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AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVE SHEA
Just been told of your site from someone here at Probe. They saw my
name in the Dave Perry interview, asking for my e-mail address. Well,
here you go.
Dave Shea.
Hi,
Glad to hear from you. I knew you were still at Probe after seeing
your name on the Alien Trilogy.
Would you be up for an interview as well to go on the pages?
Regards
David Wykes
Sorry it's taken a while, trying to get Batman & Robin ready for release
here at the moment.
I'd be happy to do an interview.
Dave Shea.
What was your first computer?
The first computer I owned was a ZX81
How did you get into programming, what was your first program?
It started while I was doing my O levels at school, about 16 years
ago. The school bought itself an RML380Z and installed it in the
physics department. I got interested since I spent a lot of time in
the physics lab. I got together with 2 other guys, and we started
learning programming, typing in stuff, guessing, reading, anything we
could lay our hands on.
The first half decent bit of code we wrote was a D&D style adventure
game, which became so popular at school it was banned from the
computer !
How did you break into the games industry & what was your first game?
I played around with machine code on my ZX81, and was trying to write
a defender program for it, when the Spectrum was launched. Having
scraped together enough cash to buy one, I continued learning machine
code by having a stab at writing a copy of Berserk, one of my
favourite arcade games at the time. At about the same time, I answered
an advert I saw in a magazine from a company called QuickSilva,
promising cash for games. I sent it off, made changes they suggested,
and to my surprise, they published it under the name 'Frenzy'
The first game i noticed your name on was Ikari Warriors, what games did
you do between Frenzy and IW?
The Snowman and Hijack, both for the Spectrum. I also spent 7 months at
MicroGen with Dave Perry, Nick Jones et al, although was sacked and told
I'd never make it in games publishing. (Perhaps I never did.)
How did you move from the Spectrum to the CPC
I saw an advert from Elite, looking for programmers. At the time, they
had published Commando and Ghosts and Goblins, and were doing really
well for themselves. I went up, and they offered me Ikari Warriors on
the Amstrad. I didn't let them know I'd never actually written anything
for the machine (Although we had played about with a prototype CPC at
MicroGen.) I went home, bought a CPC and a couple of books, and gave
myself a crash course.
Were you working for Probe when you wrote Ikari or did you get the job
freelance from Elite?
I was freelance. It was a few years later I first worked for Probe.
University (and more freelance work) came between.
After Ikari you disappeared for a while, i was told you went to Uni to
get qualified for "a real job" is that true?
Apart from the real job bit, yes. I took a course in Computer
Engineering at Kent University. I finished off Ikari during my first few
weeks at Uni, did Beyond the Ice Palace with Dave Perry for Elite, and
Victory Road for Ocean while attempting my finals. (That took it's toll
as you can imagine, and the game was never actually published.)
Did you do any other games during that time? The next games i saw your
name on were Golden Axe & Super Monaco which were really towards the
tail end of the 8bit days. At that point were you already learning to
program the new hardware which was around, did you start to move onto
the Amiga/ST then or did you go straight to consoles?
I had an Atari ST from very early on, and I taught myself programming on
it, as well as using it for development (Most of my graphics were done
on ST art packages.) Golden Axe and Monaco were the first Probe games I
did, just after I left University. Basically I wasn't interested in
getting a job, and ended up drifting back into games programming. Money
problems (ie. lack of it) and the desire for change took me up to
MIcroProse in-house (Silent Service II for Amiga and ST) and then to
America for a short while. I Really missed out on the 16 bit console
boom, (An unpublished soccer game for the MegaCD was the closest I got.)
What do you think was your best 8bit piece of work?
Ikari Warriors on the Amstrad. Got great reviews, (And one or two people
coming up to me and saying 'was it you who wrote...'), and it only took
me about 6 weeks start to finish.
What are your best memories of 8bit programming days?
Some of the best game ideas I've ever seen came out of that time. People
seemed much more creative, and, because everything was smaller
(machines, code, budgets) people would take much more risk in publishing
games that would now never see the light of day.
