Cobra
Ocean · 1986
Shoot 'em Up
Retro
Commodore 64 games
I started in the tech industry in the late 1980s at the age of 17, joining Ocean and Imagine Software as a games programmer. Both were Manchester / Liverpool powerhouses of the British 8-bit scene, converting arcade hits and movie licences for the Commodore 64.
We were all self-taught. There was no AI, no internet, no Stack Overflow, no YouTube — just a manual, a lot of trial and error, and learning to write assembly language / machine code directly on the hardware. A complete game was written by a single developer, working alongside shared graphics and a shared musician.
Below are some of the C64 titles I'm credited with, in order of release. Anyone remember loading games from cassette tapes — 5 minutes of loading screens and loading music before you could even play?
Multiplayer? Yes — your mates could watch you play while trying to wrestle the joystick off you.
Army Moves
Imagine · 1987
Shoot 'em Up
Platoon
Ocean · 1987
Shoot 'em Up
Rambo III
Ocean · 1988
Shoot 'em Up
Typhoon
Imagine · 1988
Shoot 'em Up (3D)
Batman
Ocean · 1989
Arcade
Robocop
Ocean · 1989
Shoot 'em Up
Renegade III: The Final Chapter
Imagine · 1989
Beat 'em Up
S.T.U.N. Runner
Domark · 1990
Racing
Dream Raider
Technodream Software · 1991
Platformer
Mobile
Mobile games
Fast forward a couple of decades to around 2010 and I decided I wanted to make mobile games. The best available tool for creating cross-platform games was Corona using the Lua language. I wrote and published two games for Android and iOS on the app stores as Jatzan jatzan.com.
WordBlitz
Jatzan · 2011
A free, fast-paced word game for iOS & Android. Tap the letters as they drop to spell words — longer words and rarer letters like Z score more. You get three minutes per round, with an online leaderboard to compare scores around the world.
Monty and the Mugwumps
Jatzan · 2011
An arcade-puzzle game where Monty rescues his family from the Mugwumps. Drag Monty through the lair, tap to jump the laser beams and grab power-up pills across 80 levels — the first 30 are free in "The Story Begins".
Modern
Unity 3D games
And then in probably 2015 or so I picked up Unity 3D and C#, writing a few more games in my spare time. These are playable web demos — most are half-finished and need proper graphics, though Letter Pressure and Kivo Colours were released on iOS & Android.
Ball Break
Unity 3D · c. 2010
Break the blocks with the ball. Aim with your mouse and hold to fire, destroy all the blocks before they reach you, and watch out for bombs dropping.
Play demoDemo
Aim & Fire
Unity 3D · c. 2010
Knock off the creatures — the platforms can move, rotate and jump, so you need to time your shots.
Play demoDemo
Knock Thru
Unity 3D · c. 2010
Guide the ball through, avoiding any red objects. The first 7 levels illustrate some of the differences.
Play demoDemo
Tower Defence
Unity 3D · c. 2010
Drag the towers on from the buttons at the bottom. Largely working but in need of proper graphics.
Play demoDemo
Letter Pressure
Unity 3D · c. 2010
Make words from falling blocks. Released (but not promoted) on iOS & Android.
Play demoReleased
Kivo Colours
Unity 3D · c. 2010
A Mastermind clone. Released (but not promoted) on iOS & Android.
Play demoReleased