Amiga Flame continues on with the series of interviews with influential people in the Amiga Industry, allowing readers to understand who these players are and the difficulties they face along with their positive plans for the Amiga Games Market.
The last interview Amiga Flame carried out was with Andreas Magerl of APC&TCP who informed us that as far as they were concerned business was doing well with them also telling us to watch out for games that we "never heard even the name". This month Amiga Flame has choosen to interview one of the brights lights of Games Developers, Stuart Walker of Digital Images whose ambitious plans look set to come true in the coming months although they still face problems that need to be over come.
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1. Give us some background information about yourself and about the formation of Digital Images.
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I started using Amiga's in 1989 and I got an A1500 not long after that. I
loved Amiga's. I had played many games and I had also used many utilities. I
always wanted to make a computer game. A few years ago, I bought myself an
A1200 and I have now upgraded it alot. This was my opportunity to start
making games. I started using Reality, but it was far too limited for me. I
wanted to make my own games, not just edit somebody else's. I began to code
starting with Basic and I worked my way up. I then decided to make Space
Station and release it as a PD game. That got selected as PD game of the
month in Amiga Format, but that just wasn't big enough for me. I decided to
improve my programming skills and I started learning to render graphics. I
started on Space Station 3000 and that's when the formation of Digital
Images really began. I contacted Jochen Heizmann to do some music (of which
he has done a brilliant job). I am now talking with several publishers
regarding Space Station 3000. I have contacted many other people to start on
some new games which have never been seen on the Amiga ever.
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2. What is it like to go from making a PD game (the original Space Station) to now full blown commercial games? What are the differences and what type of problems does this change cause?
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With PD games, there are no pressures to get it finished. You can just do it
whenever you want, but when you're doing a commercial game, it requires your
thought and concentration 100% of the time. With commercial games, you have
to spend alot of time on presentation. Space Station 3000 has had a graphics
overhaul due to bad presentation, and now it looks alot better.
But it's definitely alot more exciting and rewarding creating a commercial
game.
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3. Digital Images are making a number of games which have all been covered on Amiga Flame, bring us up to speed with their development.
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A 3D engine has been written for the 3D beat 'em up. We had the choice not
long ago of not having many moves with the fighters, meaning the beat 'em up
would be ready in less than 6 months, but we quickly decided to spend a few
extra months to create an 'intelligent' graphics engine which should make
things very spectacular. This intelligent graphics engine will slow down on
the 680x0, but it will really show off the PPC.
Digital Soccer has been designed, but due to lack of coders, it is being
held off until the 3D engine for the beat 'em up has been written.
As for our Wipeout clone, Jetstream, we have a basic 3D engine ready, but we
are getting the 3D engine ready for the beat 'em up ready. We could start
Jetstream now, but we need more coders.
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4. The latest Digital Images game to be announced has been Jet Stream, a wipeout clone. Is this a sign that negotiations with Psygnosis for a Licence to convert Wipeout 2097 to the Amiga have not gone well, or is Jet Stream just another game you've had in the works?
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Wipeout 2097 is slightly out of our price range at the moment, but we are
hoping that the sales from Space Station 3000 as well as some of our 3D
titles should be able to fund conversions of several games such as Wipeout
2097, the Tomb Raider series as well as Resident Evil.
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5. In recent days Digital Images has formed its own club, urging Amiga Users from all over the world to join. What are the reasons behind this new move and do you believe that this could aid you in your search for new staff members to help in the production of your games?
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One reason for this is to help bring the Amiga users around the world
together and people can meet other people with similar interests. This is
the kind of thing that makes the Amiga special. It has a community which
aren't a bunch of sheep like PC owners.
Another reason for this, as you said is to find people with various skills
who we may offer positions to at Digital Images.
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6. You've been described on Amiga Flame as being probably one of the most ambitious Games Developers around, why do you think this has been so and what's next for Digital Images?
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I would think that because of the titles we have been promising. We want to
bring out titles that no other developers are even going to attempt to try.
We are spending alot of time to make sure that our titles are the best and
we want to make sure that the Amiga stands out against the PPC. We are
developing software for the PPC, the Blizzard Vision Graphics card etc. We
are hoping to have some titles ready for the super Amiga's for when they are
released. No other developers are going to try it, but if nobody does it,
then the super Amiga will fail due to lack of titles.
The kind of titles we are developing have been seen on consoles like the
Playstation, but the Amiga is being deprived of them. It certainly has the
power, so we can do it. We want to bring the Amiga into the 21st century and
bring back all those owners who left the Amiga in favour of PC's and
Playstations.
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7. Do you have any further comments to include for the Amiga Flame readers.
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Upgrade your hardware! You want a reason to buy PPC cards. We are giving you
that reason, so you have no excuse not to. When you upgrade to play our
games, other developers will follow in our steps and they will create PPC
software.
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A few days after this interview was conducted, Stuart Walker informed Amiga Flame that they have joined forces with Fullspeed Development in order to speed up development and increase the quality of Digital Fighter.
They are currently developing an 'intelligent' graphics engine that will enable the game to be as realistic as possible giving realistic character movement, reaction as well as brilliant graphics. The game will support Cyber Graphics, Cyber Vision, Blizzard Vision and Picasso graphics cards as well as AGA. PowerPC and 68K versions are in development.
From this interview readers can obviously see that they have ran into a major problem, which is the fact that they do not have the available coders to start development on games like Digital Soccer and Jet Stream which would be well received by Amiga Gamers. It is therefore important that people who have experience in coding, to come forward and give them a hand in making these games.
Readers can e-mail Stuart Walker of Digital Images at:-
stuart digital-images.demon.co.uk
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Visit their web site at :-
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amigaflame.demon.co.uk