Leonard Tramiel Exclusive Text Interview - Great Commodore & Atari Insight

[Lostdragon]

On 6/3/2021 at 3:09 PM, LordKraken said:

I guess the story is not over, in fact it's just the beginning... welcome to the world of BS to get investor money:

https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/industry-veterans-found-new-game-studio-athena-worlds-promising-video-games-with-cinema-quality-visuals/

I have no desire to drag Nolan Bushnell's name through the dirt, but those of us who've followed Nolan for a number of years, can all too well remember many of the next big things, Nolan endorsed or was promising.. 

 

Home Robots.. TOPO's

 

 

The Commodore CDTV

 

Affordable Home V. R.. 

 

And as for Jane:

 

 

Right so big P. R release at the time for Springer Spaniel software and Project Artemis, the Zelda style RPG planned for Jaguar, Playstation, Saturn etc... 

 

Never got beyond the concept stage. 

 

 

Perceptions and 3DO M2 Power Crystal, the supposed Zelda 64 Killer according to Jane, Perceptions went bankrupt before the plug was even pulled on the M2 (we have the legal documentation showing this) 

 

 

So much for Power Crystal, Jester and all the other titles Jane, as Andrew, told Edge and Next Generation, they had in development.. 

 

Then Jane rocks up on the Mastercast TV interview, Power Crystal is back baby, huge, hush hush publisher funding it for release on current systems... 

 

 

Nothing ever seen of it, period. 

 

 

 

Then Jane's on Twitter hyping the AVP spiritual successor, planned for Jaguar, PC and Mobile. 

 

Wants big publisher backing might go the Kickstarter route.. 

 

 

Now kicked into the long grass as it's all about Athena baby... ?

[Lostdragon]

On 3/9/2021 at 4:53 PM, youxia said:

Dunno, is there one?

https://www.icemark.com/blog/archives/2018/04/16/midwinter-sid-meier-and-the-chinese-restaurant/

 

 

The problem is when you let your Ancedotal stories get the better of you as Jane has and start bringing highly respected industry figures, who have sadly passed and have no way of putting the record straight, into your interviews, just to try and get investor support for your future project. 

 

 

It upsets friends, family and associates of the likes of the late Mike Singleton and that's why many are coming forward to speak out. 

 

 

Jane has since amended the entire MicroProse association to him working on misc Amiga Flight Sims... 

 

 

 

Of course Jane can't say what roles on what titles... 

 

 

That'd be because these were the actual UK Team MicroProse set up to handle ST and Amiga Flight Sims:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Lostdragon

[Lostdragon]

The last lot of updates. 

 

Archive. Org have suddenly pulled the very issues of Edge and Next Generation Magazines where Power Crystal is Previewed (a last ditch attempt by Perceptions to attract publisher support for it) and the issue of Next Generation magazine where in the letters page a reader enquired why the actual in-game shots of Power Crystal looked so mediocre and the magazine pointed out the game was no Zelda 64 Killer, but then Perceptions were no Nintendo in terms of resources... 

 

 

Very curious.. ?

 

 

Sam Tramiel has publicly shot down the claims Jane made of being a VP of Atari aged 19 (Jane also claims age 20) and the Coffee Machine Ancedote told in the Mastercast TV interview:

 

 

Got Called out (@IllCallYallOut) Tweeted: Here's some interesting news straight out the horses mouth dare I say?

Proof Whittakers a fraud 

@AthenaWorlds
@WhittakerGames

#Scam #Atari #GameDev #AvP  #RETROGAMING #Fraud #AthenaWorlds https://t.co/iiotnX8W4h

 

 

And RainbirdRich, big playtester at Firebird/Rainbird has no recollection of any Andrew Whittaker, Rich playtested among many other titles, ST Rainbow Islands, a title Jane claims to of written, taking credit for work of Andrew Braybrook and his team. 

 

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/munwondering/with_replies

 

As for the conversion of Morpheus Jane takes credit for... 

 

 

We have found French Press speculating it would be converted, this joins the UK Press example, but game remained a C64 exclusive, though it is enhanced on the C128. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Lostdragon
Phone Autocorrect issue

[Lostdragon]

On 6/3/2021 at 3:09 PM, LordKraken said:

I guess the story is not over, in fact it's just the beginning... welcome to the world of BS to get investor money:

https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/industry-veterans-found-new-game-studio-athena-worlds-promising-video-games-with-cinema-quality-visuals/

Jane and Nolan make for very suitable bedfellows when you look back at their careers. 

 

 

Both love to appear in the press to try and capture the imagination with their latest grand venture and at times it's little more than the old, failed venture, reborn. 

 

 

Jane always wanted to do that ambitious RPG title, Project Artemis concept being an overhead Zelda type affair, Power Crystal initially being designed to take on Zelda 64,then Jane presented it in later press interviews as something more akin to The Elder Scrolls style games, the Oblivion of it's day... 

 

 

Nolan twice saw Home Robotics as the future, Petsters anyone? 

 

 

And both always have well rehearsed answers when put on the spot, when quizzed why exactly the previous venture failed. 

 

 

Jane blames Panasonic for pulling the plug on the M2 and thus killing Power Crystal which in Jane's view was 100% finished, reviewed, scored 100%.

 

 

Sorry Jane, your own Perceptions Team point out game was months away from completion, the court documents we have show Perceptions went bankrupt months before Panasonic killed the M2 Project.. 

 

 

 

Here's Nolan detailing why we should ignore his previous failure in venture of Home Robotics :

 

 

Q: Why didn’t your robot, Androbot, introduced in 1983, sell well? A: We were unable to hit the price point and the function that we wished at the same time. They were selling for $2,000, and they didn’t do much. They talked and ran around the house. But we could never get them to run around the house without getting stuck in a corner. They were . . . too dumb and too big. In this day of litigation, they posed what I call the Ming Vase Problem: You’ve got this dumb robot running around the house, and it knocks over the Ming vase. 

