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Amiga PD CharitywareAmiga PD is a charityware site - if you download any disk images you are encouraged to donate to our chosen charity - Mencap - at our justgiving page.
Suggested donations are £1 per disk image download as this was the cost of obtaining a disk back in the 1990s. Thank you. |
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Interview - Paul HucksteppPaul Huckstepp has kindly given his time to answer some questions on his Amiga games. Hope you enjoy the interview.
You recently joined the EAB forum in April this year, what prompt you to get back into the Amiga scene?EAB contacted me hoping to find the full version of one of my games, Ultimate Domination; which is now available from my website : http://www.arsoftware.co.uk/about
How did you originally become involved in writing games for the Amiga and where did you get inspiration from for your games?I started writing small games for the ZX Spectrum when I was 7 and haven't stopped since, when the Amiga came along is was an amazing advancement, so many colours Back in the Amiga days I would say that my inspiration came from the strategy games available then such as Utopia and K240, but also the addictive quality of smaller puzzle games, the ones you just can't put down.
Which game are you most proud of and why?There were two games that I was most proud of. Climbing Up involved writing my first AI routines to work out the best moves available to hinder the player. Ultimate Domination, my last Amiga game, was the largest game I ever wrote and involved massive amounts of routines to update everything that was going on in the game, from population, food and mining, all the way to orbital paths of the planets and the movement of the alien threat.
Were there any unfinished games you were involved with on the AmigaNo, all the games I started were completed and released.
Did winning the Amiga Format write a game in AMOS competition open many doors for you?To be honest, not really. I was already writing a small article regularly for a disc based magazine about Amos, and at this point the Amiga was beginning to loose it's battle against the PC. I was also finishing off my college education and getting ready to start work, so my time had become a lot more limited.
Looking back at your games now, would there be anything you wish you had added or done differently?The graphics. Looking back now I feel that the graphics should have had more work. Its probably the hardest part of writing games, they take the most time to create but it's the part that everybody see's.
What were the advantages and drawbacks of using AMOS to create games?AMOS was just fantastic, the language was so easy to pick up and write with. I can't really think of any downsides to AMOS, the only thing I can think of, which isn't really a reflection on AMOS itself was the amount of extensions that became available for it that didn't really work all that well.
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Falling Down - Paul Huckstepp Falling Down Screenshot taken from Hall of Light website
Ultimate Domination - Paul Huckstepp  Screenshots for Ultimate Domination are taken from the EAB forum.
Climbing Up - Paul Huckstepp Screenshots for Climbing up are taken from the EAB forum.
Downloads
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Are you tempted to write another Amiga game or update your amiga games to modern platforms such as mobile phones?
Funny you should mention that. I do have plans to redevelop Falling Down and Climbing Up for the Android platform at some point this year (hopefully). The people behind Dark Basic are currently developing a mobile app development language and I'm very interested in seeing what that can do. The language is also very similar to AMOS.
Are you still involved in the computer industry and if so, what are you currently working on
After college I joined a multimedia company developing CD ROM interactive presentations for corporate businesses. Today I'm working purely as a web developer creating websites and web applications for various clients across the UK. Occasionally I get a little 3D work, and there has been a bit of interest for mobile apps and games (which may well help me with my own personal projects). In my spare time I still do a lot of personal development work, mostly applications these days but I'm hoping to get back into game development soon.
