Eldritch The Cat Mk II : 1989 - 1990
Part 2 of the Eldritch The Cat story. Part 1 is here, part 3 is here. During the development of Projectyle, Marc & I wanted to kick off another game to increase our studio’s cash flow and …
Nodes of Yesod : ZX Spectrum Next : Update #4
A Big Change Of Plans! Astro Charlie has a close encounter If you have read my previous updates, you’ll know that Nodes of Yesod for the Speccy Next is based on a C codebase. I’ve …
Eldritch The Cat Mk I : 1988 - 1989
Steve Wetherill and Marc Wilding, the Eldritch Cats Eldritch The Cat Mark I After Odin, Marc Wilding contracted with Ocean to create the Amiga & Atari ST versions of the Army Moves game. Next, he …
Nodes of Yesod : ZX Spectrum Next : Update #3
In this third developer diary update for Nodes of Yesod: ZX Spectrum Next, I’ll talk about progress on the coding and tools side, and give a preview of progress on the art side. Coding Update In …
Denton Designs : 1988
“Colin, let’s take a day off from Denton Designs, get the train from Liverpool to London and clear up this Crosswize situation with Telecomsoft, face to face.” Crosswize was late. It …
Firebird : 1987
Cockneys Die!!! After Odin’s demise, I was left with decisions to make. After months of running on financial fumes to complete Sidewize, I had no significant monetary reserves; not to put too …
Chasing the raster on the ZX Spectrum in Sidewize
How did Sidewize accomplish the “raster-chasing” required to update the display 50 times per second? Read on! [note: jump down to The Results to see the videos, otherwise let’s dive …
Nodes of Yesod : ZX Spectrum Next : Update #2
This week I posted a poll on Twitter to find out which of the three presented graphics styles people would prefer for Astro Charlie, the protagonist in Nodes of Yesod, on the ZX Spectrum Next. The …
Nodes of Yesod : ZX Spectrum Next : Update #1
A ZX Spectrum Next, in its natural habitat A quick progress report on Nodes of Yesod for the Spectrum Next. The good news - I worked on it! I managed to spend a couple of evenings last week working …
Nodes of Yesod for the ZX Spectrum Next
The ZX Spectrum Next in the flesh! How it started In May of 2017, I committed to deliver a remade version of Nodes of Yesod as part of a £620K stretch goal for the successful (the campaign raised …
Odin Computer Graphics Part One : 1985
“Why don’t you come over to the Odin office and see what we’re up to with this Nodes of Yesod game?” said Stoo Fotheringham. And so I did. Nodes of Yesod | | “Welcome to …
Infinite Blocky Runner: A Game in 256 Bytes!
Here’s my entry for a Z80 coding competition I entered just a few years ago, in 2016! The challenge was to come up with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum game in 256 bytes without using ROM routines, so the …
Q&A with Retrogamer Magazine on Manic Miner Amstrad CPC
Manic Miner Amstrad CPC - Title Screen A quick follow-up to my Software Projects post - in January 2021 Retrogamer Magazine published a brief Q&A I did with Graeme Mason about Manic Miner on the …
Interview with El Mundo Del Spectrum circa 2012
Nodes of Yesod on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum ca. 1985 This is an interview I did with El Mundo Del Spectrum (original link in the Spanish language) in 2012. The interview mostly discusses my early …
Heart of Yesod: A Game That Wasn't
Eldritch The Cat team circa 1990. Left to right, Dave Collins, Mark McCubbin, Stefan Walker, Marc Wilding, and Steve Wetherill. Photo courtesy of Marc Wilding. Back in 2015, Frank Gasking approached …
EA Air Hockey: Creating the In-Game Graphics
As noted in the earlier post on EA Air Hockey, all in-game graphics were created in 3DS Max as 3D models and then rendered into 2D images and sprites. This eased the creation of game graphics and …
EA Air Hockey: Designing a One-Button Mobile Game
Note: This article was originally published in two parts on Gamasutra (now Game Developer) in 2007 and may be found here. Though I have made various edits for clarity and grammar, I’ve …
The Making of Heartland for the Sinclair Spectrum
Note: this article expands upon material I provided for the RetroGamer #129 article on Heartland. In 1986, Odin Computer Graphics Ltd published the game “Heartland” for 8-bit platforms such as the …