Victory Road was evntually released on budget i believe and on a
compilation. It was the sequel to Ikari in the Arcades wasn't it?
Yes, it was the sequel. I was never aware it was released at all, since it
missed it's release date, and I don't think Ocean were that happy with the
final game. Although I've heard about the budget version from other sources
as well. (In fact, the only time I realised something must of happened was
when it appeared on the net.)
yet i think most people would agree that Ikari was the better game on the
CPC.
Were you happy with VR, it looked like it was written on a tight timescale
and the graphics certainly weren't anywhere near as good as those on
Ikari.
I was not happy with it nether. I took the project on during my final year
at University, since Ocean rang me up (they were impressed by IK), and
offered me lots of money. (I was both impressed and flattered, so I
accepted.) I guess they were hoping for a quick conversion. It was only when
I looked at the game that I realised that there was no way the code I wrote
for IK would stand up, so I started a re-write. I ended up doing the last 6
months of my degree during the day, and VR by night. Needless to say, it was
a disaster. As for the graphics, it was the last time I did the graphics
myself, (and around this time when programmers were starting to code, and
artists taking over the drawing side of games.) I think my limitations were
reached as an artist at that point.
I believe it was Steve Crow who once said in an interview that you should
never reinvent the wheel, just copy the code from someone who's already
written it. Was Victory Road written from scratch or did it have some
common code with Ikari?
That's a fine idea if you plan it that way, but I often find the techniques
and general principles more important than the actual code. However, now,
with high level languages being used more and more, and the tools that much
better, it's getting much easier to re-use code. Back then, each project was
considered separate. (Although I did develop some library routines for
joystick handling etc. which were used in my later games from VR, and were
common across the Amstrad and Spectrum.)
Have you seen nice routines in other games/programs and spent time going
thorugh the code to see how it's done or are you one of those programmers
who would just wrirte thr routine themselves base on the end product?
I used to spend a lot of time hacking other peoples code, mainly on the
Spectrum, especially Ultimate and some of Keith Birkhill's stuff (Commando,
Ghosts and Goblins), partly to learn stuff, and partly to rip them off. I
learnt a lot about sprites, scrolling etc. that way. Now, I'd look at the
code if I could, but mainly we look at other products, and think, "well,
that's nice, but can we do it better ?"
Do you still have your source for your work or did it get lost in time
like so many other peoples work?
I think I have it somewhere on a disk, but I don't have the development
machines available to compile it.
What did you do while in America?
Started work on a game based on the year's "big" film, "Toys", on the
Genesis. I left before it was finished, the film bombed, and the game was
never released.
Why did you come back? Loads of programmers have gone out there and never
come back, you're the first i've found.
I met this girl (now my wife of almost 4 years) about a month before I left
the UK Our romance blossomed through letters and phone calls. I was also
unhappy with the work environment, which was 80 hour weeks, (7 days a week),
which left little time to get to know the U.S. (New Jersey, where I was
based, was no great shakes either, not like living a few miles from a
California beach.)
Would you consider going back to the states to work?
Yes, given the right conditions. I'd also have to think of my wife now of
course.
Are there any things you miss about the way you did things before and how
you do them now?
I like the way you could just come up with an idea, code it, and sell it,
without having to commit to thousands of dollars, and a twenty strong team.
Freedom and the ability to be original seem to be missing somewhat now,
unless you are very lucky or rich already.
Are there any other programmers you respected or admired for what they
did?
Keith Birkhill did some fantastic stuff on the Spectrum, Ultimate (of
course), and everyone at MicroGen (Dave Perry, Raff Cecco) who produced some
of the best looking CPC games I saw.
Do you have copies of your games on emulators etc?
Yes, most of them now, mostly thanks to web sites like yours. You should
have seen me the first time someone showed me a Spectrum emulator with one
of my games running, I almost fell off my chair !
I would like to thank Dave for contacting me in the first place
and giving me the chance to do this interview.
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