Devfinitive Edition (Matthew Smith): discussion

[PeteProdge]

And here we come to the coder behind two of the ZX Spectrum's most prolific games of all time.

Let's be honest, this really is a two-horse race, isn't it? Here's my shortlist, you'll know which two stick out heavily:

Andre's Night Off by C&VG (type-in listing)
Jet Set Willy by Software Projects
Manic Miner by Bug-Byte Software
Styx by Bug-Byte Software

Gaming pedants can point out that technically, there is also Manic Miner by Bug-Byte Software, but it's 99.9% identical to the Software Projects version, just some enemy sprites changed, so I'm not counting that as a separate game.

Still, let me know if there's anything that needs changing before next Sunday, when I start the poll for Best Game By A Coder Deported From A Dutch Commune.

[stupidget]

I typed in Andre’s Night Off BITD believing the hype in the mags description . The lesson here kids is to never bother typing in a type in, wait 40 years for someone else to do it, download it, play it and think ‘thank feck I didn’t waste precious hours typing this bilge in’

Thanks to all the people that do type these in, I’m am very grateful, honest.

[R-Tape]

That looks good to me. It's not as if we can include Attack of the Mutant Zombie Flesh Eating Chickens from Mars. I know my 1-2-3, but I'll be interested to see which of the two horses wins.

I'm struggling to think of other coders that made such a name for themselves with so few titles. Kevin Toms?

[RWAC]

I'm struggling to think of other coders that made such a name for themselves with so few titles. Kevin Toms?

Mike Singleton?

[uglifruit]

I'm struggling to think of other coders that made such a name for themselves with so few titles. Kevin Toms?

Sandy White

[R-Tape]

I'm getting 'what have the Romans ever done for us?' vibes

[Hank Scorpio]

I'm getting 'what have the Romans ever done for us?' vibes

Mervyn Estcourt and possibly David Reidy as well.

[R-Tape]

Alright alright! - apart from Toms, Singleton, White, Escort and Reidy, which other coder made such a name for themselves with so few titles?

[Wall_Axe]

I'd go for manic because jsw is too hard and buggy.
In manic there is a better sense of progression.
The first level is great,challenging but doable.

[cmal]

Alright alright! - apart from Toms, Singleton, White, Escort and Reidy, which other coder made such a name for themselves with so few titles?

How ‘bout Richard Wilcox?

[Matt_B]

I'd have said that Singleton (13 published games) and Reidy (9 + the Omnicalc spreadsheet) were actually quite prolific. Even Kevin Toms managed to put in a respectable 6. I suppose they've all got that one game, or at least series of games, that outshone everything else that they did, but they're all comfortably ahead of Smith in terms of published output.

White and Estcourt bear comparison though, at just three games each. Wilcox has only two, but I thought we were looking for people with a good reputation.

Anyway, on topic, what about Jet Set Willy 2? I'd be inclined not to count it but it's not even been mentioned yet, so should probably be discussed before someone brings it up in the middle of the poll. It's basically just the Amstrad version of JSW ported back to the Spectrum and passed off as a sequel. While it's got significant differences to JSW, Smith didn't really have anything to do with that, so just sticking to the original version seems fair.

[StooB]

Alright alright! - apart from Toms, Singleton, White, Escort and Reidy, which other coder made such a name for themselves with so few titles?

Veronika Megler - The Hobbit and Penetrator.

[R-Tape]

Veronika Megler - The Hobbit and Penetrator.

Oh Megler.... SHADDAPPP!

(Sorry for the off topic Prodge. I'll be good :–))

[PeteProdge]

There's Alan Cox whose only game on the Speccy is the 128K-only text adventure Blizzard Pass. Admittedly, not a hugely well-known game to Spectrum users. He became famous after that, with some dabbling in some penguin-fronted operating system that's done alright for itself.

[Vampyre]

Julian Todd is only credited with Fat Worm Blows A Sparky. So I guess he's the definition of a one hit wonder.

David Webb did E.T.X., Spookyman and Starion.

Stephen Crow is credited on a few titles but I think at most of them are for graphics. His sole-coder games are: Laser Snaker, Factory Breakout, Wizard's Lair, Starquake and Firelord. Quite some CV!

[blucey]

Shouldn't JSW2 be in there? I mean it's his game engine and half his levels.

[Sokurah]

Shouldn't JSW2 be in there? I mean it's his game engine and half his levels.

It's not his engine as it has been completely rewritten, so it definitely shouldn't be there.

[blucey]

It's not his engine as it has been completely rewritten, so it definitely shouldn't be there.

Some of his level design remains though but fair enough. I'm surprised that someone just rewrote all that code.

[Matt_B]

Some of his level design remains though but fair enough. I'm surprised that someone just rewrote all that code.

Most of the rewriting was to get JSW running well on the Amstrad CPC. The optimizations freed up a lot of memory, allowing a bunch of extra rooms and new features to be worked in.

Porting the new engine back to the Spectrum was comparatively straightforward, so I believe.

[spider]

JSW2 ... The code is completely different to JSW1

JSW2FF started life on the CPC464 then was ported back to the Spectrum

As far as I know (but I have not had the chance to ask him) M.S did not have any direct involvement in the creation/development of JSW2 , I stand to be wrong here which is fine.

For that reason I feel JSW2 must be excluded from Matthew's game list. Granted that all his room designs were used in it though.

[Joefish]

Mike Singleton?

Mike Singleton wrote for 8-bit machines other than the Speccy, and went on to write stuff like Midwinter on the ST and Amiga, and later games for the PC and consoles too. Far more than just Lords of Midnight and its sequels. Matthew Smith did sod all outside a couple of Speccy games. Though they were good games - he made a name for himself by not delivering any more sequels!

[PeteProdge]

Matthew Smith did sod all outside a couple of Speccy games.

When I read this claim, in the middle of playing Scrabble on a hand-held, I was shocked. I almost dropped my Game Boy Color.

https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page ... th-created

https://pixelatron.com/blog/matthew-man ... interview/

[Matt_B]

A single credit for "additional programming" on a Scrabble game that'd be otherwise unremarkable if it didn't have his name on the credits doesn't exactly refute what Joe said.

The simple truth of the matter is that Smith's early successes burned him out and he's still not entirely recovered from it. Honestly, I don't blame him. He had fame thrust upon him while still young and it's not like there weren't plenty of well-adjusted Spectrum developers who struggled to get to grips with the popular platforms of the 90s either. There's absolutely no shame in it.

Singleton just seems like a poor comparison because he bucked that trend and managed to get a thirty year career out of video games that only really ended with his death. Lords of Midnight might forever be his high point, but there are still plenty of hidden gems to hunt down among the rest of it.

[Mpk]

Does David Braben and/or Ian Bell count?

[Joefish]

Does David Braben and/or Ian Bell count?

I think they can. I heard they can do really hard sums as well.