A TRIBUTE TO ROSS GOODLEY AND ANTHONY TAGLIONE I’ve enjoyed Ross’ company for many years and will miss him dearly ANTONY CROWTHER
Paying respects to two classic gaming developers
Retro-gaming fans were dealt a double blow in December 2023, when two well-respected UK game developers passed away. Anthony Taglione and Ross Goodley both crafted their love and skill for games in the early Eighties and went on to write some classic 8-bit and 16-bit titles.
Anthony Taglione was known as Tag to his close friends and work colleagues and is probably best remembered for the 16-bit RPGS Bloodwych and Legend, and later for kick-starting the Total War series on the PC for Creative Assembly. However, his catalogue of titles can be traced back to the very early Eighties and includes some memorable early games and conversions of well-known 8-bit games for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 for Incentive and Beyond Software. He was extremely talented and went into every project with gusto, often with a dry sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye. He was also quite happy to have a good argument if the need arose.
Anthony’s brother Philip was also a very astute games developer, writing several games including the ZX Spectrum conversion of Moon Cresta and Z80 versions of Bloodwych for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, before working on Playstation titles and mobile games. He passed away in the summer of 2019. A full tribute to Anthony will be included alongside his final interview, as part of The Making of Alpha Storm article appearing in the next issue.
Ross Goodley’s first professional games were all written for the
BBC Micro and were published by Sheffield-based Alligata Software in the early Eighties. After he wrote a conversion of Antony Crowther’s Commodore 64 game Blagger, he created Dambusters, Web Runner, and Neanderthal
Man in quick succession. A handful of budget arcade games for another Sheffield-based publisher called Budgie followed soon afterwards, concentrating on games for the new Z80-based MSX and Amstrad CPC platforms.
Ross continued his working association with Antony on various games after their stints with Alligata and Budgie in Sheffield were over, including the fiendish puzzler Bombuzal for Mirrorsoft, collaborating with industry stalwart David Bishop. Antony wrote the Commodore version, and Ross handled the ST and Amiga versions. Ross went solo as The Wyvern for his next
project, creating the 3D arcade and space strategy title Gravity, also published by Mirrorsoft under the Image Works label in 1990.
His love of classic science fiction and his fascination with physics and science came to the fore in that game, and with his intended sequel. The follow-up was called
Drop Soldier, developed for the ST and Amiga. Unfortunately, it was destined to remain unfinished after Mirrorsoft fell into administration at the end of 1991.
Despite the setback of losing his publisher, Ross was soon back in the development saddle, working with Antony Crowther once again as The Byte Engineers on Antony’s
Captive 2: Liberation sequel for the Amiga and CD32, a game that still stands out to this day as one of the best titles available for Commodore’s short-lived Cd-based console.
With solo development projects becoming increasingly difficult in a rapidly changing industry, Ross felt obliged to move into team development in the mid-nineties for a handful of companies including Team17, Blade Interactive, and Gamesauce, working on titles for the Saturn, Game Boy Advance, Playstation 2, and PSP. He had a six-year stint working outside of games, developing firmware and other embedded software for various hardware projects before returning to the fold when joining Sumo Digital in 2014, where he remained for the rest of his career.
“It was a shock to hear that Ross passed just before Christmas,” says Antony. “I’ve worked with him for many years, most recently on a project together at Sumo. Long before Captive 2 on the Amiga, we worked together at Alligata back in the Eighties, where Ross tolerated me playing Pink Floyd’s The Wall over and over again in the office. That’s when I used to have nights out to enjoy watching him act in a play. Ross converted many of my games from the Commodore 64 to the Amstrad, while I was still working on the Commodore version. I’ve enjoyed Ross’ company for many years and will miss him dearly.”
For gamers, Ross leaves behind an impressive legacy of titles to enjoy on classic hardware. He started out when the industry was brand-new, and quickly established himself as a programmer and designer of some considerable talent. There aren’t too many people who can lay claim to such a diverse range of titles on their CV, from TV cartoon licence Challenge Of The Gobots, hardcore 3D sci-fi space opera strategy game Gravity, 3D RPG Liberation: Captive 2, through G-surfers to the official
Little Britain videogame, with some
FIFA ’97 and a couple of game industry BAFTA winning titles thrown in for good measure. Our thoughts go out to the friends and family of both men.