 

 

 

I can remember Nolan announcing he'd soon be bringing affordable, consumer VR technology to the market, when VR first burst onto the scene, nothing ever came of it, yet Nolan returned to VR some years ago it seens:

 

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161012005453/en/Founder-of-Atari-Nolan-Bushnell-Launches-Industrial-Grade-Virtual-Reality-Platform-Built-For-Business---Modal-VR™

 

A few years ago, Nolan appeared to think the future lay with voice-controlled games and Alexa (Amazon) :

 

 

https://www.africanews.com/2019/08/02/co-founder-of-atari-nolan-bushnell-launches-new-game/

 

 

 

Just before this Athena announcement, we had this:

 

 

 

https://www.replaymag.com/new-nolan-bushnell-game-crowdsourced-on-kickstarter/

 

 

Until Athena actually delivers a game on any platform, it's just another set of P. R exercises. 

 

Jane tweeting about coming out of a meeting with such a talented group isn't going to change that situation. 

 

 

Jane would be better answering questions put to him on Twitter asking how the AVP A. I routines worked, having promised an answer. 

 

 

Giving specific examples of roles of specific Amiga Flight Sims for MicroProse, which World Of Warcraft and The Sims titles he was involved in, as nobody from Maxis or Blizzard has ever heard of any Andrew or Jane whittaker. 

 

 

And issuing apologies to likes of:

 

 

Steve Turner and Andrew Braybrook at Graftgold.. 

 

Family and Friends of Mike Singleton 

 

 

Jeff Minter and John Carmack 

 

Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Mier

 

 

Family and Friends of the late Mike Singleton 

 

Patrick Ketchum and Mike Dawson of Cyberdreams 

 

 

The Goldeneye team from Rare... 

 

 

For outrageous claims made in interviews over the years. 

Edited July 18, 2021 by Lostdragon

[Lostdragon]

Wild Bill Stealey (MicroProse) joined the long list of industry figures disputing Jane's claims, Jane having told Andrew Rosa that Wild Bill and Sid Mier headhunted the then Andrew Whittaker, to make games for them. 

 

Jane recently stated involvement on misc Amiga Flight Sims for MicroProse.. 

 

 

Wild Bill's public response :

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/bluesockstudio/photos/d41d8cd9/557222485651959/

Bill has also described Jane's stories as way over the top. 

[Lostdragon]

To close.. 

 

A recap for any thinking of granting Jane Whittaker an interview in the future. 

 

 

Please take note of the facts, before giving this individual yet another platform. 

 

 

Stellar Trader Sinclair ZX81 was never advertised in any of the UK Publications Jane stated. 

 

 

Jane was never approached by H. R GIGER to make a game based on his art, Jane never designed or coded anything for the title, Jane was never part of any Cyberdreams team,it was Mike Dawson who was digitized for the role of the main character and voiced the main character on the CD Versions. 

 

Paul Drzewiecki was the only person who worked with Giger on the title in Zurich. 

 

Giger does appear to have changed his views on Dark Seed over the years, describing it as beautiful at the time (interview in CD32 Gamer magazine), then saying he couldn't remember much of it, had little involvement with it, wasn't that pleased with it, when interviewed by

IMAGINEFX  magazine, July 2008.

 

Thanks to Ex-Mirage Staff, we know Jane merely spent a few days playtesting the Amiga version. 

 

 

Jane was falsely credited as coder in C. U Magazine. 

 

3DO M2 Power Crystal was many months away from being finishes, as confirmed by:

 

Andy Noble

John Duncan-Wells

David Trolley. 

 

 

Jane's Graftgold career claims are outrageous and Jane takes credit for work by likes of:

 

Andrew Braybrook 

John Cumming

Jason Page

Steve Turner

James Hutchby

Kevin Chamberlain 

Steve Turner 

 

 

Jane was never a Vice President of Atari before the age of 20 or at any age. 

 

Sam Tramiel and many other Senior Atari Corp Staff have kindly confirmed this. 

 

Leonard Tramiel casts doubt on the stories of Andrew Whittaker living with Tramiel family in Sunnyvale.. 

 

We believe the Tramiel family, whilst owning 4 homes, only had offices in Sunnyvale 

 

 

Jeff Minter has shot d Sunnyvale claims about Jane coding AVP in his presence and John Carmack.

 

 

Friends and family of the late Mike Singleton, including Chris Wild and David John Gautrey have shot down Jane's Midwinter Chinese Restaurant claims.. 

 

 

Jane's only involvement was data entry, not level design, on Ashes Of The Empire, which is NOT Midwinter III, but a stand alone title. 

 

As has Wild Bill Stealey with Jane's talk of working with him and Sid Mier, these 2 head hunting Jane to make games for UK arm of MicroProse. 

 

 

 

Jane had no involvement with the Goldeneye N64 team at RARE 

 

 

PC AVP at Rebellion 

 

 

Numerous senior Bullfrog staff, including Shintaro Kanaoya, have confirmed Jane had zero involvement with either Dungeon Keeper or Dungeon Keeper II. 

 

The Populous III:The Beginning credit is a generic special thanks, E. A put in regarding anyone on specific boards at the time. 

 

 

Jane was a Rebellion employee, when team expanded, Jane's role was that of being part of a team of 3 coders, Whittaker, Beaton and Pooler. 

 

Whittaker handled the A. I routines, which are far less advanced than Whittaker makes out now and wrote the in-game computer code. 

 

None of the above A. I routines found their way into PC AVP or N64 Goldeneye, both written from scratch by more talented coders. 

 

 

Jane had no role on the Jaguar hardware design or software libraries... 

 

That's the meat, the various ancedotes about AVP dropped features, Easter Eggs, Sam Tramiel Coffee machines.. cash bonus pay outs, keys to sports cars, smashing only Prototype STE, gunshots outside hotel rooms are just gum flapping exercises. 

 

 

It's taking credit for others work that immediately rules Jane out for someone credible you'd want to be associated with. 

