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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 4448
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 12/09/2004
Subject: Retro Gamer #7: The MegaTree / Matthew Smith interview
Issue Seven of Retro Gamer magazine has two items of interest:
1. The data from the MegaTree development-disks on the cover CD!
2. A big interview with Matthew Smith from the CGE UK convention in
July, which reveals several facts that I didn't already know about
MM/JSW. Here are the answers I found most intriguing:
On Mega-tree...
"You can actually see the core idea of the game in a later game
called Nebulus. It was a platformer with some extra ideas. We should
get Mark [Wilding], because Stuart [Fotheringham]'s concepts in
Retro Gamer magazine ring bells, but it isn't quite exactly what I
thought we were trying to do. We should get together and find out
what we would have ended up with if the plug hadn't been pulled. One
question I had to ask myself was how come I'm a director of the
company and I'm letting my own projects get cancelled? I used to get
very angry about that, but life goes on. I would like to finish Mega-
tree one day, but I'd like to do that with Stuart and Mark, if we
could get together. It wouldn't be right for one of us to finish it."
On programming a new Spectrum game...
"I'd like to, but I haven't got any immediate plans and it would
have to fit in. And I'm not tooled up to be honest - I haven't got a
good Z80 assembler installed and I don't actually have a Spectrum at
the moment. But it would take me about eight weeks to do it."
On Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy remakes...
"I personally don't have a problem with it at all. But there are
legal complications with the copyright law as it stands, where you
are either forced to protect something fully or abandon it. So if I
start actively encouraging modding then it is in a sense giving up
any rights I have to it. But with the case of Jet Set Willy it's
very complicated, and nobody should be worried if they're making
mods. I wish them luck basically."
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
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