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INTERVIEW WITH OLA ZANDELIN
Amigapd would like to thank Ola Zandelin for agreeing to answer some questions about his amiga games.
To download disk images for Ola's game visit his website. This interview was completed October 2013. |
Ola Zandelin
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You have programmed on a range of different computers (C64, Amiga, Gameboy and PC), which one did you enjoy working on the most and why?
Ola Zandelin: For programming I have to say the C64 because it was so accessible. You had instant access to the built in BASIC and could try things out by simply typing a command or poke the memory directly from the READY prompt. Almost everyone tried to make at least some kind of small program, or just share some "magic" line of code that for example changed the border color or showed the size of the program in memory etc. It was a great machine to learn how to program, and as you developed your skills a cartridge with a machinecode monitor made anything possible. For graphics, the Amiga and Deluxe Paint was without doubt the big breakthrough. I still do all my graphics in a program with a similar workflow as Deluxe Paint.
What inspired you to create Outpost and how did you come up with ideas behind the mini games?
OZ: The game started out as a concept that Robert Hennings put together. Robert was my classmate and he did most of the graphics for the game. Both me and Robert liked science fiction movies like Star Wars and Aliens. The mini games is heavily influenced by those movies which should be pretty obvious, like for example the light saber fighting. Robert was pretty much into animating and trying to make his own movies at the time, so he got himself a digitizer. Instead of drawing the spaceships in the battle scenes, he created plastic models that he rotated and photographed stop motion style. When it came to the light saber sprites, he recorded himself doing the moves with the help of a handcam, digitized them and then spent many hours removing the surroundings. This was particularly tricky since no bluescreen was used, but the surroundings was instead full of trees and bushes.
Outpost.
Clay Pigeon is based on the clay pigeon game in hyper sports, why was this your favourite event from that game?
OZ: I would say because of brilliant game design. It was simple, fast and tried your reflexes in a cool way. Both me and my brother (Daniel) were addicted to this particular event. Since the original Hyper Sports ran on the C64, we decided to recreate the Clay Pigeon event on the Amiga so that we could play it whenever we wanted.
Clay Pigeon
Fatal Mission is a game we are unfamiliar with but one which looks very interesting, can you tell us more about this game and whether it was released as shareware or as a commercial title?
OZ: Me and Robert Hennings wanted to create a cinematic style adventure in the lines of Another World, but with bitmap graphics instead of vector style one. Just like with Outpost we did go for a science fiction theme. I still think that the graphics Robert did is very inspiring but the game never got finished like many of my other early C64 and Amiga projects. It was a big and ambitious project, and we neither had the time or experience to get it together as planned. A game like this needs a lot of scripting and planning compared to a normal arcade style platform game.
Fatal Mission
What inspired you to make Marbles and how did it change from the original unreleased BB Ball?
OZ: Although I'm from Sweden I grew up reading a lot of British computer magazines like Commodore User and ZZap 64! In one of the magazines there was one of those solution guides to a game called Bombuzal by Anthony Crowther (Ratt). I was a fan of many of Anthonys previous games like Killer Watt, William Wobbler and Son of Blagger but I never heard of Bombuzal. Whitout being able to try the game I still got inspired by the idea of a gridbased puzzlegame, with bombs and other elements. I kept it in my mind for some time, and one day I decided to do try to put something together. The first version was called BB Ball. A few years later when I had improved my pixelskills I decided to reskin the game with better graphics, add a level editor and release the game to the public domain through the 17bit library. The new version was called Marbles.
I am a big fan of Elevator Action and was excited by your description of Skyscrappers being a more cartoony version of this game. Although the game never got finished is the demo version available for public release?
OZ: No, unfortunately not. The demo were running in my game creations system AFX and needs to be loaded through it, so there is no easy way to release it to the public. However, I thought about recreating the game when I get the opportunity, so there is still a chance for this game to be released someday.
Skyscrappers
In FD you filmed a friend in front of a blue screen to capture the animation, was your friend some sort of karate expert and did they really perform all those somersaults?
OZ: Jimmy is my very first childhood friend and he was into all kind of sports. He did those somersaults for real, although I might have finetuned them a bit when I edited the frames in Deluxe Paint :)
FD
How challenging was it to create a 3D game on the Amiga (Truxz) and was the Amiga architecture not suited for this genre of games?
OZ: It was quite a challenge, but at the same time that was part of the fun. By only using 8 colors we managed to do a single instruction per pixel just like on the PC that had chunky pixels. The Amiga architecture was a lot more suitable for 2D games and that became more and more obvious as the years went by. However, I still prefer 2D games and there will always be a place for them. Just look at the iOS and Android market today, where the most popular games are 2D.
Truxz
You worked with various individuals on your projects (Rodrigo Perez, Daniel Zandelin, Eric Christensen and Robert Hennings to name a few) how did these partnerships come about and are you still in contact with them?
OZ: I still create games together with both Rodrigo and Daniel. We have created no less than 36 games for iOS, Android and Win8. The games are published under the Donut Games brand, and have a lot in common with the games we grew up with on the C64 and Amiga. Daniel is my younger brother and Rodrigo is an old friend that I first met on a local Amiga Club called Amiga Eagles. When it comes to Robert, he have been working as a teacher in 3D graphics. Eric is an old classmate (just like Robert) but I have no clue where he is or what he do today.
Which of your Amiga games are available for free download and which are still shareware / commercial? Also do you still have the original disk versions / source code?
OZ: Marbles and Outpost are in the public domain / 17bit library. They could also be downloaded from my website.
For the other games / demos, I do think I have some of them in ADF format somewere.
For the other games / demos, I do think I have some of them in ADF format somewere.
One question which is often asked on Amiga forums is do you still have the 2 disk version of Outpost - Final Battle and if so is it available for public release.
Yes, I got the 2 disk version and wouldn't mind sharing it for free in the public domain.
| finalbattle_1.adf |
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What computer games are you working on currently?
OZ: I'm working on several new games for Donut Games, one of them being an interesting 2D arcade adventure / platform game. As always a lot inspiration comes from classic C64, Amiga and NES games, combined with some new unique gameplay elements. It's to early to reveal the name of the game, but we hope to have the game finished by the end of the year.
Thank you
AmigaPd would like to thank Ola Zandelin for taking the time to answer these questions.
AmigaPd Charityware
We hope you enjoyed reading the interview - remember AmigaPd is charityware - please visit our just giving page to support our chosen charity Mencap.