[Yak]

Regarding the market penetration of T2K, I don't have any concrete figures. I was told various things after the fact, that there were more copies of T2K out there than Cybermorph which was the packin for a long time, that it did 95% market penetration. No idea if any of that was true, and I didn't end up getting any royalties from it anyway so it doesn't really matter.

 

It was a game that was considered decent and sold well in relation to the total number of Jags sold, which alas wasn't huge; I'm happy enough that it did well and is fondly remembered.

 

I really don't understand why that guy constantly bangs on about AvP though. This stuff was nearly 30 years ago. We were perhaps both involved in making decent games for a somewhat obscure system, that was cool, but it *was* nearly 30 years ago, everybody involved has moved on and done a bunch more stuff since then, why remain so fixated on one incident? Sure I've done a couple of sequels since then but I've done a bunch more stuff since then too and I think people would rightly think me a bit weird if in this day and age I spent a load of time banging on about doing T2K on the Jag and how I was fantastic mates with Leonard Tramiel or whatever. I don't *want* to be just "that T2K guy", I have other stuff to do.

 

Move *on* FFS. Release some stuff. Do something that isn't just announcements of joining boards of directors or somehow extracting "endorsements" from people. Releasing stuff shows you're good at what you claim you are good at. Getting "endorsements" just proves you're good at getting people to say nice things about you.

 

 

[JagChris]

Because he's the greatest! He's revolutionized gaming! 

What's the matter with you people?!

 

?

[Lostdragon]

5 hours ago, Yak said:

 market penetration of T2K, I don't have any concrete figures. I was told various things after the fact, that there were more copies of T2K out there than Cybermorph which was the packin for a long time, that it did 95% market . No idea if any of that was true, and I didn't end up getting any royalties from it anyway so it doesn't really matter.

 

It was a game that was considered decent and sold well in relation to the total number of Jags sold, which alas wasn't huge; I'm happy enough that it did well and is fondly remembered.

 

I really don't understand why that guy constantly bangs on about AvP though. This stuff was nearly 30 years ago. We were perhaps both involved in making decent games for a somewhat obscure system, that was cool, but it *was* nearly 30 years ago, everybody involved has moved on and done a bunch more stuff since then, why remain so fixated on one incident? Sure I've done a couple of sequels since then but I've done a bunch more stuff since then too and I think people would rightly think me a bit weird if in this day and age I spent a load of time banging on about doing T2K on the Jag and how I was fantastic mates with Leonard Tramiel or whatever. I don't *want* to be just "that T2K guy", I have other stuff to do.

 

Move *on* FFS. Release some stuff. Do something that isn't just announcements of joining boards of directors or somehow extracting "endorsements" from people. Releasing stuff shows you're good at what you claim you are good at. Getting "endorsements" just proves you're good at getting people to say nice things about you.

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply Jeff, it's really appreciated. 

 

Thought i would ask about Tempest sales as Jason Kingsley loves to bring up claims of AVP having highest Jaguar attachment ratio and he doesn't seem to have any confirmed sources, so did wonder if Atari gave you guys any actual certified sales numbers. 

 

 

 

Talking of Kingsley, we have Dan McNamee, lead tester of AVP, confirming it was the Atari team under Purple Hampton that came up with concept of 3 seperste campaigns for AVP, so why Kingsley constantly tells people the idea was his, is beyond me. 

 

Nobody wants to question Kingsley as he has an OBE... 

 

 

As for Whittaker and AVP.. 

 

I think that's very easy to explain. 

 

 

What other high profile commercial title has he got to his name, that nobody can dispute he actually did work on? 

 

The fact the game has fond memories for many is simply a bonus for him on the likes of Twitter. 

 

 

His lies about working with H R GIGER on Dark Seed, Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Mier at MicroProse have been laid bare, Steve Turner has destroyed Whittaker over Graftgold claims... 

 

 

AVP was his single moment of glory and even that came at a high price, by his own admission, his A. I routines literally killed the frame rate of AVP. 

 

 

Jane simply cannot accept the fact he's been but one individual doing a role on talented teams involved on big name projects. 

 

 

Mere data entry of Ashes Of The Empire.. a niche title at best, many in the USA unfamiliar with Midwinter, let alone spiritual successors.. 

 

Mere playtesting over a few days on Amiga Dark Seed. 

 

Heading up a team that failed to salvage a dumbed down version of Bullfrogs PC title The Indestructibles.. 

 

 

Some unspecified role on Playstation 2 Theme Park World, on a board thanked for Populous III:The Beginning. 

 

 

Jane's own ventures have simply been utter disasters.. 

 

Project Artemis never getting anywhere. 

 

 

Power Crystal seeing Perceptions going bankrupt months before the plug was pulled on the M2. 

 

 

Jane wants to be seen as THE MAIN PLAYER behind X, Y and Z. 

 

Cue the absolute fantasy bullshit.. 

 

 

Over 30 titles for Graftgold.. You were sacked after work on just one title as you couldn't code Jane.. 

 

 

Personal friends with Giger... 

 

 

Huge cash bonuses and keys to sports cars from Sam Tramiel for work on AVP, AVP was your game, you were lead coder... 

 

Funny then how talk has it, when Sam Tramiel met you as part of the AVP team, it was obvious it was the first time you'd met... 

 

 

Mock wargaming battles in Chinese Restaurants with industry greats, never happened. 

 

 

Vague name dropping of A. I work on The Sims and World Of Warcraft. 

 

 

Go on then, name a specific title from either franchise Jane. 

 

 

It's because people like Retrogamer Magazine, Gamestm Magazine and now YT channels like Haptic, podcasters like The Waffling Taylor's, keep giving him a voice, block comments that expose Jane's lies, Whittaker will continue to have a voice. 

 

 

Jane actually isn't that good at getting endorsements, as Sam Tramiel and Wild Bill Stealey have come out to counter what Jane has used from them. 

