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Q: Did you see this, by the way, talking about Clive Sinclair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-kI0urN9tI

Very nice... they teach on TV how to change MSX cartridges WITHOUT turning the power switch OFF !! Maybe they had made contract with computer repair companies, "Pay us and we show in television how to damage MSX very badly and then you´ll get lots of money for fixing endless amount broken MSXs! It´s A Deal!!"

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Very nice... they teach on TV how to change MSX cartridges WITHOUT turning the power switch OFF !!

It was a plot of Sir Clive to destroy MSXes and thus sell more Speccies

Ahh... OF COURSE!!!!! I was too blind to see the truth.... Sir Clive is really evil Anti-Christ!!

Hello Paul!! It´s really nice to hear somebody who has made some of my eighties favourite games!!!

In the 80s, seeing wonderful Electric Software logo in MSX´s teevee screen was ALWAYS unbelievable great moment to me!
Here´s some questions.

1) Who are responsible for Electric Software logo and theme music?

2) What´s the story of Shark Hunter´s death scene music? (where eskimo mother leaves with a baby) As it has always sounded very familiar to me...

3) Can you tell us some stories about designing Electric Software´s games? Like which kind of ideas you guys had there before starting programming?

4) Dare I ask this... ? As Shark Hunter and Buzz Off! are GST VIDEO´s games, I don´t remember seeing any mentioning about GST VIDEO in manuals.... that´s why it was this millennium when I first time found a mentioning about GST VIDEO from the internet and wondered VIDEOPAC screenshots of Shark Hunter and Super Bee....

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Hello Paul!! It´s really nice to hear somebody who has made some of my eighties favourite games!!! In the 80s, seeing wonderful Electric Software logo in MSX´s teevee screen was ALWAYS unbelievable great moment to me! Here´s some questions. 1) Who are responsible for Electric Software logo and theme music? 2) What´s the story of Shark Hunter´s death scene music? (where eskimo mother leaves with a baby) As it has always sounded very familiar to me... 3) Can you tell us some stories about designing Electric Software´s games? Like which kind of ideas you guys had there before starting programming? 4) Dare I ask this... ? As Shark Hunter and Buzz Off! are GST VIDEO´s games, I don´t remember seeing any mentioning about GST VIDEO in manuals.... that´s why it was this millennium when I first time found a mentioning about GST VIDEO from the internet and wondered VIDEOPAC screenshots of Shark Hunter and Super Bee....

All good questions - unfortunately I don't have many good answers.

1) The Electric Software logo was a vision created by Mick and Jeff, I think, with the music realised by a local musician, and the coding managed by Electric's engineers.

2) Shark Hunter, as I now recall, was Graham's idea for a Videopac game (a time I wasn't with GST), so was updated and realised for MSX.

3) Game design wasn't immensely formal (unlike todays efforts have to be, with dozens of programmers, and many tens of artists, sound engineers, translators, voice artists etc etc), and each game typically had a lead (sometimes an only) programmer. Designs were broken down into component parts (e.g. the 'handwriting' engine for "The Wreck", or a series of character animations for "Shark Hunter", and designed in a layered fashion, often from the bottom up. A game template was essentially very simple - just a main loop that ran the title screen, then sat in a loop calling any potential activity (e.g. read joystick, update coordinates, draw screen) with everyting running against its own timer.

4) Electric Software was owned by Jeff Fenton, as a subsidiary of GST, so I imagine there would have been no legal need to reference GSTs Videopac games - how this was addressed with Phillips I have no idea, but I guess would have depended on GSTs contract with Phillips regarding developent rights.

It's nice to hear about stories of the early days of MSX game developments.

One question I have: Was there any MSX game started by Electric Software which never was finished or released ?

Maggoo, on page 2 Paul wrote:

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Abandoned projects? Well, the Music Editor I wrote (in the Editor series) was unreleased, as far as I know - and I'm not aware that much came of softcard developents either (through ES at least), but I'm prepared to be proved wrong.

...Besides the priceless information Paul has given us, I still wonder, like MäSäXi, where the music from Shark Hunter originated. Will it remain a mistery? Did some genious mind back then, compose some great-sounding, folk music-like stuff which simply fitted the game?

Besides this, reading the threads and remembering more and more, I realize that Electric Software... Man, it has played a big role on MSX and we're lucky to have a veteran amidst us!

Thanks, Paul for all the information and manuel for asking some good questions!

Let me thank Paul then for contacting me in the first place! We really appreciate it!

I have a 1985 Toshiba MSX software catalogue listing 200 MSX software titles available in the UK. There are two unreleased Electric Software games mentioned in the catalogue.

Eros

with tongue firmly in cheek this game features the best parts of most of the others. This time you are cupid trying to keep the numbers of Romeos and Juliets roughly equal. Its funny aswell as entertaining.

Pinky

Its enough to put you on the wagon . This game has a pink elephant on a monocycle being chased by a train and it all happens on a rollercoaster. Amazing scrolling graphics are the games strongpoint.

The catalogue also lists Sewer Sam as an Electric Software game so maybe these games were from another company. I think I have a magazine with a posed photograph of all the Electric Software programmers.

How cool! Is it possible you can scan this catalogue and put the scans online somewhere?

By the way... I have always liked the way lemon64 have interviews of 80s commodore 64 programmers, cover artists, computer graphics artists and musicians, until now, we haven´t got any, until Paul started to write here.

Could we have a special page where Paul´s words could be placed, as when time passes, it may not be easy to find this topic anymore, if there´s not new questions and answers.

And anyway, I think we should honor Paul by making such a "interview page", and maybe making "cleaned" version of Paul´s questions and answers.

I really hope we could get more old msx programmer´s interviews here. It´s a shame we don´t have any, except those great answers from Paul!

And we actually have had some, or at least one msx programmer here earlier long before Paul´s arrival. I don´t remember who he was, but in some old topic someone said he had ported spanish spectrum games for msx in the 1980s, so he must be spanish programmer.

So maybe it could be a good idea to put some words to visible place in frontpage, something like "Have you programmed commercial MSX games in 1980s? Or made graphics, sound fx or cover art? Or owned or worked in a company which released MSX games? If yes, please contact us, as we gladly like to make interview about your career, no matter how long or short your MSX related career was!".

Hello again, Paul! I earlier asked "Can you tell us some stories about designing Electric Software´s games? Like which kind of ideas you guys had there before starting programming?".

I like to hear more about IDEAS of you guys had back then, like if you guys had ideas which were different than in finished game, like if there were different death sequence-ideas in your heads or graphical ideas which weren´t used in finished game.

Like ideas what player or enemies can do, or whatever, if you remember ANY ideas, which were not used or changed a bit, no matter how silly or simple your ideas may have been, we´ll be glad to hear about them!

All information is valuable here!

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How cool! Is it possible you can scan this catalogue and put the scans online somewhere?

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