Converting ‘SKY SHARK’

Martin Howarth coded the alternative US version for the C64

There was already a C64 version of Flying Shark by Catalyst Coders. Do you know why Taito commissioned Software Creations to produce a completely new version of the game?

To be honest, I didn’t know at the time. The version we worked on was called Sky Shark and it was for the US market, whereas Flying Shark was for the UK. I saw screens of the other version some time later and just assumed somebody had hacked our version and changed it visually. I remember it not using the right side of the screen as I believe this was used for the score.

Did you have access to any useful resources that helped you while working on the conversion?

We did have the arcade version inhouse. Software Creations founder Richard Kaye had a special suitcase made to house the arcade PCB with various outputs to allow it to connect to different screen types.

Were you a fan of the arcade version at all?

From what I remember, it was pretty good. Back then it was all fun and games anyway. Most of us didn’t really see it as work.

How long did the conversion take, and what would you say was the most challenging aspect from a coding point of view?

Most games were written pretty quickly, somewhere between two and three months. Code wasn’t written with the same review processes like it is today. The things I was trying to improve at the time were allowing more than eight hardware sprites on the screen at once (sprite multiplexing) and also allowing for masking of background graphics in the hardware sprites to allow things to appear in front and behind the same sprite.

Were you pleased with how your conversion turned out?

I did enjoy writing Sky Shark so hopefully this is reflected in the playability in the game.