| An interview with Chris West |
Chris West
Tony West |
This time I had the opportunity to talk to Chris West about his C64 days. Being a big fan of License to Kill, I was quite excited about this one. He was complaining that he could only chat from 1pm-4pm and such was the life of a software developer; but it seemed pretty cushy to me! Well here it goes:
Hello... thanks for accepting to do this interview!
No problem at all, happy days indeed. Mind you no where near as well known as the other C64 legends you have chatted to.
Oh so you have read my other interviews?
I have. Really neat site, Lemon64.
How about introducing yourself a bit more?!
Oh right, well this is for Tony as well as we always were and still are a team, he isn't online at the moment which is a pity but never mind... So names, Chris and Tony West, now aged 37 (both of us, as we are twins) started writing Vic20/C64 when we were 16... We were born in Baghdad as our dad was an engineer there but were evacuated for the 6 day war. Both currently single though with long term girlfriends, and currently living in West Sussex in the UK and in Spain (Tony).
I didn't know you were twins?
Makes life a lot easier. :)
Really? I thought it would make it much harder actually...
Some twins hit it off other hate each other, guess we were lucky there, but it's sure helped that we know what each other thinks about something, be it graphics or the code side, we just know if the other doesn't like something.
What made you decide to join the C64 gaming industry? Had you always wanted to be a game designer, or did you stumble into your careers by happy accident?
Well we got hooked on computers from about the time of the ZX80, though never got one, our dad bought us a Sharp PC1210 which was a big calculator, but we soon moved onto the Vic20 and started fiddling with some code but never really did much, as soon as the C64 came along we were totally hooked, games like International Soccer were just amazing to us at the time. So we started dreaming of making our own games... Then along came Compunet and we like many others started doing some gfxs and simple demos and uploading them. Compunet then did a competition for all the demos, art, music etc that was appearing on the board and we won the low res section with a piccy of some 'Moonbugs' and that led us to meet Jane Firbank who was on of the people running Compunet at the time. And it was through her we got our first chance to work on a 'real' game in the industry.
And that was when you were 16?!
Yes. Well first game was started when we were 17; it's all a blur now.
You know, I also wrote my first real C64 assembly game when I was 16, but mine sucked donkeys.
Interesting way of putting it. :)
In other words, I would've never paid a dime for my own game.
Arr that good eh?!
Yeah definitely something to be proud of... Anyways, how was the meeting with Jane Firbank?
She was a nice lady. Often wonder what she's doing these days.
I was only about 10 back then, but I've heard there were very few women on the Compunet and everybody was trying to chat Jane up…
Yeah she was a celeb on there, a bit older than most people thought she was though. But very nice, quite posh. :)
Ok, I know you two have worked on these games...any other I may have missed?
Coding by Christopher West:
- Cyberball: Football in the 21st Century
- K.R.I.S.
- Licence to Kill
- R.I.S.K.
- Super Space Invaders
- Advanced Tactical Fighter - DI
- F16 - DI
- Protector - Mastertronic
Graphics by Tony West:
- Cyberball: Football in the 21st Century
- K.R.I.S.
- Licence to Kill
- R.I.S.K.
- Rampart
- S.T.U.N. Runner
- Shao-Lin's Road
- Spy Who Loved Me, The
- Super Space Invaders
Well it depends what you mean by worked on. :) When we were at Domark/The Kremlin Tony was head of art so he managed to have a hand in one way or another in everything Domark did in those years, and I was doing all sorts of bits and pieces for other games, be it mastering up, of making them work on cartridges but those are the main ones.
Oh Rampart as well I coded that one.
I see...How did you choose to be the coder and Tony to be a graphic designer? I imagine a 'non-recurring' fight might have taken place at that time between you two ;)
Remember that well. :) When we decided to write our first game it was pretty clear we needed to decide who did what, at the time each of us knew the same as the other, so we decided to toss a coin for it and it came down I learnt code and that Tony got the easy life, err I mean he got to draw. :)
This is very interesting...a coin toss defined your futures...
We do wonder how things would have turned out if it came down the other way, but it's worked ok this way. :)
You should've kept that coin... :)
I think that was somewhat needed at the time for the purpose it was designed. :) Anyway we knew all we had to do was finish a game and we would be millionaires, it was that simple. :)
I assume things didn't really work out that way?!
hahahaha, no. :)
On the games you developed together, did you help each others at all? Or each person to his job?
No we stuck firmly to our roles, though these days I do seem to spend a very large amount of time doing plug-ins and tools to help Tony.
Who usually came up with the original idea/designed the games?
