Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

General software. From trouble with the Banyan Tree to OCP Art Studio, post any general software chat here. Could include game challenges...
Post Reply
User avatar
PeteProdge
Bugaboo
Posts: 3599
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:03 am

Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

And so we move onto Derek Brewster, a major programmer for Micromega but left them just before the in-fighting and quality plummet brought them down. Derek became an adventure review for Speccy magazine Crash, while also freelancing to make games for budget labels like Mastertronic and Code Madsters.

Derek Brewster was instrumental in setting up Zeppelin Games (with ex-Micromega colleageu Brian Jobling) although only one title by him appears in the personal ZX Spectrum gamas softography I've written here. He left Zeppelin in 1989.

Post-Speccy, he's had a spell as a fantasy artist/photographer. His Etsy shop has been on a 'short break' since, er, 2011,

Anyway, here's the shortlist.

Codename Mat by Micromega
Codename Mat II by Domark
Con-Quest by Mastertronic Added Dimension
Curse Of Sherwood by Mastertronic
Haunted Hedges by Micromega
Jasper! by Micromega
Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager by Cognito Software
Kentilla by Micromega
Mission Jupiter by Code Masters
Munch Man by DK'Tronics
Speed King 2 by Mastertronic
Star Trek by Mikro-Gen
Starclash by Micromega
Velnor's Lair by Neptune Computing
Winter Olympiad '88 by Tynesoft
World Soccer by Zeppelin Games

Did I make any mistakes? Let me know before next Sunday.
Reheated Pixels - a combination of retrogaming, comedy and factual musing, is here!
New video: Nine ZX Spectrum magazine controversies - How Crash, Your Sinclair and Sinclair User managed to offend the world!
User avatar
hitm4n
Manic Miner
Posts: 621
Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2017 12:56 pm

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by hitm4n »

As tough as it was, Jasper was an old favourite, but this one may be Velnors Lair. Great adventure game.
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
Matt_B
Manic Miner
Posts: 659
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:47 am

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by Matt_B »

I always wondered what happened with Micromega. It seemed like one minute they were publishing quality games, mostly from Brewster and Mervyn Estcourt, and then they just seemed to vanish.

Anyway, I'd think that that period - with Codename MAT, Kentilla and Jasper - was his prime.
User avatar
PeteProdge
Bugaboo
Posts: 3599
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:03 am

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

Matt_B wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 2:03 am I always wondered what happened with Micromega. It seemed like one minute they were publishing quality games, mostly from Brewster and Mervyn Estcourt, and then they just seemed to vanish.
"In April stalwart Micromega came up with the disappointing Day In The Life, a spoof on Sir Clive Sinclair. It proved to be Micromega’s last game, and the label was absorbed into its commercial-programming parent company as quietly as a ship sliding under the waves" - Crash #15, April 1985

"Micromega was a software house that created original high-quality games, but their parent company felt the returns were not high enough to justify continuing in the games software market — a case of a company disappearing despite producing popular games." - Robin Candy, Crash #41, Jun 1987
Reheated Pixels - a combination of retrogaming, comedy and factual musing, is here!
New video: Nine ZX Spectrum magazine controversies - How Crash, Your Sinclair and Sinclair User managed to offend the world!
User avatar
hitm4n
Manic Miner
Posts: 621
Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2017 12:56 pm

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by hitm4n »

I rather liked "A Day In The Life".
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
User avatar
MarkRJones1970
Microbot
Posts: 180
Joined: Sun Jun 16, 2019 9:31 am
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by MarkRJones1970 »

DIdn't he fall out with Crash and leave because they gave his then current game a crappy review?
Mark R. Jones

Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
User avatar
PeteProdge
Bugaboo
Posts: 3599
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:03 am

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

MarkRJones1970 wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 6:18 pm DIdn't he fall out with Crash and leave because they gave his then current game a crappy review?
The last issue Derek Brewster had a credit in Crash was issue #48, cover dated as Jan 1988.

