| Hit Squad |
Chris Bourne reveals the awful truth about the growing power of wallies in the software industry
WALLY programmers all live near the flight path of a major British Airport. Gatwick would be ideal because of its association with wally holidays, but the surrounding countryside is far too pretty for the machine-orientated wally minds. Hence the Mikro-Gen wallies hang about near Heathrow.
Choosing the correct site for a wally programming operation is of vital importance. Spacious air-conditioned hi-tech offices may lead to the Psion syndrome, where the very surroundings inhibit the creation of anything less cerebral than Scrabble.
Mikro-Gen programming is done in a large room over a high street shop in Bracknell. The approach is made from the back to save visitors embarrassment if their friends should spot them dropping in on the wallies. The rutted grass track is surrounded by dilapidated huts of the type erected by wally gardeners on suburban allotments.
A wrought-iron fire escape leads to the Mikro-Gen office, sheltered from the rain by transparent corrugated plastic. Inside cardboard walls in tasteful pastel shades give onto the main room, which is full of computers and happy programmers. There are very few chairs, a wally management technique to keep production moving.
Any home computer is a potential wally computer, but the important thing for wally programmers is that all games should involve the use of at least one incredibly expensive piece of equipment which can be casually shown off to visiting wally-watchers. Mike Meek, managing director of Mikro-Gen, has perfected the art.
"Incidentally, we don't allow smoking in the room because of The Minstrels," says Mike. Not the subtle use of the letter 's', implying there is more than one of the machines about. "We do the program development on the Minstrels," he explains, "and download into the Spectrum or Amstrad using cross-assemblers."
Then comes the kill. "Being engineers, we can maintain sophisticated machines, a great advantage." Like the folks who drive customised Ford Capris up and down Orpington high street on a Sunday afternoon, wally programmers insist on the value of DIY maintenance.
Mikro-Gen was formed in 1981 but it was with the appearance of Wally Week that the company fortunes took a dramatic turn for the better. Wally is the flat-capped, beer-gutted character who stars in Automania, Pyjamarama and Everyone's a Wally.
It was not the first time Mikro-Gen had introduced a wally into its games, however. You may still remember the cult adventures Mad Martha and Mad Martha II in which Henry had to avoid his psychopathic wife for a night on the town and later a spot of infidelity on holiday with Spanish senoritas - definitely early wally territory.
Earlier still Mikro-Gen had been responsible for the creation of the Bomber-type game in City Defence, and a number of space games such as Space Zombies. But the shift from writing games for wallies to games about wallies has proved immensely successful.
Automania introduced two important wally concepts - penny-pinching and motor cars. Wally has to assemble the parts of a motor car, but the shelves in his garage are so old and rotten that bits keep falling off.
Pyjamarama took Wally into the home on an expedition for a midnight snack. Compulsive eating and the lurid primary colours of the graphics display wally domestic lifestyle in all its glory.
The third in the Wally trilogy, Everyone's a Wally, introduced a whole suburb of wallies involved in an intricate quest, and the title sums up the development of wally philosophy at Mikro-Gen.
Wally programmers are particularly interested in graphics - the more the better. Ultimate calls its Knight Lore/Alien 8 graphics 'filmation'. New Generation has been known to talk about 'isometric' graphics while Hewson Consultants went through a period of calling everything 3D Space Wotsits. Mikro-Gen people talk about replacement graphics, which means Wally Week can move behind objects in Everyone's a Wally, whereas in Pyjamarama his legs and belly tended to change colour.
Here is technical director Andrew Laurie putting the phrase into context. He is explaining why Mikro-Gen games look better on the Spectrum than on the Commodore 64, which is supposed to have superior graphics.
"You can make the software outdo the Commodore hardware because every last bit of the Spectrum is used up with replacement graphics. The resolution of the multi-coloured sprites on the 64 is very poor."
Animation is an important factor in any wally game. Take Herbert's Dummy Run, the latest from Mikro-Gen. "Herbert has a six-stage walk on the Spectrum but only four on the C64, as there is a limit on the sprite pointers. We hope to double that. Those sprites are unacceptable to us on the Commodore and some people might get disappointed."
Great wally games do not come unbidden to the mind during a Monday morning bath. They are the result of painstaking research in the backwaters of wally computerland. After all, as Mike Meek explains over a cheese sandwich and a pint of lager, he and Andrew did not go into computing for the simple fun of it.
"We started Mikro-Gen to make money," he states bluntly. The belief that somewhere out there are millions of pounds waiting for the first programmer to hack Matthew Smith's bank account is, of course, central to the wally software industry.
