Interview with Matthew Stibbe

ISSUE 03 - AUGUST 2015 -- REMEMBER ISSUE 03 - AUGUST 1 2 3 Interview with Matthew Stibbe PAGE 5 1 Interview with Aidan Hughes PAGE 20 2 Toonstruck Review PAGE 13 PAGE 40 Discworld Review 3 Cannon Fodder Review PAGE 17 Amiga: The PC’s best friend PAGE 37 REM E 3 M # PAGE 26 B E E Human ++ U R S S I EDITORIAL Time hasn’t been a particularly kind friend to the Abandoned Times magazine. We needed four years to release the first issue, another two for the second, and four more for this third iteration. That covers the entire Daniel Craig era in James Bond films, to put it into perspective. Not to mention that most of our contributors now spend a big part of their daily lives inside care homes for elders, solving sudoku puzzles or playing dominoes... Yes, I don’t know about the others, but I do feel that old when I look back at all these years. Thankfully, everyone is still young and healthy and you can still see us from time to time on Abandonia’s forums. It does beg the question, however: Why bother? Why bother making #3 when we have a smaller readership than an obscure doujinshi at the Comiket in Japan, especially with such a ragtag team of talents very much prone to sudden periods of chronic idleness. Well, the main reason is that we’ve accumulated a wealth of material throughout the years, written by great people in love with old games. They’ve been waiting to see their articles online for a long time now. Some articles go way back to 2006-2007, when the idea of an Abandoned Times magazine was still in its infancy. That’s the main reason why I’ve decided to call this issue “Remem- ber”, in order to bring us closer to Abandonia as it was then, revive happy memories, but also to make a statement--that our love for old games will never die. In terms of content, I’m almost afraid to say it, but I think this is possibly the best issue yet. Thanks to saibot216 we’re featuring interviews with Matthew Stibbe, designer and pro- ducer at Intelligent Games, and Aidan Hughes, a well-known commercial artist who designed the first-person shooter ZPC. red_avatar came prepared with two overviews on the history of the PC and Amiga, and a personal favorite of mine, The Fifth Horseman has written an article about the future of humankind. Tens of other reviews and articles will make sure that everyone will find something to their liking. Enjoy the read! -Editor. CREDITS CONTENTS Main Editor Interview with Dumitru Condrea Matthew Stibbe p.5 (TotalAnarchy) by Connor Eck Designer The Golden Years or The Rise p.10 Dumitru Condrea and Fall of PC Gaming by red_avatar Grammar Team arete Discworld p.13 red_avatar Review _r.u.s.s. by verek_22 The Fifth Horseman El Quia Freeware Corner knobfer p.15 Ben There, Dan That Review Acethor DarkArmada by red_avatar Simoneer Cannon Fodder p.17 Additional screens Review by BranjoHello El Quia TheChosen Tomekk Master of Orion II p.18 marko river Battle at Antares Review Paco by Tomekk wendymaree red_avatar Interview with MobyGames.com p.20 Aidan Hughes by Connor Eck Special Thanks Abandonia staff Lands of Lore III p.22 Matthew Stibbe Review Aidan Hughes by verek_22 All who wrote for us ▶ Ultima VIII: Pagan p.24 Review by vctrsknt Contact Us Human p.26 ++ [email protected] (editor) by The Fifth Horseman CONTENTS VERSUS X-COM: UFO Defense vs Terror from the Deep p.30 p.47 by dkw Sword of Fargoal Remake Review VERSUS Gobliiins: The Original p.32 Trilogy vs Gobliiins 4 by bobson by bobson Reflections of a cat wearing p.34 p.48 a lime on its head by Tito History of Horror Games 1992-1995, Part 1 Wilderness: A Survival p.36 by Dumitru Condrea Adventure Review by Dumitru Condrea p.52 Amiga: The PC’s p.37 best friend Horror Reviews by red_avatar in Brief by marko river Star Trek: The Next Generation p.39 A Final Unity Review by DarkArmada p.53 Toonstruck p.40 Review Interview with by El Quia Pac-Man by Bazly Vikings: Fields of Conquest p.42 Kingdoms of England II Review by mexbrush p.54 Console Corner p.44 History of Horror Games Venus Senki 1992-1995, Part 2 by The Fifth Horseman by Dumitru Condrea Console Corner p.45 Wild 9 by Dumitru Condrea probably a better name than Azrael’s Tear in Released in 1996 for MS-DOS, Azrael’s retrospect. It was developed by an Austral- Tear was