[Lostdragon]

Wanted to keep this statement Seperate. 

 

Shinaro Kanaoya, joined Bullfrog in March 1996 left to join E. A Japan in 1999,worked on Dungeon Keeper for the last 6 months and Dungeon Keeper II  from beginning to end.... 

 

Had a brief stint on The Indestructibles... 

 

 

Has confirmed Jane Whittaker had NO INVOLVEMENT in any shape or form with Dungeon Keeper 2 and this has been corroborated by other Dungeon Keeper II staff. 

 

 

 

Claims like this Jane has made are B. S of the highest order:

 

 

Andrew Whittaker

9/2/98

 

Hi Eric,

Well AVP was I think game number 20 or so that I had done I am currently
working as part of the senior management team at Bullfrog/EA helping bring a
creative vision to the product line. So I guess products to look out for are
Dungeon Keeper2, Theme Park2, Populous The Beginning and Indestructibles...

 

Edited July 31, 2021 by Lostdragon

[Lostdragon]

14 hours ago, Yak said:

Regarding the market penetration of T2K, I don't have any concrete figures. I was told various things after the fact, that there were more copies of T2K out there than Cybermorph which was the packin for a long time, that it did 95% market penetration. No idea if any of that was true, and I didn't end up getting any royalties from it anyway so it doesn't really matter.

 

It was a game that was considered decent and sold well in relation to the total number of Jags sold, which alas wasn't huge; I'm happy enough that it did well and is fondly remembered.

 

I really don't understand why that guy constantly bangs on about AvP though. This stuff was nearly 30 years ago. We were perhaps both involved in making decent games for a somewhat obscure system, that was cool, but it *was* nearly 30 years ago, everybody involved has moved on and done a bunch more stuff since then, why remain so fixated on one incident? Sure I've done a couple of sequels since then but I've done a bunch more stuff since then too and I think people would rightly think me a bit weird if in this day and age I spent a load of time banging on about doing T2K on the Jag and how I was fantastic mates with Leonard Tramiel or whatever. I don't *want* to be just "that T2K guy", I have other stuff to do.

 

Move *on* FFS. Release some stuff. Do something that isn't just announcements of joining boards of directors or somehow extracting "endorsements" from people. Releasing stuff shows you're good at what you claim you are good at. Getting "endorsements" just proves you're good at getting people to say nice things about you.

 

 

Sorry to trouble you with this one Jeff, but.. 

 

It's always been my understanding your leaping Antelope demo, shown in the UK Press by magazines like The One and Games-X when covering the Atari Panther, was basically your test routines for the planet surface e/scrolling sections of your planned Star Raiders-esq title. 

 

Yet it's been claimed the demo was called Antelope Attack and was the basis for what became Llamazap on the Atari Falcon. 

 

It'd be nice to know which version is the more factual. 

[Yak]

Yeah the antelope demo was something I put together to get a rough idea what I could get out of the OLP, I just chucked in a simple scrolling landscape then as many bouncing antelopes as I could before the OLP started to stress out (you could tell when it was reaching its limit as the ground would start to stretch out downwards when the OLP ran out of time rendering too many sprites on one scanline). IIRC as it was just a demo I actually grabbed most of the graphics for it straight out of deluxe paint (the trees and antelopes were example DPaint brushes as I recall). Llamazap was an entirely different thing (I couldn't've reused much of the code from the antelope demo anyway, as Falcon had no OLP). Pity the Panther went away before I had a chance to do much more with it. I do remember another demo that was going to be like a galactic map for the game, using the sprite scaling to draw planets in a cluster that you could rotate, but that didn't look anywhere near as nice as the antelope demo.

 

There was never any actual gameplay in the antelope demo, you couldn't shoot the antelope or anything, and I only ever called it the antelope demo, never "Antelope Attack". Maybe someone else who saw the demo called it that - but not me.

[Lostdragon]

21 hours ago, Yak said:

Yeah the antelope demo was something I put together to get a rough idea what I could get out of the OLP, I just chucked in a simple scrolling landscape then as many bouncing antelopes as I could before the OLP started to stress out (you could tell when it was reaching its limit as the ground would start to stretch out downwards when the OLP ran out of time rendering too many sprites on one scanline). IIRC as it was just a demo I actually grabbed most of the graphics for it straight out of deluxe paint (the trees and antelopes were example DPaint brushes as I recall). Llamazap was an entirely different thing (I couldn't've reused much of the code from the antelope demo anyway, as Falcon had no OLP). Pity the Panther went away before I had a chance to do much more with it. I do remember another demo that was going to be like a galactic map for the game, using the sprite scaling to draw planets in a cluster that you could rotate, but that didn't look anywhere near as nice as the antelope demo.

 

There was never any actual gameplay in the antelope demo, you couldn't shoot the antelope or anything, and I only ever called it the antelope demo, never "Antelope Attack". Maybe someone else who saw the demo called it that - but not me.

Really appreciate you taking the time to answer this one Jeff, I suspected from what i had seen you post on newsgroups at the time and from your chat with Edge magazine, the claim Antelope Attack became Llamazap, was completely and utterly wrong, but I wanted to pick up on it and have you clarify it if possible. 

 

The magazine piece it appeared in was full of magazine speculation and far worse and the claims within it have been debunked by key people from Atari Corp, Domark, Tengen, Leonard Tramiel and now your goodself. 

 

 

I'm really not sure where the writer got the Llamazap claim from, it clearly wasn't fact checked that well, but sadly nor were the other claims. 

 

 

 

On a lighter note, have you never considered doing your personal take on Star Raiders on today's hardware? 

 

Seen you mention it a few times in interviews over the years. 

[Yak]

I suppose Llamazap came out at a not too distant time from the Panther stuff, and was a horizontal scroller primarily; perhaps it was easy for someone to infer a connection that wasn't there, IDK.

