R.I.P Steve Bak

[Lost Dragon]

I was very sad to hear this morning of the passing of Mr Steve Bak, 1 half of the Atari ST "Dream Team" as he and Pete Lyon became known.

 

From Mobygames:

 

Developer Biography

Steve Bak, a former miner, is one of the best-known British programmers of the mid-80s, renowned for technical breakthrough feats on the Atari ST. A skilled programmer more than a good designer, Bak produced dozens of games and ports that his contemporary Jez San of Argonaut Software aptly described as »impressive, but a bit tiresome because theyre all the same.«

 

Born April 4th, 1952 in Nottingham, England, Steve Bak spent 16 years working as a miner before he started programming at the age of 31. When a mining accident cost him the tip of a finger, Bak invested the damages in a Acorn Atom computer, a fairly popular home computer in the UK. Due to a lack of games for the Atom, Bak taught himself to program in Assembler to create his own software. Bak began publishing games with Microdeal.

 

Bak moved on to the Dragon 32 computer, where he rose to small fame with the Cuthbert series of games. They were more or less blatant rip-offs of coin-op classics such as Defender or Space Panic. Eventually one of them, Cuthbert in the Jungle, got pulled from the shelves when Activision noticed that it was virtually identical to their Pitfall.

 

When Atari announced their upcoming Atari ST system, Bak bought a Sinclair QL to practice programming the 68000 processor. The day the first ST developer kits arrived in the UK, Bak drove to the Atari headquarter to get one. Allegedly, Bak was the first UK programmer who owned an Atari ST. He was definitely the first one to publish a game for the system: Baks port of his C-64 game Lands of Havoc was released six weeks before the regular Atari ST hit the shops.

 

On the Atari ST, Bak quickly earned a reputation for technical brilliancy. In reaction to critical claims that smooth scrolling was impossible on the ST due to its lack of hardware scrolling, Bak created the shootem-up Goldrunner, whose graphics an impressed contemporary critic described as »ultra smooth and mind bogglingly fast«. Goldrunner featured music by the decades most popular game composer, Rob Hubbard, who contributed a three-voice rendition of the Human Race theme, originally created for the C-64. It was Hubbards first ST piece. Goldrunner featured digitized voice in the title screen, too.

 

At the time, Steve Bak had teamed up with graphics artist Pete Lyon. After their joint work on Goldrunner and Karate Kid 2, they were dubbed »The Dream Team« by the British ST press.

 

Goldrunner didnt convince all ST critics because it only scrolled four of the systems 16 colors, and only vertically. Bak went on to write Return to Genesis in nine months, a side-scrolling shootem up that (even though it fills only half the screen) uses all 16 colors and features two-tear parallax scrolling. This was unheard of on the Atari ST at the time.

 

After a couple of minor games, Steve Bak teamed up with Chris Sorrell to create James Pond for Millennium. It spawned a series of games which can likely be seen as Baks biggest successes.

 

My thoughts and condolences go to the family at this time.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Sad to hear it . He was one of best ST game programmers for sure. Knew how to pull max from somehow limited HW .

[Lost Dragon]

It's always very sad to hear the passing of someone who's work you really appreciated.

 

I'm not a FB or Twitter user myself, so i usually hear the news via friends of mine some time after it's been annouced on Social Media.

 

 

Of all the titles Steve coded:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-st-bak-steve_team_2055_S_G.html

 

Leatherneck, Dogs Of War and StarRay stood out the most.

 

The "Dream Team" never seemed to get much coverage post commercial ST era and i would of loved to of seen Steve talk about the Sinclair QL era of games coding, but maybe he was a very private person and declined interviews?.

 

He made my time as an ST owner that little bit more special and i would just like to pay tribute to him.

 

Nice to see fellow appreciation from other users.

[mattsoft]

Wow, he was responsible for so many great games. Loved Goldrunner, Leathernecks and Karate Kid 2. I even did a review of Karate Kid 2 for our local Atari Computer Enthusiasts group when I was 14. RIP Steve Bak and thanks for all the wonderful games.

[+DarkLord]

Loved Leatherneck as well - especially the multi-player option.

 

R.I.P friend!

[mjsaville]

Sad times, he will be greatly missed... Still very young to die in this day and modern age...

 

MJ

[Lost Dragon]

I've been chatting to someone from the Amiga community of late and the sad news of Steve's passing came up.

 

He'd apparently been trying to reach Steve for some time to try and get some further insights on Amiga Fright Night,but apparently Steve was very difficult to get hold of.

 

So i guess that's why we sadly never saw him featured in the mainstream press in the manner we have so many other coders and artists etc.

 

A crying Shame as there was so much we could of learnt :'(

[Cat Bak]

On 2/13/2019 at 10:09 AM, Lost Dragon said:

I've been chatting to someone from the Amiga community of late and the sad news of Steve's passing came up.

 

He'd apparently been trying to reach Steve for some time to try and get some further insights on Amiga Fright Night,but apparently Steve was very difficult to get hold of.

 

So i guess that's why we sadly never saw him featured in the mainstream press in the manner we have so many other coders and artists etc.

 

A crying Shame as there was so much we could of learnt :'(

He was my Dad and thank you for those kind words.

Yes, he was pretty introverted and never really mentioned work. The idea of making any public appearance would've horrified him :-) He also hated his photo taking!

What I can tell you about his job in the 80s/90s is that he worked 12-16hrs per day, in an office room upstairs, drank bicardi and loved his kids (though he never said it). He taught Phil - his eldest - programming and would spend his little free time taking me and my little sister out anywhere that was fun. His 'nippers'.

 

I miss you, Daddy-Bak. See you in that next place 🙏💜🐾

 

Cat Bak (Kitti-Kat)