As Daniel Filner, who ported classic LucasArts titles like LOOM and Indiana Jones to the Amiga, told me, "At 17 or 18 my 'dream job' list was something like this: 1) Superhero, 2) X-Wing pilot or any other kind of astronaut, 3) Video game programmer." Advertisementĭespite the long hours and low pay, there were still plenty of people eager to jump into Amiga game development, and many who considered themselves lucky when they got to be part of it. Miha Rinne, who worked at Terramarque, told me how his supervisor demanded that he write down all the time he spent writing notes, doing backups, and even going to the washroom! He later took his experiences in the game industry and made a comic out of it, which can be found here. Managers would call up contract workers at 2 AM to make sure they were still working. When a studio was in desperate need of cash, developers and artists would work 16-hour days and beyond. Clashing egos and arguments, fights over poorly-worded or non-existent contracts, and disappearing funds would stretch friendships to the breaking point. Most teams never made it past their second game. These teams, often staffed with green developers, were dangerously unstable. Some of the larger development firms, like Ocean, had a stable of in-house developers, but for most games the work was contracted out to a third-party team. In many cases it was a matter of people fresh out of their teens hiring their peers-people they knew from high school or from computer clubs. Life in the trenchesįinding these people wasn't easy. Finally, new management positions were needed to oversee the work of these creative people. The larger size and complexity of the games required that someone other than the programmers be asked to test the games before they were released.
The four-channel sampled sound chip cried out for musicians to make it sing. The Amiga's rich, 4096-color palette demanded people who were skilled artistically to create the sprites and backgrounds. The success of the Commodore 64 (and on the other side of the pond, the Sinclair Spectrum) meant that more money was available for computer game development, and it was a good thing too, as the more powerful 16-bit machines were starting to seriously test the limits of a one-man development team.įor the first time, specialized careers were starting to emerge in game development. Even the younger and smaller computer game industry had moved far beyond Roberta Williams putting floppy disks into ziplock bags and answering phone calls from players in her kitchen. Long gone were the days where a lone coder would stay up all night in his basement for six weeks and bang out a hit for the Atari 2600. The Amiga was born a game machine, but it entered a world where the video game industry was well-established and changing rapidly. Unfortunately, it was not possible to include everyone's stories in the article, but I did make an honest attempt to reply to every email I received. When opponents make the same word, it is Zapped from both lists.Author's note: I want to personally thank the literally hundreds of people who replied to my call for stories from Amiga game developers, without whom this article would not have been possible. A word game where you race your computer opponent to create the most unique words from a given set of letters. WordZap(R) - The Game Everyone Loves! Better than Boggle - Faster than Scrabble "My wife just loves your game" - Peter "Is there a cure for WordZap addiction? Love this game!" - Jena If you like Boggle or Scrabble, you will love Classic WordZap. Many people find the game both stimulating and relaxing and get in the habit of playing every day. The play provides a mix of speed skills in some rounds and vocabulary skills in others. The computer's play adapts to your skill to keep the game a constant challenge. The original version sold over a million copies. The game is a re-mastered version of the game that was widely distributed in Microsoft's Entertainment Pack III. When opponents make the same word, it is zapped from both lists. Classic WordZap(R) 2.10 is a Freeware word game where you race your computer opponent to create the most unique words from a given set of letters.
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