Well we only really got the chance to do one original game and that was Risk or Kris, after that it was either doing conversions, film games or helping other people. Risk though just evolved as we worked on it, it started life as a Helicopter and Jeep game based on Choplifter.
How long did each game usually take to complete?
Well Risk took about 8 months, License to Kill took 6 months, but the arcade conversions took me a little longer, as we really tried to make them as close as we could but that was hard work with things like Cyberball.
How come?
Cyberball was hugely complex, we had all the source from Tengen which was in C (which I didn't know so had to learn quick) and the AI stuff for the players was massive, so it was a real struggle to get that working in the C64 and try and keep it all in a frame. Was a nightmare. Didn't really work in the end in my opinion which was a shame but just ran out of time.
Did you play your own games a lot? Or did you prefer to play other people's games?
We played Risk a lot, and enjoyed Super Space Invaders but on the whole we liked to play other peoples. :) Paradroid, Wizzball were two favourites. Racing Destruction Set was another one. There are so many cool games.
Did you have any C64 game-developer heroes? Who inspired you the most?
Most of the guys who came from Compunet were an inspiration or motivation, Bob Stevenson, Stoat & Tim and all those guys. Tony Crowther offcourse was a superstar and we liked his games a lot.
The dude behind the great Monty Mole…
Yeah classic game that one, just loved the way it was on one level but with different bits, never did complete it.
Did you do the coding on a PC first and then transfer it to C64 (like many other C64 coders), or did you code directly on a C64?
Well Risk was done using Dr.Watson's Rapid Assembler System, which was a real pain to use but did its job, after that when we did License to Kill we managed to get some PDS systems which was so much easier, I've still got it here in a box. Amazing how much simpler life was with PDS couple of seconds to test a change to the code; in Risk it took 30 mins to test each change, horrible.
What exactly was Dr Watson's Rapid Assembler System? A freeware assembler?
It was a simple assembler, you typed in code line by line and that was it, it didn't even have a monitor or anything, it cost £15 but that was the only thing I knew about at the time. Still got that as well. They did a graphics program as well for doing sprites and char sets so Tony had that as well as a Koala Pad.
SIR told me he also used Koala Pad...I assume you know him? He was on the Compunet as well.
Oh yes, don't think we ever directly talked but he was a very cool artist, I think most artists had a Koala Pad as it was a lot easier than keys. In the end we had a converter from the Atari ST to C64 format so Tony abandoned the C64.
And did all the designed on ST?
In the end yes though only the last game or two, in between there was a rather good gfx program that was released on budget that we used, can't remember the name but it allowed you to set up sprite animations and a bunch of other cool stuff. Seem to remember it was written by a chap called Jason Gold though may be wrong there.
How much did you contribute to the tape/disk cover design of your games?
Never ever got a say. :)
hehehe did that ever piss you off?
No not really, as I said Risk was the only original title we got to do on the C64 after that it was either films or conversions so it didn't really bother us.
Can you describe your typical day on as a C64 game developer?
Well let me see. That would usually involve getting up somewhere around midday due to the previous late night, then it was pretty much turn on the computers and just sit there for 10 odd hours banging away at the keyboard, the only break was to have a quick game of whatever the latest game was at the time, it really was a very dull day. And it still is. :) Though we do really enjoy the job of creating games.
What was the biggest design challenge you had to face?
Well from the coding side it was always 2 things that dictated everything, fitting it all into memory and fitting it all into a single frame. Life got a little easier with disk drives come along re-fitting it all in, but if you made use of the disk drives then the tape stuff would suffer, I tried to make that better by doing a tape directory thing and then controlling the tape motor to allow the player to fast forward etc to the right bit of tape. But the real challenge was fitting the game into a frame, so doing all kinds of tricks with raster stuff to squeeze some time out, but that then led to the nightmare that was the NTSC conversion as that had just that little less time to play with.
I assume NTSC conversions rendered your raster tricks useless?
Almost, the biggest problem was the Euro C64's had 320 raster lines to play with, so you had a nice big chunk of the bottom of the screen, on the NTSC you only had 256.
Did you ever read the reviews of your games in the magazines?
Oh yes in those days sure did, can still remember a few of them, still got all the magazines around here somewhere, I think. Got a Sizzler for Risk which we were very proud of, met up with Mr.Rignall a few years back when he was working at Virgin…
I've heard Julian was a real hard-ass when it came to reviewing games and he always made sure they were too damn difficult! :)
Oh yeah he knew what he liked; gameplay was the key part for him. That was his job at Virgin to check gameplay on the games to make sure they were fun.
