art, illustration & design
I like how things sometimes just happen… Take this morning for example, I was just checking my Twitter feed, sipping my morning cuppa when I gazed upon a tweet from YORE COMPUTER. The tweet was showing an advert from the 11th issue of Zero Magazine 1990 – the advert was a game I had “helped out” on and I’d pretty much forgotten about it.
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Neil for his Retro Tea Breaks series last year which as a regular viewer of his superb channel was a real honour. So when Mr.RMC himself asked me if I would be interested in creating some pixel art portraits of selected guests for his new book I unreservedly said YES! – Oh and I’m in the book too! Win win!
Light boxes used to be quite chunky – a light bulb inside a box with an opaque panel to work on, simple but effective. The one I used to use generated quite a bit of heat due to the incandescent bulb and had only one light setting, how things have changed looking at these new style models.
I had the pleasure of speaking in depth about my career in the games industry with the awesome Dean from the Mean Machine Dean Podcast recorded recently with my lockdown hair and wannabe Gandalf (feeling) beard! Oh and my trusty ZZap! 64 mug courtesy of my ol’mate at Fusion RetroBook Chris Wilkins.
Before I start this post I’d like to send out a big thanks to Quang from Asobitech for putting Danny (BBC Level 23) in touch with me without whom I would not have been a guest on the show – thanks man I appreciate it! (Quang is awesome by the way check out Mao Mao Castle which I had the pleasure of playing at EGX 2019 – if you love Space Harrier you will adore this! – Check it out >>>here<<< ).
So where was I…Ah yes...BBC Level 23 – I’ve given a fair number of interviews over the years; some in print, some on the web, some as audio and a few on video, so when I was approached by BBC 3 Counties radio to feature as a guest on their Level 23 gaming show I couldn’t say no could I.
October 2019, I’m at EGX helping Matt and Mark (Branching Narrative) man their stand for their debut title “Death Trap Dungeon the Interactive Video Adventure”. Now if you follow me on Twitter you’ll know I’ve been working on this game over the past few months. One of the great things about being at one of these shows is it put faces to names and connects you with people both in and out of the industry. Good old fashioned networking I guess. 😉
One such connection was via the lovely guys at Arcade Attack (Interview here >>><<<) who came over, said hello and introduced me to the lovely chaps from a Podcast called The Waffling Taylors. We had a good chat and they asked me if I would like to be on a future episode to talk about video games along with some of the projects I’ve worked on over the years. I do like a good natter so my immediate answer was – a resounding yes.
I’m sure I’m no different to a lot of artists when it comes to my work environment. A nice hot cup of something in ones favourite mug, a comfy supportive chair, work stuff at hand when it’s needed and one of the driving forces to getting in “The Zone” is of course music!
I’ve been a regular viewer of the Retro Man Cave and the equally excellent The Back Office Show on Youtube for quite some time, so when the chief cave dweller Neil asked me if I would be interested in appearing on the Retro Island Diskettes podcast I immediately replied with a resounding YES!
After I’d accepted I then thought… would I actually be able to choose 8 tunes to take with me on the Retro Island? How wrong I was, in the end I had to shortlist my selection! It was a very close call on a couple of the tracks but I got there in the end and one thing I must say is the process really filled me with joy. I’d not listened to many of these tracks for years so hearing them again brought back memories of when I first heard them. Ahh but it wasn’t just the music, no… but memories of the people I was with, family, friends and the associated good times, all from hearing a handful of video game tunes! How cool is that? – And back in the day they said video games were a fad! Yeah…Right!
I was honoured when Chris (Wilkins) invited me to join my old Sensible mate Jon Hare to give a talk about all things Sensible Software at the recent Retro Revival 2019 event in Walsall, UK.
The thing is I’ve never actually been to a retro gaming event before so I had no idea what it was going to be like. I’d seen a few photos on line from similar events but up until this point I hadn’t attend one. Crazy right?
What a crazy situation to be in, you’re about to make a cup of tea then all of a sudden you find yourself sitting down having a Retro Tea Break whilst being interviewed about your life and your work – I say interviewed, talking with Neil is more like sitting down with a mate and having a good old chin wag.
But in all seriousness, when Neil contacted me for an interview, what could I say? His channel is awesome, a real treasure trove of quality content professionally presented and edited – a proper treat if retro computing hardware, software and history is your thing. I was trying to think of what RMC feels like to me, and I reckon a close comparison would be to that of a TV show that would be on now if computing TV shows were still on the telly. You know the sort of shows that you kind of remember forever. For someone like me growing up in the 70s and 80s it would be like remembering BBC Micro Live especially that episode where we all got to see a glimpse of the mighty Amiga A1000.