 

I realised talking about all this that I haven't even seen the antelope demo since the early 90s, no video exists of it (as it does with the early Jag demos I did when I first got invited to Sunnyvale to tinker with the prototype Jag, I was amazed and rather pleased to find those on YT a few years back). I did find a bit about the antelope demo from a magazine, with at least a screenshot. I'd completely forgotten about the giant dinosaurs in the background. Those came straight out of DP too IIRC. It was an amazing novelty to be able to draw them huge like that with the sprite scaling.

 

Regarding SR, if I were to do a version it'd be in VR. I've got an idea of how I'd like to do it, and it'd be a VR thing, and I'd want to keep it really simple and pure like the original, not go off trying to make another Elite Dangerous or aught. Part of the genius of SR was that they managed to cram such depth into such a tiny fragment of code, and make it so that you could pick it up as a beginner really easily but still have to work at it for months to achieve the top rating in Commander Mission. The accessibility, the emergent complexity of the gameplay, from just a smidgeon of 6502 code - such a masterpiece from Neubauer.

 

I'd love to try my hand at a homage to his work but it'd likely be highly non-commercial, and something maybe only people who knew the original would really "get". Not that I really care about that, the older I get the less I care about being anywhere near the mainstream, I just want to make the things I want to make, and if I can survive doing that I'm more than happy, I know I'll never get rich and that's not my main objective. I have a bunch of VR stuff on the backburner and perhaps I could start to look at some of the SR stuff in that when I get the time to. I'm surer a bunch of the VR-lightsynth stuff I already have working would work beautifully for the hyperjump sequences  

[+madman]

11 minutes ago, Yak said:

Not that I really care about that, the older I get the less I care about being anywhere near the mainstream, I just want to make the things I want to make, and if I can survive doing that I'm more than happy, I know I'll never get rich and that's not my main objective.

Wise words.

[Lostdragon]

18 hours ago, Yak said:

I suppose Llamazap came out at a not too distant time from the Panther stuff, and was a horizontal scroller primarily; perhaps it was easy for someone to infer a connection that wasn't there, IDK.

 

I realised talking about all this that I haven't even seen the antelope demo since the early 90s, no video exists of it (as it does with the early Jag demos I did when I first got invited to Sunnyvale to tinker with the prototype Jag, I was amazed and rather pleased to find those on YT a few years back). I did find a bit about the antelope demo from a magazine, with at least a screenshot. I'd completely forgotten about the giant dinosaurs in the background. Those came straight out of DP too IIRC. It was an amazing novelty to be able to draw them huge like that with the sprite scaling.

 

Regarding SR, if I were to do a version it'd be in VR. I've got an idea of how I'd like to do it, and it'd be a VR thing, and I'd want to keep it really simple and pure like the original, not go off trying to make another Elite Dangerous or aught. Part of the genius of SR was that they managed to cram such depth into such a tiny fragment of code, and make it so that you could pick it up as a beginner really easily but still have to work at it for months to achieve the top rating in Commander Mission. The accessibility, the emergent complexity of the gameplay, from just a smidgeon of 6502 code - such a masterpiece from Neubauer.

 

I'd love to try my hand at a homage to his work but it'd likely be highly non-commercial, and something maybe only people who knew the original would really "get". Not that I really care about that, the older I get the less I care about being anywhere near the mainstream, I just want to make the things I want to make, and if I can survive doing that I'm more than happy, I know I'll never get rich and that's not my main objective. I have a bunch of VR stuff on the backburner and perhaps I could start to look at some of the SR stuff in that when I get the time to. I'm surer a bunch of the VR-lightsynth stuff I already have working would work beautifully for the hyperjump sequences  

I think it's sometimes not uncommon for writers to project a degree of perceived wisdom as it were, into articles in order to try and give claims a degree of credibility, but the danger with that is unless you name your sources, it's always going to be hanging in the balance. 

 

And with so many industry figures like your goodself thankfully willing to indulge folks like myself asking you questions about your past work, some of those claims now look a little foolish. 

 

 

I'd really like to see your take on Star Raiders, in my youth I used to be hooked on reading interviews with you (ZERO, Atari User and Zzap 64  etc magazines), your monthly opinion  column in C. C. I, ST Action etc. 

 

And I remembered you in an early 8-bit magazine talking about wanting to do Star Raiders, then it never being mentioned again, so imagine my surprise when reading your interview in Edge magazine at the time and you talking about your brief time on the Panther, the demo routines were for your planned Ian M. Banks Star Raiders-esq affair. 

 

 

Couldn't work out at the time why you never approached Atari to do it on Jaguar once Tempest 2000 was done, remember you talking of how a Jaguar version of Virus and Robotron could be done, but Star Raiders was absent. ?

 

 

Any thoughts on ST Star Raiders? 

 

Huge letdown for myself, just lacked the essential essence of the original. 

 

 

Thank you Jeff, not only for taking time to reply on here, but also for many years of fascinating reading material in magazines and for games such as Hover Bovver, Tempest 2000, AMC (had blisters from that on my 800XL). 

 

 

I'd say it's been a 50-50 split of your games that were my bag as it were, with only Photon Storm being something i wish i had put more time into. 

 

But you earnt my respect for staying true to making games YOU wanted to make and your one of the few industry folk whom i would buy a rather mediocre games magazine, just to read your latest thoughts on the industry and where it was headed. 

[Yak]

I wish I still had the design doc for that Iain M. Banks/Star Raiders crossover idea. It was basically in the form of a little scifi story of my own. Obviously heavily rooted in the Culture stuff from IMB, God rest him, which I was devouring at the time and absolutely loved. I'm sure it'd make amusing reading today. Goat knows if I'd've actually managed to do it any justice; alas we'll never know since it never got beyond the galactic map and antelope demo stage before Panther got ganked.

