ANDY LAIRD
The Bikers creator tells us about his high-octane Next debut
What prompted you to develop Bikers?
I’ve always been fascinated by Sega’s super-scaler arcade games, but sadly most of the 8-bit ports left a lot to be desired. I thought the Next might be powerful enough to do justice to a classic racing game in the style of Hang-on, with big sprites and a high framerate. The game was also something of a personal challenge – I’ve been a software developer for 25 years but have never published a game. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
How do you rate the Spectrum Next as a game development platform?
It’s a great platform to write for. Everything is exceptionally well thoughtout and well-documented. The hardware support for sprite and tile layers almost gives the Next the ability to rival the Amiga and Mega Drive.
The only real drawback is that it’s ultimately still an 8-bit machine, so it’s important to always bear that in mind whilst developing for it and try to play to its strengths.
How supportive and receptive have you found the Next community?
They’ve been great. During development, I posted some Bikers teaser trailers to the official Next Facebook group and the response was fantastic – it really helped spur me on to get the game finished. The Next team itself has also been very supportive – always answering my queries and even promoting the game without me even having to ask.
What’s does Cavern have planned next?
I’m currently working on two new Next game projects.
The first is a Gothic action platformer which has some ambitious features that haven’t yet been seen in a Next game, and the second is a Japanese-inspired puzzle game. Both will hopefully be out in 2022 in both digital and physical formats. I’m also a huge fan of Space Harrier and it would be interesting to see what the Next could do with a game of that type. The Next is particularly strong at throwing lots of sprites around so I think it would be a good fit.
The hardware support for sprite and tile layers almost gives the Next the ability to rival the Amiga and Mega Drive ANDY LAIRD