Readers’ Questions

Northway: So streaming a pinball game is just fine, right? yes it is! Pinball Fantasies works brilliantly on Antstream.

Merman: What were the biggest challenges of working with the Game Boy hardware? the screen update. It was so poor compared to anything else we were working on at the time. you had to put a lot of consideration into creating games for it.

Matt_b: Regarding the C64 Mini, when will the firmware update arrive and what is the likely schedule for the full-size and handheld models? We’ve done several firmware updates but the big one everyone is waiting for, which allows you to play multiple games off a memory stick, is coming soon! Hopefully by the time your readers are reading this. We’re currently testing the full-size and handheld versions of the c64 and we do update the community every Friday, telling them about progress.

Merman: What would be your dream license to create a game around? I’d still like to create something in the Star Wars universe. I’ve come very close on occasions to getting something going and I still hope it might happen one day.

Fgasking: Have you worked on any unreleased games? Lots! I don’t think Populous on the Nes was ever released. It was absolutely complete, but never came out and it was brilliant – it was so good, we tried to use it as an argument for letting us do a c64 version of Populous but the c64 market was very limited by then. It had convinced us we could do it, though. In the mid-nineties we were doing a Nigel Mansell racing game for the c64 and again, it wasn’t considered financially viable, which was a shame as it was coming on really well.

Merman: Are you good at playing games yourself? Depends on the game and depends who you ask! steve cottam, the ceo of Anstream, and I have an ongoing competition on Street Fighter II every time we’re in Japan and so far I reign victorious. I play as ken. He’s like ryu but cool.