I'm the Creative Director of Pandemic
Studios Australia and was a founder of Krome Studios, co-creating their TY
the Tasmanian Tiger franchise.
I love to create new IP and have co-created and own the Halloween Harry,
Jaruu Tenk and Amazon Queen properties, many of which I have released as
freeware titles.
About the Free Games
Each of these titles have been around for a while and
are no longer available commercially, but are still fun to play. Luckily I own the copyright
and distribution rights and for each one! So what better way
to let people experience these classics then to give them away for free?
Alien Carnage
Released by Apogee in 1993, Alien Carnage is the renamed version of Halloween
Harry - a remake of the second game I ever got published. It's a classic
side scrolling shoot 'em up in which you're pitted against a horde of alien
zombie invaders. It was a lot of fun to make and eventually spawned a
sequel, Zombie Wars.
Flight of the Amazon Queen
In 1995 we developed a point and click graphic adventure that told the story
of Joe King, pilot for hire, and his misadventures in the Amazon jungle. This
is a tongue in cheek Indiana Jones style adventure, and now, with the help of
ScummVM, it’s free!
You’ll need to get ScummVM first, so go here to get ScummVM and
follow their instructions on how to install it.
Alternatively, Clem has created an installer that makes the whole process
very easy. It automatically installs ScummVM and the game and allows you to
easily unistall the whole lot when you’re finished!
Chronicles of Jaruu Tenk
In 1999, I developed a type of software that we coined “Screen Opera”. The
first one we developed was “The Chronicles of Jaruu Tenk” and was my attempt
at creating a living, persistent world similar to the one I experienced when
I first played David Crane’s Little
Computer People on the Commodore 64.
In Chronicles, you got to explore the world of a little alien called Jaruu
Tenk. He was an Observer on the small island of Bloofen Jut. The software was
time based and each time you visited Jaruu more things would appear in his
world. He even updated his journal everyday and got the newspaper delivered
daily. You could also talk to him by typing on the keyboard. Chronicles could
be set up as a screen saver and when it kicked in you would return to Jaruu’s
world reflecting the time of your visit – morning, day or night. His friends
would also pop by for a visit and he’d engage them in conversation. Leading
up to Christmas he’d even set up a Christmas tree.
The game was developed purely for fun. We had no pretensions in making a lot
of money out the title. It was something that I really wanted to see made –
and at that stage no one had attempted it since Little Computer People. It
took over a year to put together, work being done at night and on weekends in
between developing the Mike Stewart’s Probodyboarding game. Making Chronicles
was a pure labor of love.
With the success of The Sims on PC, and Animal Crossing on Gamecube, I
figured it would be cool to let people experience this very early attempt at
this style of entertainment – for FREE.
Halloween Spirit Board This was inspired by the classic program
Eliza with a dash of Halloween thrown in for good measure. I had lots of fun
writing the responses to possible questions. I also included a simple text file
system that anyone can edit and totally change the program’s personality.
Download it to have a go.
The
Casual Games SIG is dedicated to serving game developers worldwide by offering
an independent and balanced resource for those interested in this emerging
market force. (Description taken from their site).
I'll be talking about how Pandemic Studios adapted Destroy
All Humans! for the Japanese market - a talk co-written with Gary Ireland,
localization producer for the game. Check out the official
site here.
Game On! - 3rd April 2007
I'll be talking about the "cost of entry" myth
and how independent game developers are thriving in this next generation
environment thanks to electronic digital distribution. Check out the details here.
Tokyo Game Show - 16th September 2005
Matt Ditton
presented a talk titled Australian Games Industry in Focus at the Tokyo Games Show. Prepared by Matt
Ditton and myself, Matt got to hobnob with Japanese publishers and even made
the CEO of Capcom laugh!
Fantastic Queensland’s Writing For Games - 28th
September 2005
Presented a workshop on writing for games as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival
2005 with Darren Baker and Gordon Moyes.
Gameography
1984
Chilly Willy
Developed for the Microbee System, Chilly Willy was
a copy of the Sega arcade game Pengo and my first published game.
Published by Honeysoft.
1985
Halloween Harry
Also for the Microbee System, this was a simple
platform game that spanned 13 screens. The theme was Halloween based with
witches and ghouls to fight and enchanted items to collect.
Published by Honeysoft.
1993
Halloween Harry
Developed on the PC with Robert Crane (lead
programmer) and Tony Ball (graphics programmer) this game bears little
resemblance to the original Microbee Halloween Harry. I did game and
level design on this version.
1994
Flight of the Amazon Queen
Developed while we were working on Halloween
Harry. This is a graphic adventure that rivaled the LucasArts games but
with a ridiculously small development team.
1996
Zombie Wars
The Windows sequel to Halloween Harry.
1999
Mike Stewart’s Pro Bodyboarding
Programmed the interface screen, did game design
and edited some levels.
2000
Magic Spirit Board
This was an interactive screen saver that we
called Screen Opera. I programmed and designed it.
2000
The Chronicles of Jaruu Tenk
Another screen opera. Same duties as above.
2000
Championship Surfer
First title released under a new development
house that I co-founded, called Krome Studios.
2001
Barbie Beach Vacation
Same here.
2001
Extremely Goofy Skateboarding
And here.
2001
Sunny Garcia Surfing
And here!
2001
Boom Time
First game for the Palm OS platform.
2002
Barbies Sparkling Ice Show
Developed by Krome, although I had little to do
with this, it’s a cool game for girls!
2002
TY the Tasmanian Tiger
For Playstation2, Gamecube and Xbox. Co-created
and designed the game.
2003
Jimmy Neutron: Jet Fusion
For PS2, GC and Xbox!
2004
King Arthur
Based on the Bruckheimer film of the same name,
King Arthur is a beat ‘em up.
2004
TY the Tasmanian Tiger 2 : Bush Rescue
Another TY adventure on the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube
and for the first time, the GBA. Released at a competitive price.
2005
TY 3 : Night of the Quinkan
I did game design, story and scripting.
2005
Word Shake!
An addictive word game available from Casual Games
Arcade. I did the design, programming and sound effects for the
title. Pete Mullins did the stylish art.
2006
Destroy All Humans! 2
An incredibly funny sequel to the hugely
successful Destroy All Humans! created by Pandemic Studios and published
by THQ. Check it out here.
2007
Brainiversity
My
second casual game which you can download from the official
Brainiversity website. This one was a lot of fun to make as I got to
get my hands dirty with code, art and sound effects!.
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