neil harding

WE CHAT TO ONE OF THE DEVELOPERS BEHIND THE ATARI ST AND AMIGA PORTS OF DRAGON SPIRIT

Were you aware of the arcade game, and what did you think of it?

No, not before we began, but we got an arcade machine installed in the office, so I soon played it to completion. I had to use free credit mode and a lot of continues to reach the end. I wanted the conversions to be as difficult as the original, so I played it extensively, playing each level and making notes of the attack patterns the enemies would use, as well as the locations of the power-ups.

Where were you working from?

At the time I was working for

Consult Software, who were working closely with Domark. I had previously worked on Vindicators for Domark while at Consult, and I later worked for them directly as part of the Kremlin. David Howcroft did the graphics, and I was pleased with them, they matched pretty well.

Was the Amiga version a port of the Atari ST game?

Yes, it used mostly the same code, but took advantage of the smooth scrolling and the blitter, and used its hardware sprites to display the dragon that was part of the status panel. I think the only sacrifice I had to make was a dark cave-type level that used overlays in the arcade hardware. I couldn’t emulate that efficiently enough on the ST or Amiga. And the reduced width of the Atari version because, with no hardware scrolling, I could make it run faster by reducing the game area. There’s also no button for bomb, the joystick fire does both [functions] as I wanted it to be fully playable without having to use the keyboard.

It’s a tough game and contains eight varied levels – which was the hardest to play in order to replicate?

The hardest level to complete was the dungeon as you had to navigate the maze as well as fight the enemies. There are patterns you can learn to avoid the projectiles fired by the enemies, you could move to a corner so all the shots come to you, then move to a new location, and so on. I think I had a limit of 96 shots on-screen at one time, plus the enemies.

Were you happy with the end product, and do you think you nailed the difficulty?

I would have liked to have got that lighting effect working in the cave level, but overall I was fairly happy with the game. And it was certainly one of the hardest games to play that I’ve done, I remember reading a letter in a games magazine where this guy was so proud and happy to have managed to complete the first level. I thought, ‘He’s going to struggle on the remaining levels, then!’