 

Post T2K was an odd time, I was doing the VLM stuff and I also ended up getting ill with pneumonia, which led to me actually leaving Wales to go to California to work for Atari, as I thought maybe the change of climate would help me recover; in retrospect not the best move I could have made, for one thing I was never really happy in the US, better climate notwithstanding; I just felt too culturally dislocated, and while I was there my dad died, and I felt terrible being so far from my family at such a time. It just wasn't for me, life in the US, and after a few years I returned to Wales.

 

It also altered my relationship with Atari - as an employee rather than a freelancer I got much more heavily leaned on to do things the way they thought would be best rather than how I actually wanted to do them, and as a result I don't think the things I did as an employee came out how I actually wanted them to. Hence D2K not really being as good a thing IMO than T2K. I was pushed in a wrong direction, and I made the best of it I could, but it wasn't what I'd really wanted to make.

 

They had their own Jag version of Star Raiders in development internally, "Star Raiders 2000" IIRC, I think it was Rob Zdybel doing it. But it never made it to completion, they pushed it towards being texture mapped (I think they wanted to push texture mapping since the Playstation could do it), but the Jag wasn't strong with texture mapping and as a result it looked muddy and ran at a low frame rate. IMO they should have played to the Jag's strengths and done nice gouraud-shaded stuff at a decent clip rather than try to force it to do what it couldn't do well at a bad frame rate.

 

And I don't mean that to reflect badly on Rob Zdybel at all, he was a great coder and a great asset to Atari, just I am sure he was probably being pushed to make things a certain way when perhaps they'd've been better another way.

 

I think Rob Z. worked on the Atari ST Star Raiders too. I remember being quite excited about that when I first saw screenshots of it, thinking it'd be fantastic to play a proper updated version on the ST. And the game was good in many respects, it looked nice, it had more depth, enemy types and such, more intersting galactic map geometry, but then the first time I played it on the ST I got a rating of Star Commander, which rating you had to work for ages to get on the old 8-bit version. It just didn't have the exquisite balance of the original.

 

Again that's not a slur on Rob Z (his other work is great, 8-bit Missile Command is godly). Just being asked to follow up absolute genius, and in fact to have everyone assume what you make will actually be *better* than absolute genius due to being implemented on a more powerful system, is a really tough call. Hell I bet even if I did do my own homage to original SR, on the best of modern hardware, in VR, to the best of my ability, I highly doubt it'd be as good as original Star Raiders, because original SR is really just that damn good. 

[JagChris]

On 7/30/2021 at 6:49 PM, Yak said:

I really don't understand why that guy constantly bangs on about AvP though. This stuff was nearly 30 years ago. 

Well a lot of us are here still here for that 30 year old system. And AvP is cool.

I think the problem is the guy makes up stuff when he goes on about it or anything else. Just really bizarre. 

[youxia]

Normally it would be a sign of some sort of psychological disorder, like delusions of grandeur, confabulation, or some such. But seeing as they still are trying to operate within the industry, it seems like quite a cynical and premeditated attempt at CV building. Consider this:

Quote

Our CEO Jane Whittaker is renowned as one of the top selling video games developers of all time, with titles such as Alien Vs Predator, Darkseed, The Sims and Goldeneye N64 under his belt!

Quite an endorsment. If I was an investor I'd probably start paying attention. Though, if I was a careful investor, I'd have a more thorough look... As it is, this blurb comes from the now-defunct website of their former company, Blue Sock Studios, which, amazingly, promises just about the same paradigm-changing stuff in that new Athena venture. Only problem is that BSS was involved with just one indie game and its story has turned to a massive dumpster fire...

 

I find it quite unbelievable that anybody serious from the industry would like to join forces with such a questionable figure. I mean, it takes 20 minutes of search engine use to check their history. Even if that indie game blog post is just pure slanderous fiction (doubt it though), the fact that they have just folded a company whihc has promised a lot of hot air and had nothing to show for after a few years of existence, and now promise the exactly same hot air, should give anyone a pause.

[Yak]

Yeah it's the constant exaggeration that's the weirdest thing. I mean if the guy just stuck to the facts - worked on AvP, worked at the film company, worked on addons for Flight Sim - there's no shame in that. But the abject bollocks that gets added in makes it really strange. The Tramiels keeping him like a pet. Bill Gates making up a specific job title just for him. H. R. Giger inviting him out to Switzerland. Working with Salvador Dali despite Dali being dead at the time. Being personally involved with the development of half the British software industry's output despite having barely any visible game credits. It's all just bananas.

 

I suspect it's that which will trip him up in the end, though. I wouldn't've looked into his claims more deeply - at first I bumped into him on Twitter and he said he was basically the AVP guy, and I was polite in a "oh hey fellow Jag veteran" kind of a way and was mildly surprised when he replied like we'd been old mates for 30 years, but didn't think too much about it - until out of the blue he was telling people his old mate had been my gameplay advisor on T2K. That made me go "wtf?" and start to look more closely at the guy, and hoo boy that was a rabbit hole I was not expecting, bloody hell.

 

It really is a shame if he does all that to con investors. One can only hope that more people start to see through the confabulation and it doesn't work any more.

 

It always pisses me off when people from back in the day turn out to be smegheads (IDK if any of you know about the Tim Langdell saga, that was a similarly weird story). It casts a poor light on all of us old farts. We weren't all shysters.

[Lostdragon]

8 hours ago, Yak said:

Yeah it's the constant exaggeration that's the weirdest thing. I mean if the guy just stuck to the facts - worked on AvP, worked at the film company, worked on addons for Flight Sim - there's no shame in that. But the abject bollocks that gets added in makes it really strange. The Tramiels keeping him like a pet. Bill Gates making up a specific job title just for him. H. R. Giger inviting him out to Switzerland. Working with Salvador Dali despite Dali being dead at the time. Being personally involved with the development of half the British software industry's output despite having barely any visible game credits. It's all just bananas.

