Before switching all my articles to ebook format and moving to a new host, in response to my retrospective on Edd the Duck, I had an interesting chat with Brian Beuken, coder of the Spectrum version. It would be a shame to lose it, so we won't. Mostly he took issue with my comments concerning a missing collectable in the game which renders it unfinishable, and the extent of his responsibility for it, teaching me that I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions given the extenuating circumstances I wasn't aware of.
Brian: Oopphhh, kinda harsh to blame only me for the missing star, it was supposed to have been playtested before publication, I was only the coder, and it was a very very quick job. Suggesting it was the worst version is also rather subjective as it was surprisingly well-received. Is it a great game? No, it's far from that, but it was a nice game for kids, who seemed to enjoy it.
Hi,
Thanks for stopping by to share your feedback. I did ask if you wanted to be involved in the article beforehand, but had to go ahead without you when I didn't get a response. Anything you said would have been included to counterbalance my comments.
This is an opinion piece, so yes, these are only my personal views. I did include extracts from the extremely positive Crash and Sinclair User reviews to be fair, as well as the polar opposite C&VG one. I actually thought I was quite reserved in my criticism given the level of vitriol that's levelled at the game elsewhere.
Here's one of the more rational, calm reviews. This is the YouTube channel of Andy Godoy, retro-gaming podcaster and Speccy obsessive so he does know what he's talking about.
Why was Brian Jobling so keen to rush it out the door in the first place? I don't get that because it's not as if there was a movie schedule that it had to tie-in with like many licensed games. I do sympathise with you though re: the pressure and tight deadlines. I know from speaking to other developers how stressful an environment this industry can be to work in. If you have a boss who's only interested in the bottom line, quality control is the first thing to fly out the window.
Brian: I don't recall, having any contact from you? I'd have been happy to give you some info on the game, though it was a very long time ago and I don't recall that much about it...
I also can't comment on why it was rushed out, but rushing out games back then was the norm, and reusing code between the Spectrum and Amstrad was a common practice.
All I can tell you is that I was contracted to code the game according to the specifications I was given. It wasn't uncommon in those days for contract coders like myself to produce code according to a spec provided by the client. I had very little input into the gameplay, style or graphics. I was asked to produce a scrolly vertical game and I did and I made changes as my producer demanded. Test builds were sent to Zeppelin at different stages and I was paid in stages as the demos were approved. I wasn't actually paid that much either as I recall but it was a simple job.
I seem to recall I also added a small editor to allow the production team to produce maps. I can't honestly recall if I produced all the final maps, so it might not even have been my fault that the 19th-star bug was there... But I'll accept it is a sad flaw.
As a game it was aimed at very young kids too, so meant to be very simple to play and not too challenging. Again I had no say over the price or marketing that seemed to place it in the adult game market. In fact, I had no say in anything :D I just wrote the code, sent it, and changed/added what I was asked to do.
I don't mind the negativity, I've written
a lot of projects in my time (around 75), some I'm less proud of, some
very proud of, Edd isn't exactly high art, but as I say, some people
really liked it, especially younger players.
I'm sure a better game could have been produced, but as I was nothing
more than a coder for hire, with a production team at the Zeppelin
office in charge of the Design, QA and duplication and marketing, it's
a little unfair to say "We have coder, Brian Beuken, to thank for this
one" when you refer to a bug.
I found you on LinkedIn and sent a message through there. I don't know why it wouldn't have got through, or maybe it did and you don't have it set to notify you.
Fascinating insight into the development process, thanks for that. I'd totally forgotten about the editor. World of Spectrum have made that available. That kind of thing was a real novelty bonus back then when modding anything and everything wasn't taken for granted as it is these days with the ability to create and share the results over the web.
You're right, it didn't need to blow away Mario or Sonic. Regardless of how the various different versions turned out, I still love the notion that the games exist at all. It's a bizarre slice of old-school gaming history that I wouldn't want to change for a second.
I'll consider tweaking that line to take the sting out of it, but I'm struggling to think how I'd relay the information without it amounting to the same thing, and other people reaching that conclusion regardless. Hmm...
Brian: Just found your linked-in message, sorry I don't check it that regularly, but I've added you now.
It's OK, as I say, it's not high art, I just felt it a little unfair to label me as the villain of the piece when in all genuine honesty I don't even recall if I designed the levels. I rather enjoyed coding Edd, it was a very quick job and the editor gave it more room for expansion than was usual those days.
I always loved working on the Amstrad, as I hated the Speccy colour clashing, but it was an utter bitch of a machine to do anything decent on. If you had scrolling on it you were using 80% of your processing power just to scroll, leaving very little for sprite management or logic.
Game coding then was pretty hard, fighting with poor hardware and often even poorer design. That didn't really change until the era of consoles where we finally had the power and hardware to actually give designers a chance to reflect their idea. I'm kinda pleased to have been part of that, even though some things make me cringe when I see them now, but much happier to have survived to the later era of game development where hardware limits are no longer a hurdle we have to jump.
No problem, and thanks, we got there in the end. :)
I've edited the article now and moved the 'where are they now?' bit to another paragraph so it flows better. Reading it back now it does seem unnecessarily hostile, especially in what's supposed to be a light-hearted story, sorry.
I was a Speccy gamer before I came to the Amiga and so grew up with the colour clash situation. It was what I knew so it felt completely natural and acceptable to me at the time, even though I was aware it didn't happen with the rival systems. Looking back with dewy-eyed nostalgia now I see it as part of the charm, and many people seem to share that sentiment in protesting against removing the clash from the revamped Spectrums like the Next and Vega. I can see how frustrating it would be for a programmer or graphics artist who already has enough limitations to contend with though. I know a few developers who worked on Spectrum games, yet never touched the machine itself, which says a lot about the reliability and ease of use of the platform as a programming tool.
Interesting point. The massive overhead caused by scrolling does explain why so many 8-bit games, and even some early 16-bit ones, used flick-screen scrolling rather than the smooth variety. Everything was about compromise and juggling resources back then.
I totally agree. I couldn't code a Frogger game to save my life, but I'm glad I lived through that magical era as a gamer.