!
Any interesting anecdotes that you can tell us about your time at Ocean?
I got a stripogram on my 17th birthday, I'd only been working there 6 months. Everyone was hearded into Gary's office, all the bosses from upstairs were there and I didn't have a clue! All I remember is really wanting to get the hell out of there and when I had to pull her little poem out of the top of her stockings I saw she had a shaven haven! I seem to remember Paul Owens videod it but I don't recall ever watching it. So i guess it doesn't exist anymore. Maybe that's for the best ay!
I was also interviewed in 1988 for a kids program called 'Chegwin Checks It Out' with Keith Chegwin. It was very embarrassing, I looked a bit of a geek at the time and still hadn't grown out of my teenage spots. I was shown working on 'Vindicator'. I still have it and about an hours worth of footage shot on video while they were making it. It's going on the net soon so everyone can see it. I've had the only copy of it for all these years so it's good that the other people who are in it can get to see it at last. Also, it'd be terrible if the video tape all got chewed up then it'd be gone forever.
Why was Total Recall and Toki scrapped for the Spectrum and can you think of any other big titles that never saw the light of day?
I was only involved 'Total Recall' so I have no idea about 'Toki'. Basically, while we were designing the graphics for 'Total Recall' the programmer was faffing about with a scroll routine. All I EVER saw moving of the first version of 'Total Recall' was some street graphics scrolling across the screen with a man running on the spot. And it stayed the same, week after week after week. Then the programmer stopped turning up. He said he was 'working at home'! Well *cough*, he did show up eventually, with the SAME scrolling street and running man. Ocean must have realised that the 2 people running this company, called 'Active Minds', didn't have a clue what they were doing so pulled the plug. They started again from scratch and come up with something that was infinitely better than what they would have got if they'd kept the first version in production. It was a nightmare.
I know we were going to do a home computer version of 'The Watchmen'. Alan Moore who wrote the comic lived in Northampton where I came from. I said to Gary Bracey that I see him about the town centre quite a bit and Gary said it'd be good to get Alan involved in the home computer versions. I spoke to Alan and gave him Gary's contact details but I don't know if he ever got in touch. I have no idea why the game didn't go ahead either. I seem to recall that they were making a movie of it but then the movie fell through, so I guess then that the bosses upstairs lost interest in the project.
What do you think about the Ocean Experience?
It's class. I've been in touch with Bill through MSN for a while now and when I saw what he'd done I was gobsmacked. Even more so when I saw some of the old photos of me that I'd never seen before! It was such a fun environment to work in that it's great that all the bits and photos people have got lying about from those days can all be collated and put on the net in one place for everyone to see. I thought maybe that all might be a bit boring for someone who wasn't there at the time, what with all our in-jokes. But it's not the case apparently. Bill's got piles of stuff to add to the site so it should keep growing and growing, I keep finding more stuff that I then scan in and send off to Bill. We still need to meet up so I can pass on the 'Cheggars' video. Looking forward to it because I haven't seen him for at least 13 years. All we need now is for more people who didn't work there but played the games to join the forum and start asking some questions. There's still loads of people who worked there who haven't joined yet so it'd be good to get them on board too.
Another Mark Jones worked at Ocean, was there ever any confusion with people getting the two of you mixed up?
Well we lived together for a while just after I started, two Mark Jones's living in the same flat. He started at Ocean a month before me so we were both looking for somewhere to live at the same time. Didn't get TOO confusing though, he was older than me so he was called Mark Jones 'Senior' and me 'Junior'. That's why whenever either of us is credited on a game we included our middle initial, mine being R and his K. We soon sorted out ways to differentiate between the two!
What was your occupation at Ocean and how long were you there for?
I was a computer game graphic designer, I started in January 1987 when I was 16. I worked there for 2 years full time then I worked for another company who were contracted to Ocean for a few months called 'Active Minds', that was a total nightmare but I got to see all my Ocean pals so there was some recompense.
Was there much pressure working on Wizball after the C64 version had been so well received?
No none at all because 'Wizball' on the Spectrum was more or less produced side by side with the 64 version. The 2 lads from 'Sensible Software' would come in every couple of weeks with a slightly updated version then we would sit down and have a good look at what was new and what had changed since last time then get working on any updates and try to incorporate it in to our version. But then I finished all my graphics and the 64 version was finished but the Spectrum programmer took another 3 months to finish the code. So in that period lots of the stuff I'd done was chucked out. Some of the previews and reviews of the game featured screens that didn't match up to what you got if you purchased the finished game. There was a feature in 'Your Sinclair', and all the screen shots were entirely made up of mock-ups I'd produced. The 'Sinclair User' review (where it received a 'Classic') used the same mock-ups. These screens showed what it SHOULD have looked like. So all these kids would have seen these screen shots, got the game home, and then saw it was a weedy imitation of what it should have looked like. It got a 'Crash Smash' though so I was proud of that. When I was at school 'Crash' magazine was like the bible if you owned a Spectrum so anything that got a Smash was a must get. And owning on original copy of game 'Crash' had Smashed was a great status symbol in the playground! Oh those were the days!!
What was the reason for giving the characters in Gryzor a more arcadey* look (compared to the arcade game).