developed by the UK based Given he is in the UK, our interview ian guy called Ken Haywood, and it was just company Intelligent Games, also known scheduling was a bit strange, having a paper document. for developing Dune 2000 and Emperor: to deal with the time difference and The document was Ken’s original thing, Battle For Dune. The company was all. We decided on a Tuesday at 3pm I think we still have some of his original artwork on my Bad Language blog, and founded in 1988 by Matthew Stibbe, his time, which was 9am my time. So I he said, “Hey, would you like to do a game woke up, rolled out of bed, shambled and closed its doors in 2002. based on this?” and we said, “yes.” This was on over to my desk chair, plopped around 1993 or 1994, the time when Myst by Connor Eck down, and started the Skype call. was very successful, and our idea at the time aka saibot216 was that we would do Raptor/Azrael’s Tear Matthew Stibbe: in the style of Myst i.e. pre-rendered 3D Azrael’s Tear was a game that I dis- Azrael’s Tear, there’s a blast from the graphics with limited animation, and you covered on one of my scavenging runs past. That must’ve been like 15 years ago or would hop from one place to another, but through the depths of the MobyGames something. we would try and make it look very beau- database. If I recall correctly, I was tiful. That’s where the original idea came Connor: looking for a sci-fi adventure game from, and the original concept was to make Yeah... The first question I have is where a Myst-like game. and I saw the title Azrael’s Tear, which did the idea for Azrael’s Tear come from? in and of itself was very intriguing to me. I kept the game in the back of my Matthew Stibbe: Connor: mind and got it before I went to study Well, um, a long time ago (laughs) in a One of the things I noticed was that back abroad (in the United Kingdom, oddly Galaxy far far away, I worked with an agent in that era when games were coming out, enough). The game quickly became called John Cook, whose company had they had voice acting and typically the one of my all time favorites, so being the wonderful name of Bad Management. voice acting was not good, Resident Evil able to talk with Matthew Stibbe, the He’s a good guy, and a good agent, and he being the case and point for that-- game’s creator, about the game, was represented us on a couple of projects. He Matthew Stibbe: such a treat for me. brought us this proposal for a game that was called “Raptor” at the time, which was (laughs) I N T E Interview with R V I Matthew Stibbe E I W Connor: --it was very emotionless or the emotion was lost and the writing was bad, but that’s probably on a different point. I noticed in Azrael’s Tear that the voice acting was... actual acting. Matthew Stibbe: Actual acting! Yes! Connor: It was really surprising to me, so I was wondering how much preparation and thought went into the voice acting? Matthew Stibbe: Yeah, I think that was an interesting aspect of the game. I think we probably did more work on the audio than was typical at the time. On the acting side, the game design had sort of evolved from Ken’s original idea and he was involved in the devel- opment of the design. He worked with the Intelligent Games team, particularly Richard ■ This guy DEMANDS that I break open a boulder or else! Guy. If I remember rightly, and this was a long time ago so I might make mistakes 5 Matthew Stibbe INTERVIEW At the same time lots of people were trying to do it, I remember the very beautiful Blade Runner game that Westwood did and there was a game where you were a private detec- tive, I can’t remember the name of it now, but in retrospect that whole genre has pretty much died out now. Except for a very niche audience, people do not like adventure, problem solving, puzzle games – in history, King’s Quest and Zork and all these, they were the big hits, but they’ve been destroyed by first-person shooters. Connor: You said the game had this plan to look like Myst, what made you change to the more 3D environments? As you said this was a long time ago, so you may not remember... ■ Illustration from Ken Haywood’s design document. Matthew Stibbe: on some of this stuff, we had a guy named set piece to set piece.

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