His 1987 games output:

The Curse Of Sherwood by Mastertronic (Crash 56%; SU 6/10)
Mission Jupiter by Code Masters (Crash 56%; SU 3/10; YS 5/10)
Speed King 2 by Mastertronic (Crash 42%, then reviewed again with 9% from Mike Dunn and 37% from Dom Handy; YS 7/10)

Going on magazine cover dates:
Speed King 2 was reviewed in January (Crash); February (YS and ZX Computing); April (MicroHobby) and re-reviewed in December (Crash)
Curse Of Sherwood was reviewed in April (Crash); May (Computer Gamer) and August (SU).
Mission Jupiter was review in August (MicroHobby); September (Crash) and October (SU and YS).

None of the Crash reviews of these three games are particularly full of praise. Mission Jupiter gets probably the best of the lot. Speed King 2 gets a huge drubbing on its first Crash review: This is possibly the worst racing game that has come in this year, it has poor graphics that don't seem to speed up as you do (the white lines in the road go virtually the same speed 1 at 60mph as they do at 190mph) and the sound is no more than spot effects and growling. The game play is about as compulsive as a dead cat,; This seems to be a very bad copy of Full Throttle, but with a two player game added. [...] I'm afraid Speed King II doesn't have the feel of a good bike game, and with Full Throttle at 2.99 it's got some good competition.; The graphics are incredibly bad, and the game is an awful attempt of a Full Throttle copy. The only thing that it has over Full Throttle is the fact that the characters don't flicker, and if that's two years of improvement, I'd rather keep the original.

It gets really brutal in the end-of-year re-reviews: Poor graphics and an almost total lack of playability make it worse than any other racing game I can think of.; Along the same lines as Full Throttle, only everything's worse than in Micromega's classic original.

So yeah, maybe that (with the recollection of a game from his previous employer Micromega - by programmer Mervyn Estcourt) was the breaking point?
Reheated Pixels - a combination of retrogaming, comedy and factual musing, is here!
New video: Nine ZX Spectrum magazine controversies - How Crash, Your Sinclair and Sinclair User managed to offend the world!
Matt_B
Manic Miner
Posts: 659
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:47 am

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by Matt_B »

For what it's worth, Con-Quest (1986) got a negative review in Crash too:
I was really disappointed with Conquest mainly because of the poor graphics and slow playing. The screen is very poorly presented, with some very average looking characters which are all very colourful but result in lots of terrible clashes. I thought that the screen had a good 3D perspective but that didn't always act true. The game couldn't really make its mind up between an being arcade game or an adventure, and as a mixture it's terrible. There are much better budget games on the market.
The Speed King 2 reviews do seem particularly scathing though, for a game that doesn't really seem that bad to me. Die hard Full Throttle fans may beg to differ, of course.
User avatar
XTM
Manic Miner
Posts: 794
Joined: Mon Jun 22, 2020 12:09 am
Location: Cologne, Germany
Contact:

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by XTM »

PeteProdge wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2023 11:26 amDid I make any mistakes? Let me know before next Sunday.
Leave it to the German to point out ze mistakes zis Englishman has made, then :twisted:
(btw, should I just use "Brit" when in doubt? I know you are from the Midlands, though)

- Derek became an adventure review(er)
- Code Madsters (nice typo though, "Madsters" sounds pretty cool)
- ex-Micromega colleageu
- ZX Spectrum gamas softography
User avatar
blucey
Manic Miner
Posts: 864
Joined: Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:46 am

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by blucey »

Curse of Sherwood was good. Well, up to that Bas**rd swamp.

I always thought he made Brainache but apparently not. Huh.
dvduk
Drutt
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2023 6:29 pm

Re: Devfinitive Edition (Derek Brewster): discussion

Post by dvduk »

I remember taking a tape to the Crash office at one point with a recently completed Adventure I'd coded - in hope of passing to Derek. Of course I hadn't realised he didn't work in the building :)
Can also be found at SamstersVideos - which does occasionally update when I have time...
Post Reply