| Hit Squad |
In the second of our new series on best-selling programmers, Nicole Segre talks to Mike Richardson about his latest efforts
THERE WAS very little publicity about the appearance of a Spectrum game called Jungle Trouble towards the end of last summer but in a few months it had become a sudden best-seller, over-shadowing many more spectacular arcade games by a quiet combination of wit and originality.
Jungle Trouble features an intrepid explorer attempting to make his way through a tropical forest. Among the difficulties he must overcome are a series of stepping stones across a crocodile-infested river, a thicket of trees which he must chop down despite the persistent efforts of a horde of monkeys to run off with his axe, and finally a pit of flames which he has to swing across on a rope in a manner of which Tarzan would be proud.
The author of this eventful game is 26-year-old Mike Richardson, an unassuming former chemist from Somerset, for whom Jungle Trouble has meant an unexpected change of direction.
Richardson began writing the program for his amusement when he was working as an analyst in the laboratories of Aerosol International at Taunton. "My wife Jane suggested the stepping stones," he says, "and I just took it from there." Richardson started the program in Basic but when he saw an advertisement in the local paper asking for machine code programmers he quickly converted what he had done into machine code and applied for the job. The outcome was his present association with Durell Software and its founder-director, Robert White. White, who had been working as a computer-aided design specialist for Oxford Area Health Authority, had left his job and set up the company, a few months earlier.
"I was bored with being an employee," he says, "and wanted to try my hand at writing software." With a sister company selling business computers as a staple, White began by writing educational programs.
He soon realised that to sell his wares he would need to advertise and that it would not be economic to advertise for the small amount of software he could produce on his own. Hence the advertisement which Richardson answered, along with 10 other programmers who work for Durell Software, which is based on the barn-like top floor of a Georgian building in the heart of Taunton.
Richardson soon left his job at Aerosol International to work for the company full-time but most of the team works only part-time. "Everyone is paid from royalties," White explains, "which means they can do as much or as little as they like. It also creates a happy state of affairs in which nobody can tell anyone else what to do."
Richardson's first task for the company was to convert a fast-selling game for the Oric, Harrier Attack, for the 16K Spectrum. The version which Richardson wrote in a record-breaking two-and-a-half weeks soon out-sold the original - more than 17,000 copies so far compared to 10,000 for the Oric version.
Its success was due not only to the fact that more people own Spectrums than Orics. Richardson's version had a number of new features, such as a baling-out option and a hall of fame for players to enter their scores, and its graphics were far more sophisticated.
The theme also made it a prime candidate for some concerted advertising. Based loosely on the classic arcade game of Scramble, Harrier Attack features jets, battleships and aircraft carriers and, appearing soon after the Falklands crisis - even though White swears it is set "nowhere in particular" - the game was bound to attract a good deal of attention.
Meanwhile, Jungle Trouble, which appeared at almost exactly the same time as Harrier Attack for the Spectrum, was allowed to make its way to the top of the charts. Despite the lack of advertising, it did not remain unnoticed for long.
Although simple in concept, Jungle Trouble boasts a number of amusing details which stamp it as out of the ordinary. At the start, the three monkeys which perpetually harass the explorer run on to the screen and line up on the left, followed by three little stick men, representing the explorer's three lives, who line up on the right.
True to life, the explorer's axe becomes blunt as he chops down trees, so that he keeps having to return for a new one. Best of all are the graphics, with the hero leaping over stepping stones, chopping down trees and scuffling with monkeys in a most realistic way. Whenever he falls into the river, he does so head over heels, and it is worth persisting with the game just to see him swinging on his rope over the pit of fire.
Richardson, who claims he cannot draw, says there is no secret to creating good computer graphics. "All you need is loads and loads of graph paper," he says. Nevertheless, he persuaded his wife to run up and down the road to make sure the explorer's running movements were depicted accurately, and took endless pains over the 12 pictures needed to show him falling head over heels into the crocodile-infested river. Altogether, the graphics for the game occupy about 3K of memory and absorbed much of the two months Richardson needed to finish the program.
Richardson cannot explain what lies behind his computing skills. He had a steady but undistinguished career at his Wellington comprehensive school, where he loved chemistry and hated sports. "I was only average at mathematics," he says, "but contrary to what most people think, you do not need to be a mathematical genius for computing unless you intend to write mathematical programs."
| "You do not need to be a mathematical genius for computing" |
After passing seven O levels, Richardson left school at 16. "It never occurred to me to stay on for A levels," he says, "and nobody suggested it." He continued to study chemistry on day-release from his job and is following a degree in the subject with a project for his MSc.
Richardson was introduced to computing when he was working in the quality control department at Aerosol International. The manager of the department asked him to write two simple programs for the analysis of laboratory results on the company's Hewlett-Packard machine. Later, when the machine was replaced by two Pets, intended for what Richardson calls "a bigger and better" computerised weighing system, he wrote the program for that, too. Then he was "totally hooked".
Richardson's first computer of his own was a Science of Cambridge MK 14 kit which cost £39. It had 256 bytes of memory and a tiny ½K monitor but Richardson says that this predecessor of the ZX-80 was the best possible introduction to computing.
"It was only a bare board, so you could see exactly what was happening," he explains. "It was programmable in machine code, which meant I could use that before I knew Basic - an excellent grounding."
Richardson bought a ZX-81 as soon as it was launched but says he never really took to it and he sold it as soon as the Spectrum appeared. He feels the Spectrum is excellent value, even though the long-delayed delivery of a Microdrive, which he was anticipating when he bought the machine, has been a sore point.
His programming and chemistry studies take most of his time, leaving little for any other hobbies or interests.
"Previously, chemistry was my work and programming was my hobby. Now it is the other way round," he says. He still hates all forms of sport and very rarely plays other people's computer games but that does not prevent him having firm ideas on what constitutes a good game.
"The main thing is for a game to look good," he says. "It must also have some objective and provide a wide range of skill levels, so that you can always reach that objective, however inexpert you may be."
Richardson claims he is a player of only moderate skill. "I used to be able to play Jungle Trouble very easily but then I decide to make it more difficult and even I have difficulty with it now."
Durell Software has high hopes of Richardson's latest production, a game called Scuba Dive, which occupied him for four months before it was released in December. The game features a diver who plunges to unfathomable depths, avoiding sharks, squid, electric eels and shoals of fish. Scattered about the ocean bed are huge clams and oyster shells containing pearls, which score points when you pick them up, and at the bottom, in a cavern guarded by a giant octopus, is a treasure which represents even more points.
The graphics of the game bear the unmistakable stamp of Richardson's blend of humour and realism. The diver's legs paddle, the fish move their tails, the electric eels emit sparks, and the shark swings round in a frightening three-dimensional way. The cursor keys move the diver much as he would move in real life under water - clockwise and anti-clockwise rather than in straight lines - and if he hits his head on the rocks, play ceases for a few moments while he recovers consciousness.
Richardson, whose wife is expecting their first baby, hopes to be able to pay off the mortgage on his house from the proceeds of his games but he still sometimes wonders if he did the right thing in giving up a safe, secure job for the uncertainties of the software world.
Nevertheless, he has no worries about the immediate future. "I do not see why computer games should not continue to sell well," he says. "After all, the record business is still flourishing." Nor does he think the future is bleak for small software companies with only a minimum of capital and equipment.
"Anyone can write a good program," he says with typical modesty. "All it takes is a computer and plenty of patience."