 

I suspect it's that which will trip him up in the end, though. I wouldn't've looked into his claims more deeply - at first I bumped into him on Twitter and he said he was basically the AVP guy, and I was polite in a "oh hey fellow Jag veteran" kind of a way and was mildly surprised when he replied like we'd been old mates for 30 years, but didn't think too much about it - until out of the blue he was telling people his old mate had been my gameplay advisor on T2K. That made me go "wtf?" and start to look more closely at the guy, and hoo boy that was a rabbit hole I was not expecting, bloody hell.

 

It really is a shame if he does all that to con investors. One can only hope that more people start to see through the confabulation and it doesn't work any more.

 

It always pisses me off when people from back in the day turn out to be smegheads (IDK if any of you know about the Tim Langdell saga, that was a similarly weird story). It casts a poor light on all of us old farts. We weren't all shysters.

Want to keep topics of reply Seperate, rather than multiquote.. 

 

Whilst it's commonplace for a good few from within the industry to exaggerate, rewrite history as to why a title fared poorly at teview/retail, never arrived at all, claim they were doing something long before others, but never got the  recognition for it etc etc... 

 

 

Jane Whittaker is something else again. 

 

 

To cause so much upset to so many, by making such outrageous claims, epically when a good few of the names Whittaker drops are no longer with us (Dali, Mike Singleton, John Hurt, H. R Giger, Lance Lewis) is what really offends people the most. 

 

 

Taking credit for the work others did at Maelstrom, Bullfrog, RARE, Graftgold, Rebellion, Cyberdreams is pretty low and then trying to play the victim, describing it as hate speech when your publically outted, is lower still. 

 

 

Once the various teams looking into Whittaker claims (and those teams include the BBC Researchers who were just doing due diligence research into what was to be a TV program celebrating the career of Whittaker) broke the surface, people were absolutely horrified at what started to come to light. 

 

Whats been shared publicly, is a fraction of what's been put forward for the legal battle Jane is now fighting. 

 

 

I focus on covering the games industry lies, the investors money, Jane's gender etc, sorry not going there, something I made clear to the BBC. 

 

It's the outright B. S he has gotten away with telling the gullible UK and US Games press, who did nothing to do due diligence background checks on, that got to me. 

 

He played Andrew Rosa (Mastercast TV) he was willing to play Luca (Unseen64) until Luca had me put a few questions into the interview, suddenly Jane didn't want to do an interview, knew the game was up. 

 

I wouldn't of invested the time i did, looking into Jane, had the Mike Singleton Midwinter and Chinese Restaurant story not been exposed. 

 

I knew a lot of the AVP claims were ego driven nonsense, but when Jason Kingsley is just as happy to play the same tactics, it's hard to single one out and not the other. 

 

But the talk about Mike was a deal breaker, it caused hurt to friends and family of Mike, a man who's work i greatly admired. 

 

You simply don't insert yourself into pivotal roles, invent stories to make yourself feel someone of worth. 

 

 

Jane should consider himself fortunate he had a role on Jaguar AVP, found himself at E. A and MGM. 

 

 

It's tragic for any studio to go bankrupt, but it happens, it's a cut throat industry, but you don't run around screaming Power Crystal was better than Zelda on N64, recieved flawless reviews. 

 

 

Be honest with people, you made a valiant attempt to find a new publisher, failed, studio ran out of money, then went bankrupt and ironically the 3DO M2 itself was pulled months later. 

 

 

Don't try and have online archives which feature press for it at the time, pull the issues in question, that just confirms the lie. 

 

 

Yep, very familiar with Tim and The Edge, very sad state of affairs, but sadly far from the only one from the UK industry.. 

 

Steve Wilcox.. is another. 

 

 

 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161026-how-liars-create-the-illusion-of-truth

Edited August 4, 2021 by Lostdragon

[Lostdragon]

On 8/2/2021 at 11:07 PM, Yak said:

I wish I still had the design doc for that Iain M. Banks/Star Raiders crossover idea. It was basically in the form of a little scifi story of my own. Obviously heavily rooted in the Culture stuff from IMB, God rest him, which I was devouring at the time and absolutely loved. I'm sure it'd make amusing reading today. Goat knows if I'd've actually managed to do it any justice; alas we'll never know since it never got beyond the galactic map and antelope demo stage before Panther got ganked.

 

Post T2K was an odd time, I was doing the VLM stuff and I also ended up getting ill with pneumonia, which led to me actually leaving Wales to go to California to work for Atari, as I thought maybe the change of climate would help me recover; in retrospect not the best move I could have made, for one thing I was never really happy in the US, better climate notwithstanding; I just felt too culturally dislocated, and while I was there my dad died, and I felt terrible being so far from my family at such a time. It just wasn't for me, life in the US, and after a few years I returned to Wales.

 

It also altered my relationship with Atari - as an employee rather than a freelancer I got much more heavily leaned on to do things the way they thought would be best rather than how I actually wanted to do them, and as a result I don't think the things I did as an employee came out how I actually wanted them to. Hence D2K not really being as good a thing IMO than T2K. I was pushed in a wrong direction, and I made the best of it I could, but it wasn't what I'd really wanted to make.

 

They had their own Jag version of Star Raiders in development internally, "Star Raiders 2000" IIRC, I think it was Rob Zdybel doing it. But it never made it to completion, they pushed it towards being texture mapped (I think they wanted to push texture mapping since the Playstation could do it), but the Jag wasn't strong with texture mapping and as a result it looked muddy and ran at a low frame rate. IMO they should have played to the Jag's strengths and done nice gouraud-shaded stuff at a decent clip rather than try to force it to do what it couldn't do well at a bad frame rate.

 

And I don't mean that to reflect badly on Rob Zdybel at all, he was a great coder and a great asset to Atari, just I am sure he was probably being pushed to make things a certain way when perhaps they'd've been better another way.

 

I think Rob Z. worked on the Atari ST Star Raiders too. I remember being quite excited about that when I first saw screenshots of it, thinking it'd be fantastic to play a proper updated version on the ST. And the game was good in many respects, it looked nice, it had more depth, enemy types and such, more intersting galactic map geometry, but then the first time I played it on the ST I got a rating of Star Commander, which rating you had to work for ages to get on the old 8-bit version. It just didn't have the exquisite balance of the original.