"We get various ideas from clubs," says Mike. "Andrew was a founder member of Sunbury Computer Club six years ago." Andrew then proudly describes how he once built a 256-byte micro with binary switches. That is the sort of pedigree which really sorts out the true wally from the run-of-the-mill Porsche poseurs and Hobbit hackers.
In fact, the Bomber game was written by a club member for the Commodore PET. "He helped us do it for the ZX-8l," says Andrew.
It is only recently that Mikro-Gen started hiring full-time programmers. "Before Automania most of the programming was sub-contract," says Mike. He explains that by doing it that way you avoid having to pay programmers' salaries when they are not producing anything, or when the money gets tight. Other areas of inspiration are also utilised.
"The problem with a software house being a closed group is that you can miss certain points or even be on the wrong path," says Mike. If ever there was a herd instinct, wallies have it. For a wally to be on the wrong path, isolated from his fellows, is to risk losing everything wallyhood stands for.
This is a wally caption. It fills space. Sort of. |
Wallies are inveterate chart watchers. Sporting wallies love constructing World's Best teams with the aid of the obligatory Guinness book of Records. Mikro-Gen also follows the charts. "We were very chuffed to see Everyone's a Wally knock Alien 8 off the top," crows Mike.
Such talk frequently leads to interminable discussions concerning which charts are the most reliable and what the figures signify.
"Overall, Pyjamarama has sold best, but Everyone's a Wally will probably surpass it. It surpassed our initial projections faster than any other program." Mike goes on to explain how the new game will 'ramp' shortly after its release.
Talk about 'sales projections' and 'ramping' may bore readers but they are essential parts of the vocabulary for wallies hoping to make a determined assault on the software charts.
The latest addition to the wally stable is Herbert's Dummy Run, set in a gigantic department store full of the sort of fancy lampshades and other useless bric-a-brac so beloved of domesticated wallies. Herbert is Wally's infant son, who becomes lost in the department store. "Everyone's a Wally veers strongly towards adventure," says Mike. "Herbert veers towards arcade."
Promoting a game properly is an important factor in becoming a successful wally programmer. The Wally Week games had promotions involving a rally car, but Herbert is too young to drive.
Instead, Mikro-Gen hit on the idea of sending disposable nappies to important people in the trade with 'There's a big one coming your way' printed on them. Another legend reads, 'Only Herbert can fill this space'.
Mere charlies or berks cannot hope to achieve the heights of artistic taste aspired to by true wallies.
Good taste is not enough, however, and plans are afoot for an even more spectacular game. Mikro-Gen has commissioned a non-wally to write a fantasy novel on which a game will be based.
"Things are fairly dynamic at this point," says Mike, meaning little has been decided for sure. He reckons the book will "introduce a far greater depth of understanding into the program, building up pictures in the mind."
Since the average wally mind is supposed to be entirely empty of everything except Toby bitter and patent spray-on anti-rust liquid, the game is clearly not intended for the purist wally market. Instead it is aimed at the hybrid adventure market.
"It will be Lords of Midnight-ish but animated," explains Andrew, "with graphics to the same level as Pyjamarama."
Mike Meek acquires a wistful look in his eyes as he thinks of the moral possibilities. "It will be a battle against various evil forces. If it's successful it will be a classic."
The evil forces remain vague and undefined as yet, but may well include traditional enemies of wally software people such as US Gold or Jeff Minter.
"We represent enough force in the market now to make some people look at it," announces Mike, ominously.
Presumably if it is not successful it will not be a classic. The philosophy of wally programming is arguably encapsulated within that sentence.
It is important that wally software houses should have at least one 'serious' piece of software with which to counter accusations that they are only in it for the money.
Mikro-Gen have Air Traffic Control, programmed by former air traffic controller Dale McLoughlin, who freelanced for Mikro-Gen. Mikro-Gen claims the program is being used to train real air traffic controllers, and Dale goes so far as to say many play it when they get home from work.
Air traffic controllers are clearly wallies also, a comforting thought.
Chris 'Rudolph' Hinsley joined Mikro-Gen on January 1 1984. "He is always criticising me because he never gets mentioned," Mike admits.
All software companies have at least one person who does all the work and never gets the credit. Another such at Mikro-Gen is Anthony Lill, who has just joined the company and is "still thinking in binary" as opposed to not thinking at all.
Herbert's Dummy Run uses 1250 user-defined graphics. A record?