Ermmm, Pass, I didn't know I had! It was an arcade game, how could the graphics be any more arcadey? I really don't know. I just played the arcade game to death (all on free play I hasten to add as were all the arcade games in 'Arcade Alley') and tried my best at interpreting the arcade machines graphics on the Spectrum. The arcade version was very colourfull and, of course, on the Spectrum with in game graphics you didn't get to use much colour. All I had to think about was where I was going to put each black dot to make up a representation of what was on the arcade version. Again, lots of frames were discarded and graphics chucked after I'd sweated blood and tears getting them to look good.
(*This question was meant to read 'a more cartoony look'. It's done now though so hey ho!)
How long did it take you to put a loading screen together?
That was what I enjoyed the most. I loved doing those loading screens. I suppose it was because you had more freedom in what you produced, you didn't have some programmer leaning over saying 'I can't scroll something THAT big!' or 'There's WAY too many frames is that animation!' And I was quite good at doing them! The loading screens are the things I'm most proud of when I look back. They normally took 3 or 4 days to produce then you'd spend another day or so tweaking bits. They were the most fun to do!
How did you find the transition between the 8-bit and 16-bit computers?
Me personally at first found it really hard. Having only worked on the Spectrum I hadn't had any experience of using colours. Anti-aliasing was alien to me. I got used to it, sort of. I got a lot of help from Simon Butler who sort of took me under his wing. When ever I was stuck or pissed off Simon would come to the rescue. He still does! I'm still in touch with him. Got on great with him and still do. Top bloke! Everything took a lot longer to produce though and that was boring. You could spend days tweeking some coloured pixels because something didn't look right. Yawn!
Any interesting anecdotes that you can tell us about your time at Ocean?
I got a stripogram on my 17th birthday, I'd only been working there 6 months. Everyone was hearded into Gary's office, all the bosses from upstairs were there and I didn't have a clue! All I remember is really wanting to get the hell out of there and when I had to pull her little poem out of the top of her stockings I saw she had a shaven haven! I seem to remember Paul Owens videod it but I don't recall ever watching it. So i guess it doesn't exist anymore. Maybe that's for the best ay!
I was also interviewed in 1988 for a kids program called 'Chegwin Checks It Out' with Keith Chegwin. It was very embarrassing, I looked a bit of a geek at the time and still hadn't grown out of my teenage spots. I was shown working on 'Vindicator'. I still have it and about an hours worth of footage shot on video while they were making it. It's going on the net soon so everyone can see it. I've had the only copy of it for all these years so it's good that the other people who are in it can get to see it at last. Also, it'd be terrible if the video tape all got chewed up then it'd be gone forever.
Why was Total Recall and Toki scrapped for the Spectrum and can you think of any other big titles that never saw the light of day?
I was only involved 'Total Recall' so I have no idea about 'Toki'. Basically, while we were designing the graphics for 'Total Recall' the programmer was faffing about with a scroll routine. All I EVER saw moving of the first version of 'Total Recall' was some street graphics scrolling across the screen with a man running on the spot. And it stayed the same, week after week after week. Then the programmer stopped turning up. He said he was 'working at home'! Well *cough*, he did show up eventually, with the SAME scrolling street and running man. Ocean must have realised that the 2 people running this company, called 'Active Minds', didn't have a clue what they were doing so pulled the plug. They started again from scratch and come up with something that was infinitely better than what they would have got if they'd kept the first version in production. It was a nightmare.
I know we were going to do a home computer version of 'The Watchmen'. Alan Moore who wrote the comic lived in Northampton where I came from. I said to Gary Bracey that I see him about the town centre quite a bit and Gary said it'd be good to get Alan involved in the home computer versions. I spoke to Alan and gave him Gary's contact details but I don't know if he ever got in touch. I have no idea why the game didn't go ahead either. I seem to recall that they were making a movie of it but then the movie fell through, so I guess then that the bosses upstairs lost interest in the project.
What do you think about the Ocean Experience?
It's class. I've been in touch with Bill through MSN for a while now and when I saw what he'd done I was gobsmacked. Even more so when I saw some of the old photos of me that I'd never seen before! It was such a fun environment to work in that it's great that all the bits and photos people have got lying about from those days can all be collated and put on the net in one place for everyone to see. I thought maybe that all might be a bit boring for someone who wasn't there at the time, what with all our in-jokes. But it's not the case apparently. Bill's got piles of stuff to add to the site so it should keep growing and growing, I keep finding more stuff that I then scan in and send off to Bill. We still need to meet up so I can pass on the 'Cheggars' video. Looking forward to it because I haven't seen him for at least 13 years. All we need now is for more people who didn't work there but played the games to join the forum and start asking some questions. There's still loads of people who worked there who haven't joined yet so it'd be good to get them on board too.
Another Mark Jones worked at Ocean, was there ever any confusion with people getting the two of you mixed up?
Well we lived together for a while just after I started, two Mark Jones's living in the same flat. He started at Ocean a month before me so we were both looking for somewhere to live at the same time. Didn't get TOO confusing though, he was older than me so he was called Mark Jones 'Senior' and me 'Junior'. That's why whenever either of us is credited on a game we included our middle initial, mine being R and his K. We soon sorted out ways to differentiate between the two!