Commodore Free 17/Commodore_Free_Issue_17_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv jason

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Interview with Programmer Jason Kelk


Commodore Free talks to 6502
enthusiast, www.oldschool-gaming.com
head honcho and retro writer Jason "The
Magic Roundabout" Kelk about his
passion for coding and the likes.

Commodore Free: What first interested
you in coding? And, can you  remember
the first game that you created?

The Magic Roundabout: The first time I
ever saw a home computer was at my
friend's house, he and his brother had
saved up and got themselves a VIC 20
and before that point I had no idea
such a thing even existed!  I remember
it quite clearly (which is odd
considering my usually flaky memory)
because we'd just gone to see Superman
3 at the cinema and, on returning to
their house, my friend proceeded to
try writing a game in BASIC on the VIC
based on a sequence from the film. I
watched him and how this machine was
pretty much allowing him to create
from nothing more than his imagination
and knew I wanted to be able to do
something like that myself... before
that point I liked Lego, so I went
from one kind of construction to
another really.

The first game I created (and I'm
using the term in a hideously loose
way here) was a text adventure for the
unexpanded VIC 20; it was written in
BASIC on a display machine that was in
the photographic department of our
local branch of Boots and although I
can't remember any real details, I'm
pretty sure that it was terrible in
every possible sense of the word. I
might still have it squirrelled away
on a tape somewhere, but even if it
turns up I'll bloody well deny it!

CF: How many games and demos have you
released? And which are you most proud?

TMR: Oh heck... as a programmer and
over all platforms, about 25 to 30
games and probably credited on five or
10 more for graphics, sound or support
code. As far as demos go, about 60 or
70 and I have graphics credits on half
that number again I expect. It's been
a 25 year period, I've forgotten the
exact numbers! As far as pride goes,
on the game front I'd have to say that
Reaxion (C64 and then all sorts of
platforms) is the one i'm most pleased
with because it's been on so many
formats now and always seems to get a
positive reaction (s'cuse the pun)
apart from that cease and desist email.
Cyberwing (C64) is probably a close 2nd
since it's the most complex shoot'em up
I've done to date & now I've forgotten
the pain & suffering involved I can
enjoy it myself, although I'm first to
admit it's somewhat messy internally
(as in the internal coding - Ed).
For the demos, the two I'd have to say
stand out for me personally would be
For Teh Win (C64, released at X'2006)
because it came together very well
over a short period and Presets (C64,
released at Vision '03) because it
seems to be the one that everybody
else likes - I'm not sure why, but it
was fun to write all the way through
rather than becoming slightly painful
around when it was being linked, so
perhaps that comes across?

CF: What influences your developments?
Do you drink lots of coffee & stay up
late into the night hammering out code?
Or do you think about the theory first
before starting the project?

TMR: I used to drink gallons of coffee
but I've stopped recently and now It's
tea more than anything, but my approach
is a hybrid in that I'll get a rough
idea of theory whilst out & about (I
tend to walk and use public transport
quite a bit, we don't own a car &
haven't driven since the 1980s) and
then put some code together to see if
it does what I was expecting it to. It
leads to some interesting moments
around town; I get a lot of very odd
looks because I trundle around
muttering to myself in HEX.

CF: Do you have an interest outside of
Commodore?

TMR: Oh yes, I like all 8 & 16 bit
machines really & play 2D shoot'em ups
on just about every platform I can
find the things. I've been involved
with software for a lot of them and
plan to keep expanding that range as
long as I have time to do so. Of
course, if you meant other interests
in life outside computing then I like
science fiction and comedy movies,
some television, a few books here and
there, all manner of music I don't
know I should go into further detail in
a family publication! =-) (Good choice
- Ed)

CF: Have you ever seen something on an
8-bit machine and thought "wow"?

TMR: Absolutely, the first time I saw
games like Turrican, Io or Armalyte on
the C64 or R-Type on the Spectrum, the
first times watching thousands of
demos over assorted platforms; some of
the programming is absolutely
astounding and, although I have what
I'd like to think is a reasonable
understanding of demo code, there are
still a few things that I don't know
the theory behind.

CF: In your opinion, what concessions
have to be made to develop 8-bit games?

TMR: I feel that games tend to be
shaped around the platform really, a
programmer should have a reasonable
idea of the workings of the machine
they're aiming at (which comes with
time and practice) and start with a
rough game plan, then refine it
depending on which parts the machine
seems to like or dislike and, more
importantly, which bits play well
after paring down. My own game plans
usually go along the lines of "want to
do a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up -
ugg" and then it's a case of getting
the hardest element of such a project,
in that particular case the background
scrolling, up and running before
building on and evolving things from
that point. One of the biggest
mistakes I've noticed people making is
saying "wouldn't it be great to have
Game A on Machine B" without actually
thinking through what that would
entail or if it's even possible to
convert the game without making
concessions that will break what made
Game A good to begin with.

CF: Who (or whom) do you admire from
the past and present in terms of
efficient coding and visualising
game-play?

