Games That Weren't 64

Gwyll Jones speaks about work on Up Up and Away...

"Talk about a blast from the past!!

Really enjoyed your web site - however, a couple of minor alterations for the web page on which you review 'Up, up and away'.

'Up, up and away' was initially created for the Atari 400 game (touch pad keyboard etc ...) and was ported to the C64 back in 1983/84. It took 2 months as the C64 was a new machine for me and I was used to the Atari.

1) The program was always owned by (and copyrighted to) Starcade Software - Argus press never owned it and were only actually our agents at the time - nothing more.

2) The program was ported (in a cold bedroom - no central heating back then, working up to 4.00am and then going to work at 8.00am) from the Atari version by myself.

3) Rob Hubbard (I think that was the name of the person we sub-contracted to) only coded the Music - he had no copyright to the music code either as he was paid up front. (In fact there was no original music in the game. At the time all music-bites' had to be restricted to less that 10 -15 secs duration to avoid copyright claims from the composers.)

4) The game was originally released under the Pulsar label, we then ran into trouble as this name (together with Quasar) was owned by a major watch maufacturer of the time who threatened to sue us (even though we had paid good money for a professional company search which had indicated the name was available). Finally, we released under 'Starcade' which was the final label we used. So, this game was officially (and continued to be) released under the Starcade label up until '85.

UUaA was really only a learning experience that turned into a game. If one is objective, you have to admit that it was limited even for the time. The real regret was that I never completed some of the other projects that I was working on.

Quite interesting though to trace the evolution of game writing from a single coder in the early 80's to the teams of coders who specialise in music, graphics and gaming logic that we have now.

Also, I found it interesting that this prog was included in a Grandslam compilation - never knew that. :-)"

Gwyll Jones.