THE MAKING OF SAS COMBAT SIMULATOR
Optimus Software’s Jason Falcus talks us through his murder sim
Although the very first Codemasters simulator was created by cofounders Richard and David Darling, numerous other developers worked on subsequent titles. They included Optimus Software which was set up by Darren and Jason Falcus in 1988. “We met David at Codemasters that summer and agreed a deal to make some games for them,” recalls Jason. “We went away and brainstormed some ideas, and SAS Combat Simulator was the first idea we came up with. We loved games like Commandos, Ikari Warriors and the Rambo game at the time, and loved the idea of making a similar top-down arcade shooter with a military theme.” With the go-ahead given, Jason began to code the game and develop the art while his brother helped with the design. They’d decided early on to lend a twist to the games that inspired them by allowing the game to scroll both vertically and horizontally at different sections of the levels. “We also chose to add a side-scrolling combat section inspired by games like Green Beret every other level,” Jason adds. To produce the game, Codemasters gave Optimus a crossplatform development kit made by a UK company called PDS, which consisted of a PC connected to the Amstrad CPC and Spectrum. “This allowed us to very quickly compile the game for both platforms and it was a huge advance compared to the development software we had previously used.” Yet developing simultaneously was still a challenge because each machine had different display hardware and limitations. “I had to create a linear ‘buffer’ on which the game was projected, and then copy this buffer to the Amstrad and Spectrum displays in different ways,” says Jason.
“I also had to allow for two different sets of graphics – the Spectrum only allowed two colours in any 8x8 pixel character square, whereas the Amstrad allowed individual pixels to be different colours.
This was particularly challenging when designing a scrolling game on the Spectrum.” Added to that was the realisation that Jason’s art skills weren’t up to the standard needed. “We placed an ad in the local computer shop and were soon approached by a local guy called Adrian Ludley who was an experienced games artist looking to move back to the North East. He joined the team and went on to do all of the art for the game.” Once the game was complete, however, it was ported to the Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST. “It allowed us to start employing staff and build our first development studio,” Jason continues. Today, Jason has fond memories of the simulator games, especially because it didn’t really affect the way the developers approached their titles. “It was really a tag and it was a great decision because I’m sure it helped contribute to the game going to number one in the UK charts the week it was released,” he says.