TMR: I'd have to point to hundreds of
people to be honest... but to pick a
few names from the past, Dan Phillips
(Armalyte, C64), Joffa Smiff (Cobra
and others, Spectrum), Jeff Minter
(lots of titles, various platforms),
Manfred Trenz (Turrican series and
Enforcer, C64), Patrick Strassen
(GWNN, Bounder and various others,
C16) or the Stampers (Jetpac and the
other Ultimate titles, Spectrum). From
the current crop it would have to
include Jonathan Cauldwell (various,
Spectrum), Lasse Oorni (Metal Warrior
series and BOFH, C64), Thomas Jentsch
(Thrust, Atari 2600) and perhaps Piotr
Wisniewski (Crownland, Atari 8-bit)
but that list goes on to cover at
least a third of the people currently
developing for these platforms to be
honest.

CF: What are you working on right now?
We hear rumours of a game for the C=
PET.

TMR: Yup, in fact during the time I
was mulling over my answers to these
questions I released my first PET game
called Blok Copy; it's a relatively
simple puzzler that runs on any 40
column PET with 8K of memory or more -
just pop over to www.cosine.org.uk &
there's a note about it in the news
that'll in turn lead to the download &
so far it seems to be well-received by
the people I've asked to do the final
beta tests. I'm not sure where I'm
going after that, there are a few ideas
on the "to do" list and a load of half-
completed projects in my work direct-
ories but I prefer to play my cards
close to my chest until I know I'm
getting somewhere with a specific bit
of code. I did consider doing a Pong
clone for the 80 column PET since Gene
Hunt in Ashes To Ashes insisted the one
on his desk has it!

CF: How did you get involved in
Cronosoft? Did you not think of
approaching Protovision first?

TMR: Simon approached me, I'd never
even considered selling my code before
that point, at least not for about ten
years or so. To be honest, although I
understand where Protovision are
coming from, my personal approach
these days is to give the game away
for free and, if people want to pay a
little bit to get nice packaging and
so forth, they have the option to do
that after deciding they like the
thing. I'm not sure that would fit
into Protovision's way of doing things
and, it has to be said, they're much
more into promoting the hardware
expansions like four player adapters
than I am. My target audience tends to
be the solo player since that's pretty
much what I am myself.

CF: What do you make of people who
upgrade their C64 machines beyond 1Mhz
& 64K?

TMR: On a general front I'd have to
say "each to their own" because I'm
hardly in a position to comment about
people doing unusual things with old
computers... but it doesn't really
interest me as a programmer. I know
now because I was... persuaded shall
we say to borrow a SuperCPU from Allan
Bairstow a while back and, after an
initial bout of finding a cross
assembler that I actually liked which
had 65816 support, I spent quite a
while trying to think of something to
actually do with all that CPU grunt
and memory. That's where things sort
of stalled really, the problem was
that just about everything seemed to
either be possible on a stock machine
or at most require a RAM expansion
that can be emulated.

To be honest, games developed for the
SuperCPU or indeed anything else that
can't be emulated with a reasonable
accuracy are going to receive highly
limited exposure these days; it
doesn't matter how many owners say
that Metal Dust is fantastic, very few
people are equipped to play the thing
in the first place whilst even less
will own it and that's a huge shame if
so few gamers can enjoy the results of
all that work - granted, releasing a
game for only some models of PET puts
me fairly and squarely into a niche
market too, but it can be emulated so
those without the hardware can at least
play the thing.

CF: What advice can you give to anyone
who wants to start coding on 8-bit
machines?

TMR: My usual advice is to start slow
and not throw yourself into a huge
project to begin with, to find a
development environment that you find
comfortable and to aim towards things
that are visually oriented; people
seem to prefer to learn these sorts of
things when they can see results on
the screen even though a lot of the
more generic programming guides seem
to forego that side of things and
concentrate on the internal workings.
It's pretty hard to get enthusiastic
about adding four to the contents of a
register, but if that addition makes a
sprite go to the right it's a
different matter. Another thing to do
is find a "guru" for when you get
stuck. That doesn't mean to go nagging
the hell out of some poor sod every
five minutes, think of them as your
"phone a friend" and save them for
around the 125,000 mark. =-)

CF: Tell us your five favourite games,
please.

TMR: Io (Firebird, C64) will always be
at the top of my list, after that it
varies a little from week to week but
right now it'll probably be Turrican 2
(Rainbow Arts, C64), Armalyte
(Thalamus, C64), Outrun 2 (Sega, Xbox)
and Ikaruga (Treasure, Gamecube). Ask
me next week and that list will
probably have changed a bit.

CF: And your five favourite demos...

TMR: that's a much harder question...
at the moment it's probably something
like Desert Dream (Resource & Chorus,
C64), Deus Ex Machina (Crest, C64),
Royal Arte (Booze Design, C64), Oneder
(Oxyron, C64) and 8 Shades Of Black
(various artists, C16) but just being
able to list five really isn't enough
to cover all the awesome demos out
there.

CF: Any final words of wisdom that
you'd like to share with our readers?

TMR: Never eat yellow snow?