 

Again that's not a slur on Rob Z (his other work is great, 8-bit Missile Command is godly). Just being asked to follow up absolute genius, and in fact to have everyone assume what you make will actually be *better* than absolute genius due to being implemented on a more powerful system, is a really tough call. Hell I bet even if I did do my own homage to original SR, on the best of modern hardware, in VR, to the best of my ability, I highly doubt it'd be as good as original Star Raiders, because original SR is really just that damn good. 

Crying shame the design doc has been lost, would of been something fantastic to have preserved on the archives. 

 

 

I remember reading of the very troubled development of Defender 2000,Atari switching it from CD to Cartridge, your poor health, the nightmare of your Faher passing (my own Father died in January this year and it's been the most traumatic experience i have ever experienced, trying to come to terms with it and rebuilding a life for my Mother). 

 

 

I did feel Defender 2000 was a huge step back after Tempest 2000 (which literally blew my mind) but it was understandable in many ways how events had shaped key aspects of it. 

 

 

Yep, others who worked on the Jaguar gave described Atari going into complete and utter mental mode, wanting titles texture mapped, so Jaguar could be seen as competing with 3DO titles, let alone Saturn and Playstation ones, even though they knew it'd kill the frame rates. 

 

 

Foolish, but the company was running scared. 

 

 

I remember reading an interview or quote from Rob, where he described ST Star Raiders as being his homage to the original, but also his chance to fix issues with it, which he considered broken. 

 

 

Like A8 Star Raiders II, ST Star Raiders looked lovely, but once you started playing, the 'feel' was completely missing. 

 

The strategy side seemed off, you could no longer destroy your own Starbases to prevent them falling into enemy hands.. 

 

 

Don't think i had experienced such dissapointment since going from Rescue On Fractalus on the Atari 800XL to it on the C64, the slower framerate killed the excitement, fame didn't feel the same. 

 

 

Lemmings on Lynx was another, played originally on the ST, then Game Gear, but Lynx version putting icons on Pause Screen, removed the frantic nature of the game, impact lost somewhat. 

 

 

 

Did they let you play test Star Raiders 2000 or were you just shown it? 

Edited August 4, 2021 by Lostdragon

[JagChris]

I'm sorry about your father

[Lostdragon]

10 minutes ago, JagChris said:

I'm sorry about your father

That's very kind of you to say. 

 

He's been unwell since retirement, in intensive care twice, mum once herself, suffered chronic depression, which made recovery difficult in it's own way and he could be a difficult man, let alone patient. 

 

 

I was lucky enough to spend Xmas Day with him and it was a GOOD day, he'd bounced back after being unwell before Xmas, but I didn't expect the phone call from the Paramedics in the small hours of the morning only a few weeks later. 

 

 

I'm fortunate, I stated close to the family due to both mum and dad health issues, how Jeff cooed being in the USA at the time is beyond me, I know I wouldn't of been able to process anything. 

[agradeneu]

19 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

Crying shame the design doc has been lost, would of been something fantastic to have preserved on the archives. 

 

 

I remember reading of the very troubled development of Defender 2000,Atari switching it from CD to Cartridge, your poor health, the nightmare of your Faher passing (my own Father died in January this year and it's been the most traumatic experience i have ever experienced, trying to come to terms with it and rebuilding a life for my Mother). 

 

 

I did feel Defender 2000 was a huge step back after Tempest 2000 (which literally blew my mind) but it was understandable in many ways how events had shaped key aspects of it. 

 

 

Yep, others who worked on the Jaguar gave described Atari going into complete and utter mental mode, wanting titles texture mapped, so Jaguar could be seen as competing with 3DO titles, let alone Saturn and Playstation ones, even though they knew it'd kill the frame rates. 

 

 

Foolish, but the company was running scared. 

 

 

I remember reading an interview or quote from Rob, where he described ST Star Raiders as being his homage to the original, but also his chance to fix issues with it, which he considered broken. 

 

 

Like A8 Star Raiders II, ST Star Raiders looked lovely, but once you started playing, the 'feel' was completely missing. 

 

The strategy side seemed off, you could no longer destroy your own Starbases to prevent them falling into enemy hands.. 

 

 

Don't think i had experienced such dissapointment since going from Rescue On Fractalus on the Atari 800XL to it on the C64, the slower framerate killed the excitement, fame didn't feel the same. 

 

 

Lemmings on Lynx was another, played originally on the ST, then Game Gear, but Lynx version putting icons on Pause Screen, removed the frantic nature of the game, impact lost somewhat. 

 

 

 

Did they let you play test Star Raiders 2000 or were you just shown it? 

Both Battlemorph and Iron Soldier 2 are texture mapped but running better than flat shaded games like Checkered Flag or gouraud shaded games like I War (which has really bad frame rate under high load).

I don't think it was an unreasonable move by Atari to achieve visual improvements for 3D games - the Jaguar could do texture mapping, if balanced right.

 

Hover Strike is quite impressive for a machine that is supposed to be bad at texture mapping. It runs reasobable well if there are not too many objects on screen (on par with Cybermorph I would say).

I blame the game/level designers for the bad frame drops, they cluttered the screen (with objects) with not respect for the technical limitations of the engine/hardware. 

With a better management of object number the game would have been much more playable! What were the playtesters and Atari thinking?

 

For Space War 2000 - I only played the prototype. It is very limited but the graphics are crisp and fluid. Without rendering texture mapped landscapes the HS engine seems to be capable enough to run that game at reasonable speed. 

 

IMO, for many 3d games it does not look like the texture mapping slowed them down massively. The (untextured) prototype of F1 Racer did not look much faster than WTR.

 

Supercross 3D runs faster with no AI racers in game - appearently, the AI code slows down the game massively (similar to AvP).