Which one of your games did the best in the market?
Super Street Racer did the best but that wasn't a C64 title, License to Kill did the best of the C64 games I believe.
Which one your games is your favourite?
Well the one we never got to finish which was a game called 'Bomb' which was a really nice Scramble game which had a ton of stuff going on and a really nice Akira style gfxs which was quite unlike anything Tony had done before. But we never got a chance to get more than 2 levels done for that before we moved on to SNES stuff. But for games we finished we still both think Risk is the nicest one (once you get the anti gravity...) Tough technically, SI91 was the best coding, it did run a little faster if I recall but it was always a tight squeeze.
Do you still have the code for 'Bomb'? Frank Gasking has a whole website dedicated to unfinished C64 games.
I was looking for it the other day actually when I was going through all the old disks and stuff, I haven't found it yet but it's there somewhere. Would really love to see that run again. I also have a another game here that never came out, the C64 version of Typhoon Thompson by Don Gorlin, it was sent to Domark to be finished off but the C64 market was dead as far as Domark was concerned so I was told not to bother. Got a bunch of C64 oddities laying around, some Thalamus master disks, and all kinds of game demos that were never released, a 3 1/2 inch drive and even one of those C65 that we were going to do a game on before they cancelled it.
I'm sure Frank will be interested in your unfinished games.
Interesting site that unfinished game site, I'll have to rummage through there later. :) Game of the Week 'Race Driving' :) Arr yes!
Hey wait a minute... did you know about Race Driving? It was a Domark game, wasn't it?
It was indeed, the guy who did the Amiga and ST versions was a clever chap, the C64 HD wasn't very impressive but a lot better than the NES version. :) Race Driving kinda fell by the wayside I seem to recall, Domark weren't interested in home games at that time as the SEGA and Nintendo consoles were coming out.
How does it feel to see people still like your creations so much after more than 15 years? :)
If they do then that's really cool, we had a great time making them, they weren't the best games ever but we tried to make them the best we could. It is great the C64 is alive.
What is your best memory of the C64 days?
Have to say Compunet, getting the little red letterbox to say you had mail was always a thrill in those days, and checking out all the really cool demos, art and music that was going on then was great fun.
And what is your worst memory of the C64 days?
Being ripped off by a certain publisher who was a real nasty piece of work. There were nice guys (like Domark who were a great company to work for) and there were people who just wanted to make money.
Is there anything about those days that you would change, had you the opportunity?
You know I don't think there is, we had a great time doing the C64 stuff, met some really nice people and had some really great times and I wouldn't want to have missed any of that. Maybe get a little more sleep during some of the deadlines as all-nighters never really pay off. :)
So what are you doing these days? Aside from roaming the Lemon64 site and quoting on your own games under different names, that is ;)
Well for our sins we never grew up and are still doing games though totally independent, had enough of the big business ways of publishers. So after forming the odd dev team and moving on we are now developing a racing simulation for the PC called Racing Legends, no holds barred sim.
And the names of some of your other games for PC?
Well we have just finished doing the content for a game called VirtualRC which is a neat RC sim. Before that we were doing a game called World Sports Cars before for one reason or another that got cancelled, before that we were running a dev house but didn't like that much so left. :) And before that we did a little SNES game called Super Street Racer for Ubisoft which really was something we enjoyed.
Still you and Tony work together, although he is in a different country now?
Yes always have worked together and still are, Tony spends most of his time here working, he just has the odd couple of weeks in Spain where his girlfriend lives.
Do you still play computer games? Any favourites?
Oh yes still do, favs well, Mafia is a game we really liked on the PC, along with Call of Duty. Loved Half Life and really am looking forward to the next one of those. Don't have any game consoles these days though, never really have a lot of time to play games it seems.
Any Chris/Tony West shrines on the web you can point us to?
Mmm well there are some places where they want to rip us to shreds but that's another story. I haven't really looked. :) I doubt it.
Really? Like where?
Well our own site is a good/bad starting point www.west-racing.com the forum is as most forums are, a place of constant intolerance, flaming and abuse, best avoided. :) We don't update the main game site at the moment as every time we do it leads to a constant torrent of abusive emails and forum posts among the racing sim sites.
It seems that game has gathered a lot of interests from the fans all around the world...
Yeah does seem to have, though as I said we had to stop updating the website as it just kicks of a new wave of hysteria, so we are laying very low and just getting on with the work.
Thanks for your time! Anything you'd like to say to the community?
Been fun, just keep the C64 alive as you guys already are, its a bit of history or computing and culture and its great to still see people get the same fun out of it as we did/do.
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