Then, a couple of years ago, I got a call from the US, and it's none other than Jake Simpson; obviously he learned his coding well, 'coz he was now a coder at none other than Williams Electronics. They're based in Chicago, and last year I was due to go to Summer CES in that city, and Jake suggested that we meet up then, and maybe slope off for a beer or two and talk about old times...
Anyway, I'm at CES, demonstrating the VLM to someone with the aid of 'The Division Bell' by Pink Floyd, when there's a tap on my back and it's Jake. He says he's brought along someone I might like to meet...
There's this tall thin guy; very short hair, almost shaven; intense intelligent eyes and a wicked grin. Jake sez: 'This is Eugene Jarvis'....
Now, everyone has their heroes; people who they respect and admire and who have inspired them by the quality of their work. For me, I guess the two people I most admire would be Roger Waters out of Pink Floyd, for years of excellent music that speaks to the soul... and the guy who designed what I consider to be some of the finest videogames ever made; the man who invented the Smart Bomb and the Scanner; the designer of Defender, the game which broke so much new ground in the early days of videogames, and an all-time classic; Stargate, the awesome sequel to Defender, perhaps one of the most intense videogames ever made, with amazing particle explosions and in-your-face gameplay which would keep you standing in front of the machine at 2AM sweating buckets; and Robotron, with its innovative and distinctive explosions, more enemies on screen simultaneously than just about any other game, and just one of the finest all-out blastfests ever made. That man is Eugene Jarvis. In my estimation he ranks somewhere above Grand High Immortal. And finally, there in Chicago, I finally got to meet him.
EJ has been one of the main influences on my own work over the years - EJ and an unusual love of beasties, anyway. His games are always distinctive and he always manages to nail down that elusive quality - playability. I've always aspired to one day produce a game which is as playable and addictive as one of his great Williams classics.
It was just excellent to finally meet this great dude, and hang out with him and Jake for the afternoon. We toured around the CES, got something to eat, and he got me a sneak preview of his latest game. I'm pleased to say that he had seen and lliked Llamatron - I'm glad he was not mortally offended at what I'd done to his game - and I have a photo of the great man playing T2K on the Jaguar. He particularly lliked my pixelshatter explosions in that game, which are clearly an evolution of the explosions in Defender and Stargate. I mentioned that I'd really llove to do a Jaguar version of Defender one day, and he said yeah, that if anyone was going to do it it should be me...
Now, at that point Atari had no plans to do a Defender for the Jaguar. But, over the successive weeks, the words of God reverberated in the Yakly bonce... if anyone was to do Defender it should be me... and finally I could stand it no more, and I sent a fax to John at Atari, saying pleeeease could I do Defender, because if there's a game that I llove even more than Tempest it's Defender, and I'm sure I could do a wicked job, and besides, I'd be on a mission from God...
Atari said yes!
So it's happening... Defender 2000 is my current project, and coming along rather nicely. For more information about the game, and regular progress reports, read Jaguar Developments on my homepage. I'm having great fun making the game, and it's kinda a natural progression for me after having updated Tempest. Get your Smart Bomb fingers ready for some Humanoid-rescuing, Mutant-blasting, Pod-opening, Scanner-watching, Planetoid- exploding action... and remember... God told me to do it!